Allen Blewitt - Association of Chartered Certified Accountants

Question: You have just marked your first anniversary as CEO of ACCA - how has the past year gone?

Allen Blewitt: The first year has been interesting, particularly in terms of leading a complex and global business which is enjoying growth across all markets.

Question: What is the current state of the profession?

Allen Blewitt:I think the profession is going through an interesting period because it is coming off the back of a number of very significant challenges to its reputation following Enron, WorldCom and a number of other financial scandals around the world.

Regulation has been increased dramatically and one could argue that the pendulum swing of regulation has probably gone too far, but politically it is not easy for politicians to bat it off, particularly in the United States and Europe where there is a culture of regulation - especially within the European Commission.

An issue facing the profession is that while it is necessary to cope with this new environment of increased regulation and compliance pressure, there is a shortage of talented people in the industry.

In addition to coping with the regulatory aspect there is also the need to comply with the new International Financial Reporting Standards which have recently been introduced in Europe and Australia. So, despite the fact that we are graduating more people than ever there is a serious talent shortage.

Question: What are your plans for the year ahead?

Allen Blewitt:ACCA had a good year last year and we grew our membership by six per cent and our students by nine per cent so we now have 105,000 members and 240,000 students.

But we are a global organisation and while we are committed to growth we are also committed to trying to grow our influence on behalf of our members to ensure that we can persuade government, regulators and influential stakeholders in the profession that ACCA has something valuable to contribute to debates.

We will also be building some strategic alliances with partners both within and outside the profession because even though we are a global player, even though we are one of the largest accounting bodies, we can't do it on our own and we have to work with others. That is pretty much like other businesses in other parts of the world. No-one is an island anymore. They have to work with others to achieve their long term objectives.

Question: ACCA is announcing the launch of a public policy unit - what is this and why are you launching it?

Allen Blewitt:We are trying to grow influence, as I have said, and one the ways that we can do that is to get recognition for what we can really offer  governments, senior advisors and regulators in terms of developing policy.

One of the things that I found when I came to ACCA was that perhaps we were hiding our light under a bushel. We have unique expertise in a range of public policy areas  - not just tax, audit and financial reporting as you would imagine - but also in corporate governance, health, education, and financial standards.

It is not just the traditional accounting skills that we offer. Governments of all persuasions are interested in issues such as health and education and corporate governance, but they are also interested in what role we can play in helping to improve the financial management in the health sector or the education sector.

I think the reason why we are launching this public policy unit is because we believe we have something to contribute in the public interest, not just here in the UK - but globally,  and we have experts from all around the world that we can tap into who can provide that advice to policy developers.

Question: So you are hoping to assist the development of public policy?

Allen Blewitt:  Yes. Our initial progress will be here in the UK parliament, the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly because with 48 per cent of our members here in the UK we have got great potential influence in the UK. 

We certainly have the ability to go wider than that if necessary. We are not aware that any other professional body, either accounting or otherwise, has put forward this sort of multi-disciplinary policy unit in this way before.

Question: Which issues are causing concern among ACCA's members?

Allen Blewitt: This will certainly tap into our membership and our in-house experts because we have technical expertise in most of the major areas  I described. We have a network of members who work in the professions, industry and commerce and their skills will complement those of the in-house team.

I would say that in the run-up to the election there are obvious questions in terms of health policy, questions in terms of the appropriate level of corporate tax, questions in term of pensions as more and more people are realising that provision for retirement has been inadequate and obviously there will always be questions on small business which is the engine room for the UK economy.

Question: What will ACCA be campaigning for?

Allen Blewitt: Prior to the election we will be releasing a tax manifesto indicating what we think are the ten main points that the parties should be answering.

In addition, we are releasing a small business manifesto again indicating what we think needs to be done to free up small business to create more wealth and to generate more employment in the UK.

They are the two main areas but obviously there will be a number of other areas of commentary, depending on what the main three parties will say.

With regard to pensions we are looking to a bigger announcement later in the year when the Turner report is finally discussed, but we see that pensions is a hugely important area and a long term issue and we need to play a role in helping to educate both the policy advisors and the public about what to expect in terms of pension provision.

Question: What support do you get from the government?

Allen Blewitt:We are launching the public policy unit in order to assist government to say we as a professional body are a group that you should call on; you should have dialogue with on a regular basis so that we can contribute and they can gain the benefit of our board member expertise.

What we would hope is that our public policy unit would be at the heart of the debate in policy development.