Institutes - LSCA lobbying power boosted by database, reports Lawrie Holmes.

The London Society of Chartered Accountants is gearing itself up to boost its lobbying of its parent body, the English ICA, on behalf of members.

At last week’s LSCA agm, outgoing chairman Nick Hamilton said the society had established a sophisticated database of 41,000 members through which it could tap into members’ interests in specific areas. He said in future it will develop into a powerful means of lobbying the institute.

Newly appointed chairman Andrew Herbert later said the database would help the society to lobby the institute on areas such as regulatory and disciplinary issues, including the Beloff review. ‘Now we can contact a hundred of our people in regulatory positions for their immediate response,’ he said. Members will also be called upon to react quickly on education and training issues.

Herbert added that previous attempts by the institute to consult members on issues met with a blank response due to a failure to identify interested parties. ‘The institute could say we were only a small committee speaking and we were on the wrong track. Now we can gather cogent ideas on what is being proposed,’ he said.