Institutes positive in defeat

Despite lacking the votes needed to merge with CIPFA, ICAEW chief executive Eric Anstee has claimed a ‘mandate’ to work with the public sector institute and other bodies towards the rationalisation of the UK accountancy profession.

As the dust settled on Tuesday’s narrow defeat by 540 votes, the ICAEW, CIPFA and CIMA pledged talks on closer collaboration. ACCA has also said that it wants stronger links with CIPFA.

‘We have a sufficient mandate to continue to discuss consolidation. I don’t think six institutes is the way forward,’ Anstee told Accountancy Age when the vote was announced.

He said the institute would ‘love to have a public services faculty’ and talks on CIPFA collaboration would continue. ‘We must get as much through as possible without integration.’

CIMA has kept the door open for a merger with the ICAEW. CIMA president Ian Christison said the institute would continue with its own strategy until it heard a response from the ICAEW over earlier points that had stalled its part in the merger plans.

ACCA chief executive Allen Blewitt called for greater co-operation between his institute and CIPFA. ‘We will happily talk to CIPFA about how we can help them to deliver a top-quality service that public sector finance professionals need in the 21st century,’ he said.

But a spokesman for the body denied it was planning to court CIPFA over a possible merger.

On a dramatic day at both Guildhall and Chartered Accountants’ Hall, where the institutes’ votes were revealed simultaneously, the ICAEW fell agonisingly short of the two-thirds majority required to push the merger through ­ 65.7% were in favour of the merger while 34.3% were against.

Despite the result, the ICAEW hailed the voting turnout as ‘historic’, after 56,326 members participated ­ a record 44% turnout.

Of the 5,636 CIPFA members who voted, 86.7% were in favour of the merger.
Bruce Lawson, who campaigned against the merger, repeated his call for Anstee to step down. ‘We want to make sure a merger vote never happens again. We have the CCAB to represent the profession,’ he said.

Recriminations between the ICAEW and ICAS, which have staged a running battle over the proposed name of any merged institute, began within hours of the vote.
Anstee slammed ICAS for ‘exposing’ the issue that would have seen the ‘super institute’ called the Institute of Chartered Accountants. ‘I think it was done in a way that was unpleasant to the profession,’ he said.

The issue of the suggested name ‘arose prematurely...it was an issue for the privy council’, agreed CIPFA chief executive Steve Freer.

Des Hudson, ICAS chief executive, said ICAS would be ‘seeking to clarify’ that the super-institute name would ‘no longer be an issue and will not be pursued further’.

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