The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Belize

ISSUES

The Bye-Laws which govern the practices of the Territorial Institutes do not currently address all of these issues. There is therefore a need to harmonise these rule setting standards in the respective institutes.

Small practicing members have either reported extreme difficulty in securing the necessary indemnity insurance or securing it at high cost. ICAC might therefore have to assume the responsibility of becoming the negotiating body for securing the indemnity insurance for these members.

Monitoring

This is the heart of the Peer Review Process. It is the process where firms are monitored (by he ICAC Monitoring Team) to ensure rules are adhered to and standards of work maintained. Monitoring will involve visiting firms and verifying that they have complied with rules and standards. Monitoring rules will have to be devised which address issues such as:

· Will the review process examine compliance with rules relating to accounting and practice management?

· Are the resources adequate and are the individuals concerned committed?

· Who will be responsible for planning and determining which firms are to be reviewed, how often and when?

· How will reviewers be properly trained?

· How will the review procedures be developed and what will be included?

· What reports will be issued and to whom will they be addressed?

· How will reviews be evaluated and graded?

· What encouragement will be given to firms to rectify deficiencies?

· What quality controls will be put in place to ensure the integrity of the results of reviews?

In the ACCA environment, in the first instance, where breaches of rules or non compliance with standards are not considered to be very serious, the monitoring visit provides advice and guidance to firms as to how the deficiencies can be rectified. Where breaches of rules or non compliance with standards is serious and/or repeated, regulatory action will need to be taken.

Issues

The Big 5 firms have taken the view that their operations are already subject to monitoring in the form of international inter-office reviews and that the ICAC Peer review System would be superfluous and an additional cost. ICAC’s response in dealing with this concern should be to suggest that in the event that the Big 5 firms are covered by the peer review system, that their inter-office review systems be compliance tested and if found to be in good order, then no detailed reviews of working papers be performed.