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Our profession may be a meritocracy, but we still need to demonstrate that it welcomes all comers.

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorJoachim, Aubrey
PositionIn business

One of the pressing issues facing the accountancy bodies concerns the accessibility of the profession to all sectors of society. It's even on the CCAB's agenda as a result of comments made by senior UK government officials. The underlying concern is that a disproportionate number of finance professionals are from particular ethnic or socioeconomic groups. While this may be only a perception, it must be taken seriously. There may be an element of truth to it if we consider all the various streams of the profession.

Drawing on my own experiences, I can definitely see factors that could have created barriers resulting in the domination of the audit and practice segments by the upper echelons of society. Some of these barriers may exist in a subtle form even today. The underlying factor was the requirement to be "articled" in a practice environment. That impeded people with less privileged backgrounds from becoming accountants in two ways. First, accounting firms always treated articled clerks as a cheap source of labour, so, unless one came from a reasonably wealthy family, such a career was financially unattractive at least in the immediate short term. The second and perhaps more subjective barrier was the old school tie. Getting into a practice, especially one of the big names, was based on whom you knew, what sport you indulged in etc. While this factor may have been overridden in recent years by the demand for the highest academic achievements, there is still an educational advantage for people who have attended the best schools, which are usually expensive private ones. I am not referring to the UK alone here; this is a global phenomenon and I saw it during my early search for a career in Sri Lanka as well.

The CIMA qualification, on the other hand, has always had mass appeal. Wealth and connections have never mattered, because it is a truly open-access course. On a recent visit to Africa I met some management accountants who were doing very well in senior positions at their organisations. They recounted the days when their homes had no electricity and...

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