FRC trends reports All the

Some 167,000 students have been studying more than five years to obtain their professional qualification, according to the latest stats from the Financial Reporting Council. That is 28% of all students signed up with ACCA, CIMA, CIPFA, ICAEW, CAI, ICAS and AIA.

The good news is this figure in down two percentage points on last year.

Some 597,106 PQs are currently studying with the seven bodies. And while ACCA has the most students still studying with them after five years, three other professional bodies have a higher percentage of their students stuck with them for five years or more Some 54% of CIPFA students are still not qualified after half a decade with the institute. The AIA has just over 50% of its students with it after five years, and 35% of CIMA PQs have still not passed all their exams after the same period.

The accountancy body with the lowest percentage of students still studying after five years is ICAS. Just 5% are still studying after this time.

For more from the FRC’s key trend survey go to page 17.

You must question managers

Despite having ‘considerable sympathy’ for junior auditor Pratik Paw, an independent disciplinary hearing’s full report said he should have questioned his manager’s instructions to deceive the UK’s audit watchdog.

The 25-year-old PQ was told to forge documents by superiors for an inspection of KPMG’s Carillion audit. The tribunal said he “acted without the integrity required of an accountant and became a party to the deliberate misleading of the Audit Quality Review (AQR)”.

The tribunal felt that being asked to copy meetings’ minute documents into an old document should have immediately rang alarm bells and “would have raised questions in anyone’s mind”. Paw’s claim that he had merely followed his manager’s instruction without any thought was rejected. What, asked the disciplinary tribunal, could be the conceivable reason for such an act other than to deceive?

Paw received a severe reprimand, but was not fined.

The full decision of the FRC’s Executive Counsel can be found at https://tinyurl.com/yrfha557

Have you tried out the PQ magazine Back to Basics video series yet?

The aim of our online series is to provide short, sharp videos on some of the key topics that students struggle with. We have ones on double-entry bookkeeping, assets and trial balance.

Here’s the list in full of the videos on offer: • Cost Behaviours, with Jo Tuffill

https://vimeo.com/680501310

• Double Entry Bookkeeping, with Tom Clendon

https://vimeo.com/429252329

• Financial Maths for AFM and FM students, with Sunil Bhandari

https://vimeo.com/446780185

• Trial Balance, with Michele Baker

https://vimeo.com/500074449

• The Strategic Planning Process, with Sean Purcell

https://vimeo.com/437139421

• VAT Calculations, with Michele Baker

https://vimeo.com/584904867

• Assets, with Tom Clendon

https://vimeo.com/545939340

• Business Valuations, with Sunil Bhandari

https://vimeo.com/584900540

• Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC), with Sunil Bhandari

https://vimeo.com/536755049