“京交会”会计服务分论坛三嘉宾发言稿（三）
CAPA成员代表Gillian Fawcett

促进职业会计组织协作，实现公共价值

 

女士们、先生们，各位同仁，各位朋友：

 

今天，非常荣幸能有机会与在座各位探讨“促进职业会计机构协作，实现公共价值”这一话题。首先，我想感谢中注协和亚太会计师联合会组织了此次会议，会议的召开恰逢其时，会议内容发人深省。

请允许我作一个简单的介绍。我谨代表特许公认会计师公会（ACCA）参加此次论坛。该公会是一个全球性的职业会计组织，旨在为全球有毅力、有能力、有抱负并有志于在会计、金融和管理职业生涯中有所作为的人士，提供业务相关的首选会计师资格。

特许公认会计师公会通过全球80个办事处及8500多名认可雇主的网络平台， 为170个国家和地区的147,000位会员和424,000名学员提供支持，使其掌握雇主所需的技能，从而帮助他们在会计事业和业务发展方面获得成功。

我们也开展相关研究，确保会计行业的声誉和影响力的不断提高，同时更好地为社会提供公共价值。

依我所见，我们也是职业会计师组织间协作的典范，我们一直积极努力与世界其它各职业会计组织发展协作和合作关系。我们的合作关系涵盖了众多不同领域，其中包括联合资格认证、职业发展、监管和监督以及技术咨询等内容。我们始终坚持最高的全球质量标准，同时也体现我们的合作伙伴的需求和愿望。至今我们已与至少600多个职业组织和雇主签订了谅解备忘录，其中也包括中国注册会计师协会。

接下来，我想详细探讨“促进职业会计组织协同合作、实现公共价值”这一主题。我深信，会计师和职业会计组织已在经济发展的各个阶段创造了巨大价值。金融危机及其后续影响以充分的理由促使我们对商界中的真正“价值”进行重新审视。过去十年间，经济取得了迅猛增长，但这种增长也付出了昂贵的代价。当广泛的社会利益被狭隘、短期的商业利益所取代，建立在过度冒险基础上的增长便会岌岌可危。

鉴于金融危机所产生的经济衰退、失业率增加、财政紧缩、信用危机频发等严重影响，我们应当仔细思考如何来衡量价值，以及更好地进行合作。我们的职业会计组织是应当只着眼于资产负债表和利润表、关注财务问题，还是应当考虑自身业务对公众和社会产生的广泛价值？

这后一种价值，即公众价值，在整体而言对职业会计组织和会计师极为重要。

为了更有效地服务于企业，职业会计组织需要获得公众和企业的信任。信任度缺失，这些组织的工作和意见便毫无可信度。

我们来审视几项职业会计组织的常规业务：编制财务报表、提供业务战略指导，以及提供鉴证服务。这些工作所产生的价值取决于会计师是否有能力采取客观、符合道德的做法，即能够体现公共价值的做法。如果会计师行业的运作被认为无法保护社会公众的利益，那么其商业价值也就不复存在了。

更为确切地讲，公共价值就是指组织提供的服务能够保护和发展公共资源，包括财政资源、环境资本和人力资本。这些均是职业会计组织应当共同支持并大力弘扬的价值。

对于职业会计组织而言，公共价值意味着提供咨询意见，促进可持续的业务增长并发现符合崭新道德理念的可能性。这意味着需要摒弃纯粹基于商业目的而进行代理的做法，而是为公共生活作出积极的贡献。在通过促进可持续性增长、强化道德理念，以及携手改善公共生活的事业中，职业会计组织可以发挥更大的积极作用。

与此同时，在与当地或全球层面的组织合作、培养符合企业战略需求的会计师方面，职业会计组织也起着至关重要的作用。

回顾2010年，当我们与世界各地的商界领袖探讨如何利用财务功能时，接近90%的商界领袖都表示，会计师的战略引导作用非常重要，甚至是至关重要。战略业务技能、领导技能、经营策略知识都是商业领袖们认为会计师必备的技能。因此，各个职业会计组织携手合作，培养会计师未来发展所需的各项技能，将具有重大意义。

最佳的职业会计组织能够捍卫稳健的企业治理原则，促进可持续的财务运作，并在工作中一贯执行最高道德标准。如果世界各地的职业会计组织能够携手合作，提出统一的道德标准并进行可持续的财务运作，那么这一讯息的影响力将变得更为强大、广泛而深刻。

现在让我们再回到特许公认会计师公会，作为一个被授予并管理会计师资格的特许组织，我们一直以非常严肃的态度来看待我们的公共价值影响。我们的目标是，作为一个职业会计组织，通过合作伙伴关系和行业间的联系来实现公共价值，并且支持更广泛的职业来实现公共价值目标。

