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A profession you can trust? The latest Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a significant increase in levels of trust in chartered accountants (to 85%), despite ongoing economic uncertainty. The trust in chartered accountants has in fact increased seven percentage points since 2021 – which puts accountants alongside doctors (87%) and engineers (87%) as trusted advisors. To put this into context the trust in lawyers fell three percentage points between 2021 and 2023 to 64%. Auditors have a trust score of 75%
and politicians 27%. Interestingly, the trust in chartered accountancy bodies rose three percentage points to 80%. While good, it still means one in five people don’t trust them!
Finding the ethical accountant The world has gone wrong when it comes to ethics, especially accountancy, according to Professsor Atul K Shah. He told a packed Queen Mary University of London seminar that good leadership in accountancy should start and end with ethics. However, he said ethics is in direct conflict with greed and profit maximisation.
PQ Magazine December 2023
He felt we paper over this conflict, but the scandals don’t go away. Shah explained leaders set the tone of organisations and they need to be held account, as all they only seem to care about is themselves. Meanwhile, Gareth Moss, FD of CIPFA, felt the vast majority of accountants are honest and trustworthy, and society is better for that.
The Edelman report, commission by Chartered Accountants Worldwide, said as concerns about misinformation grow, particularly during a move towards increase automation, chartered accountants can capitalise on their existing strength and become the ‘guardians of the data’. Some 77% of financial decision makers say they have or will be using their accountants to lead the digital transformation in their organisation. For more go to https://tinyurl.com/ mt9b4euv Atul K Shah
However, he suggested that when things do go wrong and individuals go rogue we haven’t quite got it right in terms of dealing with that. Check out our film of the night here.
Win an AAT scholarship
PQ magazine has joined forces with e-Careers to offer one lucky AAT student a free scholarship every month for the next six months. That’s six scholarships up for grabs, meaning you could be studying your next AAT level for free! The scholarships came about after PQ’s Graham Hambly visited the e-Careers team at their Langley HQ. The team were genuinely concerned how the costof-living crisis might be affecting people’s ability to choose accountancy as a career. To enter all you have to do is say why you think you deserve the scholarship. You will be put forward for all six scholarships, so if you don’t win it the first time there are still another five chances to win. Hambly will be on the judging panel to help award the scholarships. Check out more on page 9.
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