The columnists

ROBERT BRUCE

Seeing the wood for the trees

There ought to be an audit discipline called ‘The Wood For The Trees’. It would concentrate on the frequent confusion between issues that don’t signify much and so really shouldn’t matter, and issues that are essential to rigorously bear down upon.

If a specific course could be devised that would enable people to avoid the confusion of not being able to see the wood for the trees then perhaps Jan Bouwens, Professor of Accounting at Amsterdam Business School, would be the person to teach it. He recently suggested that if we put audit scandals into proportion then we might see a very different picture. And he is right. One massive uncovered fraud doesn’t mean that many thousands of audits are also faulty or suspect. The nature of audit means that the work goes on behind closed doors. And where researchers have had access to audit processes over the years they have tended to confirm that much deterrent activity does go on in the normal audit process.

When mistakes are made, and subsequently corrected, no one in the outside world gets to hear about it. It is part of the normal process. But the headlines about one fraud skews the public’s view and understanding of the many thousands of audits that complete their normal course without too much in the way of incident. And that deterrent doesn’t cost too much either. As Prof Bouwens points out, in 2019 the oil giant Shell paid an audit fee amounting to 0.015 per cent of its turnover. Not a high cost for seeing the wood clearly. Robert Bruce is an award-winning writer on accountancy for The Times

In brief

Kaplan chats with PQ…

Check out PQ editor Graham Hambly talking to Kaplan head of learning Stuart Pedley-Smith about how to pass those accountancy exams. He reveals that the optimum period of study to pass a professional exam – it is 12 weeks! If you want to increase your chances of passing you also need to sit the exam two or three weeks after you finish your course. Pedley-Smith answers the question – does cramming work? In the second podcast he talks to John As accountancy exams move to remote invigilation the connectivity of your broadband becomes more important than ever.

To help raise your anxiety levels Uswitch, the comparison service, has released a survey that claims nearly five million people in the UK suffered a ‘broadband outage’ lasting more than three hours in the past year, costing the economy £1.5bn.

That adds up to 39% of respondents who experienced problems over the past 12 months. Put another way, it means in the past year the average affected home went offline for 29 hours.

The reasons are numerous: power cuts, broadband provider had an outage, damage to external cables, or routine maintenance. PwC UK has said it needs to delay its full-year results until next year, as it can’t work out partner and staff pay and bonuses!

The annual report was due in September, but PwC has revealed the impact of the pandemic means it will not release its accounts until January 2021.

The Big 4 firm is reported as

The UK’s current approach to apprenticeships leans too heavily towards highly qualified employees and not enough to school leavers, according to a new report from the Centre for

Social Justice.

It says too many employers are using the levy funding to rebadge existing training, or to accredit skills that existing staff already have. The CSJ believes that while the apprenticeship system should

Glover about the thorny issue of phones in the classroom (he wants you to turn it off!). Check them out at https://tinyurl.com/y38qht6n

AAT recognised in Dubai

AAT has been recognised as an International Certification Organisation by the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) in Dubai. KHDA oversees the private education sector for the country, and accreditation gives learners assurance that they will receive high-quality qualifications

I have an outage!

The longest single outage happened in Leeds, where residents reported one incident lasting just shy of 55 hours. People in London reported the most instances of outages (seven in a year), while Cardiff experienced the fewest. saying: “Our current priorities are managing our business, supporting our clients and preserving jobs before we make any decisions about the quantum of the bonuses we pay to our staff and distributions to our partners.” PwC partners have already agreed a 20% cut in monthly profit distributions.

All this hasn’t stopped PwC firms

play a part in reskilling established workers, it must not crowd out opportunities for people who are about to join the market – particularly during the pandemic, which is rapidly extinguishing their prospects.

CSJ said that level 2 (intermediate) apprenticeships are in free fall, and their demise affects disadvantaged people who are more likely to undertake them. It claimed relatively few

and training from a trusted education provider. AAT started offering its qualification in the Middle East in the 1980s and has trained 5,000 people in finance and accounting. It is now working towards this level of recognition across the rest of the United Arab Emirates and Middle East.

Rewarding excellence

CIMA has launched Academic Partner Excellence Awards. Among the awards up for grabs are the CIMA Teaching Excellence Award,

Britain’s outage capital is Bristol, which came in just ahead (and not in a good way) of Brighton and Belfast. The average amount of downtime per year in Bristol is a whopping 170 hours, way ahead of Brighton, which recorded a figure

PwC delays annual results

of 89 hours. worldwide from reporting. Revenue at the firm hit $43 billion for the first time for the year to the end of June, despite the pandemic. PwC’s Middle East and African operations reported the fastest growth in revenues – up 9.6% to $1.8 billion, followed by Asia, which achieved a 5% growth to $6.4 billion.

The only region to show a decline in revenue was Australasia and the Pacific, which dipped by

School leavers losing out to graduates

1% to $1.7 billion in revenue.

level 2 apprenticeships are being approved, with levy-paying employers focusing more on higher-level apprenticeships, with squeezes on funding bands also depressing starts.

One recommendation from the report is that an existing degreelevel qualification should not be able to draw down on apprenticeship funds to undertake a degree-level

apprenticeship.

the Prize-Winner Award, and Global Excellence Award. The Prize-Winner Award recognises the academic partner institution that trained CIMA’s top student of the year in each country. The Global Excellence Award will go to colleges that achieve CIMA pass rates above the global average in the same calendar year. The only awards open for nominations are for teaching, research, campus culture and employability. For more email academic.partners@aicpacima.com.