对我们来说，可以通过以下几种方式实现公共价值：

 

例如，在下一代会计师的培训过程中，公共价值一方面体现在培养全球经济发展所需的人才上，另一方面体现在所提供的渠道上，不管其背景如何，能够帮助有才能的个人进入会计师行业。如果缺少与各种组织的合作，我们便无法实现这一目标。

很多时候，一个人出生的环境已经描绘出了其未来的职业方向。经济状况不好的孩子，可能无法接触到高端职业，从而丧失能够发挥其全部潜力，为社会做出贡献的机会。他们个人的失败，就是我们社会整体的损失。

特许公认会计师公会一直对这种状况存有异议，在1904年创立之初就表达了拓展行业准入的意愿。拥有了专业资格如同拥有护照一样，个人可以依靠才能而非背景来提升自己的社会地位。

公共价值也有助于推动我们的研究和深入了解工作。我们已经投资开展了一些研究项目，旨在探索当今会计业和商界面临的部分重大问题：比如审计的未来、小企业融资渠道、商业风险与报酬、环境可持续性以及财务团队的工作方式等等。我们通过与世界各地众多职业会计组织和大学建立国际伙伴关系，来共同开展这些工作。

通过深入发展现代职业和会计实务、洞悉商业人士的动机和想法，以及探悉企业和社会对会计师的各种要求，我们可以引导这一行业更好的发展。

最后，综上所述，我们通过会员来实现公共价值。我们确保会员在获得职业资格前训练有素，要求他们获得职业资格后能够与时俱进，并期待他们在任何时候都以专业的态度以及符合道德标准的方式开展工作。我们的会员对公共价值的贡献可能是最为显著的，他们在不同国家、不同行业、不同规模的企业中日复一日地工作，他们正是企业不断发展的推动力。

自金融危机发生以来，职业会计组织在企业中发挥着日益重要的核心作用，不但提供更广泛的战略建议，而且还开展了传统财务职能之外的其他一些工作。通过把在培训中学到的理论知识付诸实践，并遵循所代表行业的价值观，合格的会计师有机会将公共价值理念在整个商界进行传播，同时重新定义企业成功的标准。

无论是通过提供机会、增强洞察力，还是以不同的视角审视商业价值，会计师、会计师行业、会计师专业团队都将为实现公共价值而不懈努力。如果能正确发挥我们的自身作用，不管是有才能的个人，还是最大规模的企业，我们都将帮助其在实现公共价值中发挥应有的作用。

总而言之，无论从国内还是国际视角出发，监管者、从业者以及职业会计组织只有携手合作、共同努力，才能建立起一个更好的行业，为当地以及国际范围的企业和经济体服务。推动职业会计组织协作，实现公共价值，无疑将增进企业价值，并提高公众的信任度。

谢谢大家！

Professional Accounting Organisations Working Together to Deliver Public Value:

 

Ladies, gentlemen, colleagues and friends,

 

I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak to you today on the topic of professional accounting organisations working together to deliver public value. But before I begin, I would like to thank both the CICPA and CAPA for organising this highly timely and thought provoking conference.

 

Very briefly, for those who may not know I’m representing – ACCA – the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. It is a global body for professional accountants who offer business-relevant, first-choice qualifications to people of application, ability and ambition around the world who seek a rewarding career in accountancy, finance and management.

 

Through our network of 80 offices and more than 8,500 approved employers worldwide ACCA supports 147,000 members and 424,000 students in 170 countries, helping them to develop successful careers in accounting and business with the skills required by employers.

 

We also conduct relevant research to ensure that the reputation and influence of the accountancy profession continues to grow, providing public value in society.

 

In my view we are also a fine example of a professional accountancy body working in partnership - collaborating and co-operating - with others around the world. Our partnerships cover many different fields – including joint qualifications, professional development, regulation and monitoring, and technical consultancy. We are committed to the highest global quality standards, while reflecting the needs and aspirations of our partners. We have at least 600 plus MoUs with professional bodies and employers, including with CICPA.

 

This brings me nicely on to the subject of professional accounting organisations working together to deliver public value. I strongly believe that accountants and professional accounting organisations bring value to economies in all stages of development.  The financial crisis and its aftermath have justifiably prompted a re-evaluation of what ‘value’ really means in the business world. The past decade might have seen impressive economic growth, but this was growth at a cost; it was growth based on excessive risk-taking, with narrow, short-term business interests placed ahead of those of wider society.

