Scottish accountants push for 'death' work

The Scottish Institute has come to blows with the Scottish Executive over the
continued barring of accountants from providing legal services for winding up
deceased estates.

ICAS launched its assault as its English counterparts at the ICAEW look set
to obtain new rights to provide such services.

Scottish accountants are barred from providing legal service in this area due
to legislation in the 1980 Solicitors Act which only allows for lawyers to
perform such a task.

While the law has been amended, accountants and other potential providers of
this service are still barred.

According to The Herald, the ICAEW is overseeing statutory
instruments introduced early last year and assessing the procedures for
obtaining authorization, but no similar moves are afoot in Scotland.

Tom McMorrow, ICAS’s director of regulation and professional conduct, said
the institute would now have to write to the justice minister asking why there
should be ‘this manifest imbalance’.

‘It doesn’t look good if they have had it for a year down in England, and
Scotland isn’t doing anything about it. A view some might take is that we have
been excluded,’ McMorrow said.