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Rating your body’s annual report
Rating your body’s annual report
We run the rule over the accountancy body annual reviews and financial figures. What do they tell us?
ACCA
ACCA is now ‘supporting’ a community of 252,5000 members and 526,000 future members in 180 countries, explains the Annual Integrated Report.
Among the highlights for 23/24 was the admission of 12,569 new members, and the recruitment of 99,586 students in the year.
In all, 584,838 exams were also taken and the ACCA Study hub gets a mention, as does ACCA winning the Study Resource of the Year (for My Exam Performance) at the PQ magazine awards in 2023.
CEO Helen Brand looks at the positives and the negatives in her report. She points out that four years ago ACCA had 544,000 students and today that number has fallen to 526,000. The pandemic and changes to the economic and geopolitical environment are apparent. However, the association welcomed just under 100,000 in the year – its strongest recruitment year since 2019-20.
Brand also said that despite its best efforts ACCA has experienced overall declines in member and future member satisfaction levels. She stressed: “We are taking this as a clear call to action. We want every single member of our global community to value their relationship with ACCA.”
The separate financial statement shows operating income was £238.7 million, with a surplus after tax of £18.2m. ACCA expenditure was £224.8m.
Members paid £61m in subs, and PQs £50m. Exams brought in £83.8m and exemptions another £14.7m. ACCA employed an average of 1,310 people, and the average salary per employee was £51,850.
Total salary for CEO Brand was £500,828.
For more see https://tinyurl.com/mw76bzhh
AICPA & CIMA
The AICPA and CIMA’s Integrated Report reveals a 10% increase in the number of candidates sitting the CGMA case study exams, and a 15% increase in the number of CGMA exams delivered.
The apprenticeship programmes in England and Wales also grew, and now make up 22% of new CIMA members in the UK, a 5% increase on the previous year.
The year saw a significant growth for the CGMA Finance Leadership Programme (FLP). Following strong interest in the UK and Ireland, FLP candidates now represent 35% of all CGMA candidates sitting the case study exams. The FLP was also made available to the foundation level, making it more accessible to an even greater number of candidates.
On the ‘goals not fully met’ side, the report says revenue for AICPA and CIMA was $18.8m above target; however, an operating deficit of $5.7m was registered.
The new digital platform for CIMA members and CGMA candidates in April 2023 also had some problems. It led to resource constraints, capacity gaps and site issues, as well as the delayed launch for some of the core capabilities.
On page 44 of the report we discover CIMA has 116,000 members and 44,000 CGMA candidates. There were also 37,000 CGMA registrants.
It is a bit harder to separate the AICPA and CIMA when it comes to the financial stuff. Getting information about CEO pay, staff numbers and even exact CIMA student and members numbers is difficult!
For more see https://tinyurl.com/mrccffc6
CIOT
“Exam successes and a record setting year for membership remind us of our purpose to promote awareness and understanding of the tax system,” says Gary Ashford, the outgoing President in the Chartered Institute of Taxation’s annual report.
He revealed 7,534 students were registered for the CTA qualification in 2023, and by the end of the year 576 had completed their exams and qualified for membership.
Last year was another recordbreaking one for membership, and CIOT welcomed 699 new members, taking total membership to 19,924. Ashford said: “We are tantalisingly close to our 20,000th member and this will be a milestone moment for us.”
The report shows the CIOT made an operating gain of £622,000 for the year (2022 – £801,000). The institute benefitted from increased income from membership subs, student registrations and exams, and investments in the year. Exam costs were up as a result of a return to exam centres, and there were increased staff costs, and IT expenditure rose.
The net gain on investments was £421,000, which means the net income for the year was £1,043,000.
Total income for the year was just under £10.7m, with income from student registrations and exam fees £2.7m. Education and student services costs were £5.3m.
The CIOT has reserves of £9,855,000. We are not told in the accounts how much the CEO is earning, but they show one employee was paid between £190,001 and £200,000. We are assuming that is chief executive Helen Whiteman.
For more see https://tinyurl.com/mutwmed7
CIPFA
Inflationary cost pressures and planned business investments meant CIPFA’s overall result for 2023 was a positive contribution of just £70,000, compared with £1.142m in 2022. Income dropped slightly to £28.2m, with expenses rising to £28.1m. CIPFA’s overall reserves at the end of 2023 were a surplus of £12.5m (in 2022 it was £15.5m). The reduction was driven by the revaluation of Mansell Street, which resulted in an impairment. This revaluation, says the report, reflects the overall sentiment in the market.