 

Given the effects of the financial crisis – recessions, job losses, austerity measures, and continuing crises of confidence – we need to look at how we measure value and work better together. Should accounting organisations just look at balance sheets and profit statements, focusing just on the financials, or should we be focusing on the wider value that business brings to the public and society?

 

This second type of value – public value – is a particularly important one for the professional accounting organisations and accountants more generally.

 

To serve business effectively, accounting organisations need to have the trust of the public and business. Without trust, the work and input of these organisations have little credibility.

 

Consider a few of the typical things that accounting organisations do: the preparation of financial statements, the provision of strategic guidance for business, or the provision of assurance services. The value of this work depends on accountants being seen to be able to take an objective and ethical approach; an approach that delivers public value. If the accounting profession is seen as failing to operate in a way that protects society’s interests, then its value to business is lost.

 

More specifically, public value means the delivery of services that defend and grow public resources, from financial resources through to environmental or human capital. These are the values that professional accounting organisations should collectively support and extol.

 

For accounting organisations, public value means providing advice that leads to sustainable business growth and new, ethical opportunities being found. It means stepping in to make a positive difference to public life, rather than acting for purely commercial reasons. Accounting organisations have a positive role to play in working together to make a difference to public life through promoting sustainable growth and strong ethics.

 

They also have a key role to work in partnership at the local and global levels to develop accountants for the future which meet the strategic needs of businesses.

 

Back in 2010, when we spoke to business leaders around the world about how they used their finance functions; nearly 9 out of 10 business leaders said that accountants’ contribution to guiding strategy would be important or critical going forward. Strategic business skills, leadership skills, and business strategy know-how were all identified as the skills demanded of accountants by business leaders. It will be important for professional accounting organisations to work together to deliver these skills for the future.

 

The best accounting organisations defend the principles of robust corporate governance, they facilitate sustainable access to finance, and they consistently apply the highest ethical standards in their work. The combined voice of professional accounting organisations around the world on issues such as ethics and sustainable finance could make the message so much stronger. 

 

Turning back to ACCA, as a chartered body, qualifying and regulating accountants, we take our public value remit very seriously indeed. It’s our aim to both deliver public value as a professional body through partnerships and networks to support the wider profession as it seeks to deliver public value too.

 

For us, delivering public value takes several different forms.

 

For example, public value can be seen in our training of future generations of accountants, both in terms of developing the global economy’s workforce and in terms of providing access to the accountancy profession to talented individuals regardless of their background. We cannot do this without working in partnership with a myriad of organisations.

 

Too often, children’s future careers are mapped out for them by the circumstances of their birth. For the poorest, top careers are closed off, and the opportunity to contribute their full potential to society is wasted. The individual loses out, we all lose out.

 

ACCA has always disagreed with this state of affairs, and was founded in 1904 with the express intent of breaking open access to the professions. Professional qualifications can be the passports of social mobility, recognising talent, not background.

 

Public value also helps drive our research & insights work, which has seen us invest in a research programme designed to explore some of the issues confronting today’s accountancy and business worlds: the future of audit; access to finance for small businesses; risk and reward in business; environmental sustainability; and the way finance teams work. We deliver this work through forging international partnerships with a range of accounting bodies and universities across the world.

 

By developing deeper into contemporary business and accountancy practices, by finding out what makes business people tick, by asking what it is businesses and society need from their accountants, we can help change the profession for better.

 

Lastly, and as outlined above, we deliver public value through our members. We ensure our members are well-trained before they qualify, we require them to keep up-to-date after they qualify, and we expect them to act in a professional and ethical fashion at all times. The public value contribution of our members is possibly the most obvious. It’s our members working day-to-day in businesses of different sizes, throughout different sectors, and in different countries; they’re the ones keeping the wheels of business turning.

 

Since the financial crisis, qualified professional accounting organisations have played increasingly central roles in businesses, providing greater input into strategy and working well outside of the traditional finance function. By putting their training into action and following through on the values of the profession they represent, qualified accountants have the opportunity to spread the public value message throughout the business world and redefine how businesses measure success.

 

Whether it’s through providing opportunity, adding insight, or viewing value differently in business, accountants, the accountancy profession, and accountants’ professional bodies are there to deliver public value. If we play our part right, we’ll help others – from talented individuals to the biggest businesses – play their own part in delivering public value too.

 

To conclude, it is only through working together, with the input of regulators, practitioners and professional bodies and with views from national and international levels, that we can build a better profession that services businesses and economies locally and globally. Professional accounting organisations working together to promote public value will mean added value to businesses and improved public trust.

 

Thank you for listening.