If there is one thing accountants are good at it is pleading hardship. Take this as an example from today's FT:
As they add him noting:
I have known Michael Izza for a long time, and we get on. But this is absurd.
If accountants acting as auditors cannot do the job asked of them - for which they are mightily rewarded in the high-profile cases that the FRC looks at - then they deserve what comes their way.
And if the job cannot be done at all - as is possible because accounting standards are now so bad that delivering meaningful data that anyone could audit is difficult - then that is the issue to deal with.
In either case, simply asking to be let off the hook so that the job is more attractive (when rewards are often £1 million a year) is unacceptable.
Izza is losing his touch at the end of his tenure at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales if he thinks this is going to work.
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He needs to get out more! My profession, Medicine, has had its professional conduct hearings reduced from beyond any doubt, to on balance of probabilities. And more frequently doctors are facing jail for GNM, for mistakes made in the heat of the moment. Non of us support gross misconduct, but I know on reflection I made mistakes, but fortunately none of mine were fatal, but that was simply luck. You learn from mistakes, not form your success.
Every doctor makes mistakes
Thankfully, most do not forget them
Accountants do
Society would be better served if other professions Implemented that approach – including my own.
Sorry, what approach, and what is your profession?
As a retired chartered accountant I often wonder, looking at the big company failures, why the exams to become an accountant are so difficult when those in the big firms seem to ignore all they have learned and pass any old rubbish accounts