ASSOCIATION OF CHARTERED CERTIFIED ACCOUNTANTS

Early day motion 685, tabled 25 May 1999 by Austin Mitchell (Labour). Signed by 36 members.

That this House condemns the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants for its failure to function in an open, democratic and accountable manner by not having any of its officeholders directly elected by its members, by using a balloting system which has been outlawed for trade unions, for permitting its President to cast 20 to 25 per cent. of all votes thus effectively appointing Council members, by the deliberate failure of its President to answer questions at the 1999 AGM, by removing reformers from Council and failing to explain the reasons to the AGM, for failure to have any non-white person as an officeholder even though 50 per cent. of its UK membership is non-white, by its failure to admit the public to its Council meetings even though it acts as a regulator under the Companies Act 1989 and the Insolvency Act 1986, by the failure to publicise the outcome of a disciplinary hearing against its Vice-President in its own in-house magazine, by threatening and silencing reformers and pressurising their employers and by legal threats, and for its failure to disclose the ú50,000 per annum spent by its officeholders on taking friends, spouses and partners on world travels, even though the Financial Reporting Standard 8 requires this should be disclosed; and therefore considers that an ACCA which takes so little account of the public interest is unfit to be a regulatory body and urges the Government to suspend its regulatory powers and launch an independent inquiry into its affairs.

Signatures by party: Labour 26, Liberal Democrat 7, Labour/Co-operative 2, DUP 1.