Anton Colella lays out vision for Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland
Anton Colella, chief executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland, has nailed his colours firmly to the mast of quality rather than quantity. Unveiling a new strategy aimed at ensuring Icas’s qualification is regarded as pre-eminent among accountancy qualifications, Colella said: “Keeping CAs clearly ahead is the fundamental goal.”
And there lies the institute’s new strapline “Clearly Ahead”. It is a play on the initials CA, which can only be used by accountants who qualify under Icas’s three-year training system.
The new strategy aims to differentiate Icas from rival institutes with many more members, such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (Icaew), the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (Acca) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (Cima).
Anton Colella believes this can be achieved by focusing on ethical behaviour, a further internationalisation of the institute’s training programme and by playing a leading part in the debate about the future of accountancy and financial markets.
Colella, who moved to Icas from the Scottish Qualifications Authority last October, is unashamedly elitist in what he would like Icas to stand for. He said: “Unlike certain other institutes, we’re not obsessed by volume. We’re much more interested in the quality of the students than the overall numbers.”
Icas president Isobel Sharp added: “Shaping debate wherever we have members is fundamental to how we are perceived as an institute. Given that CAs operate in around 95 countries, our ideas and thought leadership must be intelligent, valuable and capable of influencing change in the business world.”
The new strategy, which has been agreed by the institute’s 28-strong council and has been developed in consultation with its 16,710 existing members, builds on a strategy developed by Colella’s predecessor, Professor Ian Marian, in 2003. That strategy, introduced in the wake of the scandal surrounding energy company Enron and the collapse of accountancy firm Andersen, ushered in practices such as continuous professional development (CPD) and was dubbed “Fast forward to 2010”.
The more overt focus on ethical standards in the new strategy is a subtle break with the past. Colella said: “Ethics are already at the heart of a CA’s training and the professional life of a CA. What we want to do is to make this much more explicit.”
Colella said that corporate social responsibility and environmental issues are rapidly rising up the business agenda and that this “needs to be reflected in the lifelong education delivery for CAs.”
Another strategic goal for the institute is to ensure it provides pertinent and meaningful services to its members, irrespective of where they are based, and what type of work they do. Anton Colella said: “That’s a given — we have to recognise the reality of changing demographics of our membership base.”
Of the institute’s members, some 5,000 (30%) are based in England and Wales with 2,175 (13%) based overseas, and the proportion who are based outside Scotland is growing all the time, as Icas extends its training footprint. To reflect changing demographics, Colella is upgrading the institute’s London office and relocating it to Cornhill, near the Bank of England, on 1 October. He also wants to strengthen members’ networks both in the UK and overseas, for which new electronic networks are being developed.
Specifically he said that Icas needs to ensure it does not ignore the needs of the 46% of its members who are working in industry and commerce. Currently only a minority of its members (28%) work in accountancy firms, but these have traditionally received the greatest ongoing support.
Colella said: “We want to make much more of an effort to find out what members in business want from us and to respond accordingly – but not at the expense of members in practice.”
Anton Colella said numbers of trainees doing their CA training outside the professional firms is also growing. He said BP currently has 10 to 20 people studying for the Icas qualification and that other businesses using the institute’s Training Outside Public Practice Scheme include HBOS, RBS, Deutsche Bank and Aviva.
As part of its goal to “focus on developing the business leaders of tomorrow”, existing high-profile CAs in the business world — such as Sir Fred Goodwin at RBS, Sir Brian Stewart at Scottish & Newcastle and Sir Robert Smith at Scottish & Southern Energy — will be encouraged to be more open about their membership of Icas.
Another goal for Icas is to broaden its geographic reach and, as part of this, the institute will start training students in Luxembourg next year. It is also considering launching an accountancy training programme in the Middle East, probably in Dubai.
The institute also wants to punch above its weight on the global stage, and next month Anton Colella will visit Beijing where he expects to sign a memorandum of understanding for a training partnership with the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Icas has similar arrangements in Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Siberia.
Despite a breakdown in relations following Icaew’s attempt to rename itself the Institute of Chartered Accountants two years ago, Anton Colella said that he would “most certainly” be exploring areas of collaboration with Icaew in areas including jointly researching thought leadership and the sharing of technical expertise.
He said he is also looking to step up collaboration with leading Scottish universities to research advance thinking in financial and accounting matters, and said he is poised to announce a collaborative project with an unnamed “Ivy League” university.
Even though Icas is growing its student numbers faster than any other institute — currently 3,154 are being trained in the Icas system and it has grown student numbers at a compound annual rate of 8.7% in the period 2001-06 — it remains small compared to other institutes.
One consequence is the institute has limited resources compared to its larger rivals. Its 2006 income of £13.5m was the lowest of any of the UK and Irish accountancy bodies, dwarfed by the Acca’s £79.1m and Icaew’s £63.6m.
This article was first published in The Herald on 24 September 2007