Designing a new audit manifesto — the ICAEW AuditFutures programme
The accountancy profession is mostly organised around professional accountancy institutes, serving as an organisation to train, regulate and represent the accountancy profession, often since quite a long time. One of them is the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), in the business since 1880. Within the ICAEW Martin Martinoff leads the AuditFutures programme, the ICAEW’s foresight and innovation initiative on the future of the profession. He explains what it entails and what he sees as the key elements in designing a modern audit profession.
By Martin Martinoff, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales
How could we reach escape velocity?
In physics, escape velocity is the minimum speed needed for an object to escape from the gravitational influence of a massive body. The audit profession in the UK is certainly under massive pressure, with mounting scrutiny and criticism. It intensified after the collapse of Carillion in January 2018. In response to the publication of the parliamentary select committees’ report in May, Michael Izza, the Chief Executive of the Institute of chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), said on the BBC Today Programme that it represented ‘a watershed moment for our profession.’ This episode could turn out to be the defining moment for our future. Fresh thinking is desperately needed not only to retain our position in society, but to move to ‘a higher orbit.’
Six years ago, in the fallout of another crisis, ICAEW launched AuditFutures with that very mission. As a foresight and innovation programme, AuditFutures has the ambition to motivate and empower people by creating a more positive and creative vision for audit and to catalyse innovation by creating spaces for dialogue, collaboration and experimentation within the profession. Over the past few years, we have developed innovative ‘thought-leadership’ — a strategy for innovation and growth — and practical resources in a number of areas. Our insights could offer fresh ideas at this pivotal moment for the profession and to influence its course.
We need radical thinking and collaborative action
AuditFutures is an action-research programme that uses interdisciplinary thinking, design-led processes and interactive workshops. We work in collaboration with others. Our projects, events and activities are undertaken in partnership with organisations and individuals that bring different perspectives and thinking. We invite challenge and welcome diverse points of view. Our programme is influenced by thought-leaders from civil society, business and education to develop insights and to design practical steps to enable a more systemic change that targets organisations, society and human capabilities.
We create safe spaces for dialogue and experimentation, and build platforms to engage innovators from academia, policy and practice. Our public events and bespoke sessions for organisations share the style and spirit of entrepreneurship and progressive learning in an exciting, fun environment. More than 2,000 people from 200 institutions have taken part in our activities and over 24,000 people have visited our website.
This article was first published on the October 2018 of the ECA Journal. The contents of the interviews and the articles are the sole responsibility of the interviewees and authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Court of Auditors.
