A new recruitment drive by the ICAEW is targeting rival institutes, using CPD to attract members.

Known as Pathways, the scheme is aimed at ACCA, CIMA and CIPFA members with at least five years' experience to pass an examination based around a case study.

The institute claimed that experienced members of other bodies were looking to take advantage of its 'rigorous programme of CPD', an area where it controversially split off from collaboration with other CCAB members.

'The exam is just as rigorous as other routes from those institutes into the ICAEW, if not more so,' claimed Dr Raymond Madden, ICAEW executive director of learning and professional development.

Madden said the process was different from that of undertaking extra exams to fill knowledge gaps that arose from being a member of another institute, and was more suited to experienced accountants: 'It tests competencies in an applied way, not sitting in an exam hall and assessed.'

Madden said that no numerical target had been set to gauge the success of the recruitment scheme, but it was 'about getting the best [accountants] into the institute'.

He revealed that CPD would be more oriented towards putting the 'onus onto the learner', with the institute helping members reflect on their development and then act. UK corporate giants Shell and Barclays had expressed interest in the institute's CPD methodology, Madden added.

Two ICAEW members would have to sponsor the applicant, who must have a clean disciplinary record.