|
|
07 Jul 2008
The Liberal Democrats have called for legal protection for the term 'accountant' to protect customers from unqualified and incompetent financial advisers.
The Treasury spokesman Vincent Cable has put down a commons motion on the issue backed by four party colleagues.
It reads: 'We note that the term `accountant' is not defined or protected by law and that thousands of small businesses and individuals, believing they have engaged qualified accountants, are at risk from harmful and costly business advice from unqualified, unregulated, possibly uninsured advisers.
'We observe that although some unqualified accountants may do good work, an unqualified accountant is not answerable to any regulatory body and so cannot be disciplined.
'We further note that legal protection of title is viewed as essential in professions where there is a substantial degree of public interest, for example for doctors, barristers, solicitors and auditors.
'We feel that greater accountability needs to be introduced and urge the Government to consider introducing legal protection for the term "accountant".'
The Early Day Motion appears on the House of Commons order paper sent to all MPs, Ministers and senior civil servants in a bid to prompt government action.
The moves by the Lib Dems to take on the campaigns by the institutes to formally recognize the term will be a major boost.
Though the ICAEW and the ACCA are both very keen on the idea, the Financial Reporting Council, the senior watchdog of the profession, is concerned the move will be impossible to police and expensive as well.
Further Reading:
You may also like
Search thousands of financial jobs:
Search thousands of financial jobs:
Careers
Search for jobs
Click to search our database of all the latest accountancy roles
Create a profile
Click to set up your profile and let the best recruiters find you
Jobs by email
Sign up to receive regular updates with the latest roles suitable for you
Briefings
By looking at the reasons supplier statements became unfashionable, and the reasons why it is different today, this paper delves into the many benefits that can be obtained by automating the process.
Having a real and true view of your organisation’s current financial position, and having the right systems and processes in place, will ensure that you can make strong choices and are ready to capitalise on opportunities
AccountancyAgeInsight is a frequently updated resource centre for finance professionals, offering a free and easy-to-use digital library of briefings, white papers and other information resources. 
Visitor comments Add your comment
ACCA Hypocrisy
Legal protection for the term 'accountant' will in no way guarantee that the services of an 'accountant' will be competent as most of my clients have reverted to me from fully qualified accountants who have failed to provide them with a professional service, often because they have not kept up with their continuing professional development and the plethora of new tax legislation under this government's chancellorship.
My opposition to the ACCA campaign and to the petition of Andrew Shooter FCCA follows an increasing number of cases which my practice has experienced where people have been given poor advice by fully qualified accountants despite their professional training and qualifications. Too frequently, members of the public and small businesses have engaged qualified accountants only to find out, to their loss, that the individuals are not actually competent to act on their behalf.
I personally have 35 years' employment experience as a professional accountant plus 7 years' experience in practice with my own company. I regard this campaign as an infringement of the human rights of experienced and honourable accountants and as a dastardly plot to deprive us of our livelihood, acquire our business/clients without compensation and obtain a service monopoly which must ultimately be detrimental to consumer choice and potentially result in increasingly exorbitant accountancy and taxation fees.
Unqualified accountancy service providers are anyway required to formally register with HM Revenue & Customs under the Money Laundering Act. Further legislation in this area will merely add to the UK unemployment statistics and be a further burden on the already overstretched welfare state in respect of the over 50s who otherwise wish to continue to work in their chosen field of experience.
Posted by: Tony Bell, 10 Jul 2008 | 00:00
legalising the accountant
Incompetent and unqualified accountants can be suitably trained and work toward suitable qualification that would enable them to work on small businesses rather than expected to be professionally qualified. A professional qualification might not necessarily help them perform simple tasks.This avoids the need to legalise the term accountant.
Posted by: pavalam, 10 Jul 2008 | 00:00
Accountancy Age nepotism
Why are you so afraid to post my earlier comment opposing the hypocrisy and arrogance of the ACCA in seeking legislation to define the term of 'accountant' when all members of accountancy professional bodies can anyway describe themselves as 'qualified accountants' unlike experienced accountants without paper qualifications!
I have written to my MP in protest at this infringement of my human rights and attempt to deprive me of my livelihood - how would you like it if somebody tried to do this to you?
Posted by: Tony Bell, 11 Jul 2008 | 00:00
Policing
If the term "accountant" is considered impossible to police, how is this working for Money Laundering purposes, when all "accountants", both qualified and unqualified are supposedly subject to the same monitoring regime?
Posted by: Irene Brereton, 11 Jul 2008 | 00:00
'accountant' term protected
it is absolutely correct that the term "Accountant" needs to be protected.
As a practitioner we receive clients who are badly advised and poorly managed with the livelyhood of businesses on the line.
Also these non-regulated, non-qualified so called "accountant" do not have sufficient protection sugn as prof indemnity insurance etc, they compete with regulated prictices only fees ground. this is an unfair advantage and unethical practice.
Posted by: kamlesh rajput, 11 Jul 2008 | 00:00
Accountant
I fully endorse the move.
Posted by: Khalid Rana, 11 Jul 2008 | 00:00
good motion
the so called accountant who has clients coming from qualified accountants, could be a sign of not sticking to regulations which qualified accountants adhere to and hence bogus business people are bound to like your creative accounting, which just another cardbury disaster waiting to happen
Posted by: accountant, 12 Jul 2008 | 00:00
Further hypocrisy
The so called "accountant" who is surprisingly anonymously in support of this "good motion" only has to refer to the disciplinary and regulatory summary reports in the ICAEW's monthly publication "Accountancy" to witness "creative accounting" and "not sticking to regulations" in respect of qualified accountants - quite apart from past reports in the national press in respect of deficiences of professional auditors, embezzlements by qualified accountants and the Arthur Anderson debacle.
Posted by: Tony Bell, 22 Jul 2008 | 00:00
ACCA
I guess there is no substitute for a formal qualification. Knowledge of accountancy practices in a firm under someones supervision does not give you the insight into the very basic fundamental principals of accountancy.My senior manager was a non qualified accountant and i am a fully qualified ACCA.I urged him to do AAT and after he started that, his comments were that he had made such a considerable improvement over the concepts of accounting he never knew about.Although he being much experienced and better advisor than me to general public, lack of principals made him give totally wrong advice in accounts preparation to us in complex situations. Many times i had to reconfirm it with my director who was a qualified ICAEW accountant and he always used to advise us the treatment i had in my mind.
Posted by: Suleman Ullah Khan, 24 Jul 2008 | 00:00
Qualification is not important, apparently.
Protecting the qualification is good, but as as an ACCA finalist who see candidates without any professional qualification,not even part qualifieds, given preference because of their experience makes me feel that employers dont really care about how determined and committed you are to have got the qualification, all they are concerned about is the experience you have . I think to protect the term will be difficult because of that, because a lot of people in accounting roles have no professional qualification. So what do you call those people? I'll call them accountants.
Posted by: Dare, 30 Aug 2008 | 00:00