Centennial
We celebrate our centennial year in 2008. There will be a number of events throughout the year, and we will be looking to the next 100 years in a major international conference, to be held in Auckland, New Zealand in August.
Admissions review
We’ve begun a review of policies for admission to the College of Chartered Accountants. The catalysts for this review were:
- -the need to maintain our reciprocity with other members of the Chartered Accountants Group of Executives (CAGE). CAGE regularly performs quality control reviews over its member bodies.
- the need to remain competitive
- responses to the recent review of the Professional Competence Programme
- the expressed desire to cater for specialisations
- the age of the current model, which was introduced in 1996.
Regulation of auditors
The Institute is working with government officials on the design of these regulations. We seek:
- first principles analysis by officials
- light-handed government oversight.
Review of Financial Reporting Framework
As announced in September last year, the Ministry of Economic Development is to begin a review of the Financial Reporting Framework in the middle of this year. We have been in informal discussions with the Ministry to find out what might be involved. Indications are that the review will be comprehensive, looking at the whole framework and not just as small entities, companies or charities. Where possible, the Ministry is looking for Trans-Tasman harmonisation.
Recruitment
The global accounting shortage continues to affect us. More than 6000 of our nearly 30,000 members are overseas, and many approved training organisations report that their trainees leave for overseas experience within six months of achieving their qualification. On the other hand, enrolments for professional competence exams with Advanced Business Education Limited (which administers our professional competence programme) are at a record high for the third year running.
