FRC figures show CIMA has fastest growth

The FRC have just published their Key Facts and Trends in the Accountancy Profession – June 2015

The Financial Reporting Council is the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting high quality corporate governance and reporting to foster investment. We promote high standards of corporate governance through the UK Corporate Governance Code. We set standards for corporate reporting, audit and actuarial practice and monitor and enforce accounting and auditing standards. We also oversee the regulatory activities of the actuarial profession and the professional accountancy bodies and operate independent disciplinary arrangements for public interest cases involving accountants and actuaries.

You can download the full report here FRC Key Facts

It compared ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, ICAEW, CAI, ICAS, AIA and found CIMA grow its members by 16.9% between 2010 and 2014, well above the average of 10.3% and beating the growth rate of all the others.

23% (77,551 out of 335,552) UK accountants are CIMA members.

CIMA also had the biggest growth in Worldwide Students 28.8% between 2010 and 2014.

The sectorial employment data in figure 5 showed that 75,429 (97%) work in Industry & Commerce which is 28% of accountants in Industry & Commerce.

Great statistics!

steve@bicknells.net

New reporting regime for Micro Companies – is it a crazy idea?

On the 21st February 2012, the European Union defined a new category of company, the ‘micro-entity’. Micro-entities are very small limited liability companies and qualifying partnerships.

Micro companies are those not exceeding two out of three of:

Balance sheet total: £289,415 (€350,000)
Net turnover: £578,830 (€700,000)
Average number of employees during the financial year: 10 (or fewer)

Subject to certain conditions, the Micros Directive permits Member States to relieve micro-entities, from the obligations to:

present “prepayments and accrued income” and “accruals and deferred income”
recognise certain types of “prepayments and accrued income” and “accruals and deferred income”
draw up notes to the accounts
prepare an annual report
publish annual accounts provided the financial data information contained in balance sheet items is filed with a designated competent authority.

The UK Government (Department for Business Innovation and Skills) issued a consultation document ‘Simpler financial reporting for micro-entities: the UK’s proposal to implement the ‘Micros Directive” the consultation period closed on 22nd March 2013.

The Government is seeking to make changes to the Companies Act 2006, and to the accounting regulations made under that Act and under EU law to implement the EU Directive 2012/6/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (“the Micros Directive”). It would also make comparable changes to the accounting framework for Limited Liability Partnerships.

The ICAEW believes the lack of transparency and dearth of financial data would lead to more rejections of credit to these smaller organisations.

“We have a number of concerns about the suggested changes, as they may result in less transparency and less useful financial information. This, in turn, can over time have a negative impact on market confidence and on micro businesses’ ability to access finance, at least at the margins,” says Dr Nigel Sleigh-Johnson, head of the ICAEW’s Financial Reporting Faculty.

What do you think?

steve@bicknells.net

Is it time to transfer out of your final salary pension scheme?

Transfer values from final-salary schemes are at an all-time high (because 20 year gilts have fallen to 3% whereas in 1990 they were 11%), in fact transfer values are 80% higher than 6 years ago according to Investors Chronicle and they give 6 reasons to leave final salary schemes:

You have other assets to fall back on
You have a scheme from an ex-employer and don’t trust your former employer to keep funding the scheme
You think you former employer is in trouble
Your pension will not be fully covered by the Pension Protection Fund if you former employer becomes insolvent (the cap at age 65 for 2012-13 is £34,000 annual income)
You are in bad health and won’t likely see an average length pension
You are happy not to ever buy an annuity and want more flexible benefits

At December 2012 the FTSE 100 companies had a combined deficit of over £50bn and only 13% of final salary pension are open to new joiners.

How transfer values have out grown scheme benefits
This example would be a for a typical final salary scheme paying 3% benefit increases to deferred pensioners over the last six years and are based on a member who was 50 in 2006.

	Deferred pension	Typical transfer value offered
Benefit in 2006	£50,000 pa	£1,000,000
Benefit at end-2012	£59,700pa	£1,800,000
% increase	19%	79%

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) are in general against transfers out of final salary schemes and on the 28th February 2013 issued proposals to change the basis of calculation for transfer values:

The FSA estimates that the changes to the way TVAs are performed will prevent an undervaluation of benefits of up to £20bn. In other words, the changes mean that transfer values may have to increase before an adviser recommends a transfer.

Consultations close of 27th March 2013

Transferring out should be done with extreme care as its irreversible.

Charities have Pension Deficits too

In the Financial Director Magazine in February 2013 it was reported that Baker Tilly had resigned as auditor to Citizens Advice Bureau over a disagreement on pensions.

Citizens Advice’s pension pot has a growing deficit, which leapt from £19.4m in 2006 to almost £36.5m by March 2010. The defined benefit scheme closed to new entrants in 2008.

The charity insists “it is not possible to separately identify assets and liabilities relating to Citizens Advice”. For this reason, it cannot make provision under FRS12.

However, Baker Tilly disagrees and last year gave a qualified opinion on the accounts, calling for a provision of £8,305,000 to be made at 31 March 2010.

Read more: http://www.accountancyage.com/aa/news/2109706/baker-tilly-quits-citizens-advice-accounts#ixzz2MU8XpC7A
Accountancy Age – Finance, business and accountancy news, features and resources. Claim your free subscription today.

steve@bicknells.net

Confidence Accounting for Businesses – A new methodology from the Bank of England

Andy Haldane (Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England and nominee for Governor) has been working with Long Finance/ACCA/CISI on a new method of accounting – Confidence Accounting.

http://www.accaglobal.com/content/dam/acca/global/PDF-technical/corporate-governance/tech-af-cap.pdf

In a world of Confidence Accounting, the end results of audits would be presentations of distributions for major
entries in the profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow statements. Accountants would present uncertainties
as ranges to investors and managers, rather than as discrete numbers: ‘the balance sheet of Company X is
worth £Y, plus or minus £Z, and we are 95% confident that it falls within this range’. Auditors would verify these
ranges. This would move auditing towards ‘measurement science’, in line with the way most laboratories report
measurements. Audited accounts would be presented in a probabilistic manner, showing ranges. Over time,
investors could evaluate an audit firm on the basis of how closely historic accounts fell within the stated ranges.
Such evaluations might conclude that firms were too lax or too strict. Clients would be able to make their own
decisions about audit quality on the basis of historic evidence rather than having to rely on assertions of quality.

This sounds like a good approach to me, especially for larger businesses where lots of assumptions are taken in preparing the accounts.

Economic prosperity requires businesses to be financially robust and that requires sound financial reporting, this could definitely play a key role in achieving that.

steve@bicknells.net