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Highlights from 20 and 21 September

03 Oct 2008

For only the second time ever, ACCA's Council met outside Europe in September.

The meeting, which took place in Beijing on 20 and 21 September, was held alongside a number of events designed to raise ACCA's profile and to increase its reputation and influence.

This year also marks 20 years of ACCA's involvement with the Chinese accountancy profession, and the opportunity was taken both to reward those individuals and organisations that had contributed significantly to ACCA's development in that time and to reinforce ACCA's continuing commitment to the Chinese profession and business life.

The Council meeting itself marked Helen Brand's first as ACCA's chief executive and she outlined her vision for the organisation and her focus and priorities. Under the banner 'fit for the future', Helen intends to place emphasis on meeting the needs of employers around the world, ensuring ACCA enhances its operations to meet demand and that it has the skills and capacity to develop and grow in reputation, influence and size, taking account of future challenges.

A number of other important issues were considered at the meeting:

• Council took the opportunity of the meeting's location to discuss ACCA's China strategy, which Council fully endorsed.
• Council met in breakout groups to discuss the important topic of the future provision of support services to ACCA's members. Key issues arising from the discussions will be fed into the development of future strategy as a whole, the next phase of which will be considered by Council in November.
• It is customary at the September meeting for Council to consider changes to ACCA's regulations and code of ethics and conduct. Council agreed a number of such changes, including regulations relating to the use of the ACCA logo by practitioners and members' failure to supply CPD returns. Under the amendments, the ACCA logo will not be available for use by firms controlled by partners who are not members of an IFAC body. And a provision will be made to remove members from the ACCA register for non-completion of the CPD return. The amended regulations will be introduced with effect from January 2009.
• Council considered a report from the Nominating Committee and approved appointments to the Pension Scheme Trustees, Governance Committee and Market Oversight Committee.
• It agreed the timetable by which Council would choose its preferred nominee for Vice President in 2009-2010.
• Council noted a report on the results for the ACCA, Certified Accounting Technician, Diploma in Financial Management and Diploma in International Financial Reporting exams for the June 2008 session. It was also pleased to note that a record number of students successfully completed their ACCA final exams at the session. There was also a record number of entrants for the exams, with 164,646 candidates taking a total of 335,566 papers.

The next meeting of Council is scheduled for 22 and 23 November, immediately following the annual meeting of ACCA's International Assembly on 20 and 21 November.