Membership subscriptions from CIPFA’s 13,562 members brought in £2.9m (10.4% of income) and education and training £4.8m (17.1%). On the minus side, educating and training student members cost £6.8m (24.1% of expenditure). There are now 6,128 students.
The average number of employees in the group in 2023 was 259, up from 238 in 2022. One employee earnt between £220,000 to £229,000, and we have to assume that this is outgoing CEO Rob Whiteman.
The roll-out of the Professional Accountancy Qualification (PAQ) continued in 2023. In June, the Business Reporting and Business Planning and Financial Management modules were introduced for the first time and the results were “encouraging for both”, says the report. The remaining two modules, Tax and Law and Governance and Risk, were examined for the first time in December 2023. CIPFA has its own education and training centre, CETC, which saw growth in the take up of both the Level 7 apprenticeship and the Counter Fraud Investigator apprenticeship. There was also growing demand for face-toface learning, and CIPFA promised to supply this where possible.
To facilitate recently qualified CIPFA students gaining dual ICAEW-CIPFA membership, the institute also developed a ‘relationship’ with an experienced ICAEW ‘Partner in Learning’ to help deliver the top-up Corporate Reporting module.
For more see https://tinyurl.com/959fch5
ICAEW
Last year was another record one for student intake at the ICAEW, with 12,225 (11,962) new ACA students joining in 2023. There are now 38,490 PQs studying the ACA qualification, with around a quarter of students based outside the UK. As the financial review says, student growth is considered crucial to the future success of ICAEW, which relies on the progression of students into its membership base. That membership base is now 169,722 strong.
And because of the increase in student numbers, income from education and training has continued to grow, helping ICAEW to break the £20m barrier. Some £14.2m comes from exam fees and another £5.9m for student fees and charges.
Sales of learning materials can be found in the ‘Belonging and Supporting’ figures –these bring in £6m.
Total group income for the year was £142.2 million (£141.7m), with the net result after tax for the year £10m (£13.6m).
Subs and fees grew to £58m, reflecting the steady growth in membership numbers together with inflationary increases in prices.
Operation expenditure grew 4.8% to £129.1m.
This all means the group’s net assets at 31 December 2023 were £183.1m, an increase of £5.1m year-onyear.
There are some 812 people (full-time equivalent) working for the ICAEW. The ex-CEO Michael Izza was the toppaid employee, with pay of £647,000.
Izza has now left the ICAEW, but in his foreword to the report he said the institute has begun the process of evolving the qualification for the next generation of students.
For more see https://tinyurl.com/ytkdhjzr
ICAS
Last year saw the launch of the ‘2030 strategy: Together, we will…’, which sets out ICAS’s ambitious growth plan, says the annual review.
April then saw a new brand launch, including what ICAS calls ‘a new visual identity’.
CEO Bruce Cartwright said ethics is at the core to the CA qualification and “we will continue to champion doing the right thing”. ICAS is trying to create a new student experience. This includes the launch of CA Advantage, an interactive platform for students. The old perennial concerns about the logbook should also have been addressed with the creation of a revised digital version. ICAS has also streamlined its registration processes, reducing the lead time from two weeks to 20 minutes to onboard new students. Last year also saw the launch of a free wellbeing helpline for students.
CA24 was being launched as the annual review was published, and Cartwright ventures this will be the biggest remake in the institute’s 170-year history.
ICAS membership stands at 23,952, with 62.6% of these male and 35.8% female. It also has 4,480 students (up 3.5% year-on-year). Interestingly, just 49.8% of members are now located in Scotland, with 40.6% living in the rest of the UK, and 9.7% working outside the UK.
When it comes to the figures the overall group loss was £1,499,000 in 2023, compared with a profit of £185,000 in 2022. The most significant reason for this loss was the planned investment in the 2023 strategic programme, which cost £2.2m.
Total revenues grew to £20.6m, with learning revenues up by £833,000, mainly due to price increases, a strong student intake and a recovery in TPS level student numbers.
Group net assets at the end of the year were just under £8m.
Cartwright was paid a basic salary of £268,000 and a bonus of £77,000. With social security costs, pension and other allowances he was rewarded to the tune of £400,000, up by £20,000 year-on-year.
