The UK Professional Oversight Board (POB) has
issued eight recommendations for how UK professional accountancy
bodies can improve the monitoring of members that provide
non-regulated accountancy services.
Non-regulated services include accounts
preparation, payroll, tax and bookkeeping.
The POB recommended that one body should
remove the claim on its website that effective monitoring of its
members is carried out, or allocate more resources so the
monitoring occurs.
The other seven recommendations suggested that
all the bodies should:
- Ensure the nature and frequency of monitoring
work is clearly and accurately explained on their websites; - Ensure the determination and assessment of
best practice is consistent across all types of practice; - Comprehensively review ethical matters during
monitoring visits; - Incorporate an internal complaints policy
into monitoring visits; - Consider the benefits of tailoring monitoring
visits to non-regulated members in practice; - Require members to respond to all matters
identified during the reviews and take appropriate action; and - Review the responses received from members to
ensure the issues are satisfactorily addressed.
The bodies reviewed were: the Association of
Chartered Certified Accountants, the Association of International
Accountants, Chartered Accountants Ireland, the Chartered Institute
of Management Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Public
Finance and Accountancy, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of
England and Wales and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of
Scotland.
The bodies have been asked to provide
responses to the recommendations by 1 September.
