Public Consultation Toolkit - Civil Service College

Public Consultation Toolkit 49 50 Public Consultation Toolkit
Case 13:
Registration framework for public accountants
Agency/country:
• Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), Singapore
Background:
• ACRA launched a consultation exercise in July 2007 to seek views on whether the registration
framework for public accountants was sufficiently relevant and robust.
Consultation Process:
• ACRA engaged the profession and the business community by publishing the consultation
report 2007 and the final report 2008 at ACRA’s annual Public Accountants Conference (PAC).
The PAC was well attended by public accountants and representatives from the business
community, with an average attendance of 500-700 persons. The PAC was therefore an
effective channel for the consultation exercise.
• ACRA pro-actively consulted the various stakeholders through focus group discussions,
“consultation clinics”, written submissions and print media. The focus group sessions were
useful, particularly for a number of the audit firms whose “peak season” occurred during the
ACRA consultation period. Feedback was received from a number of firms that would not
otherwise have provided their feedback during the consultation, as they were not able to
devote their staff to prepare the written feedback (in one example, it was felt that having 10
partners (senior management in audit firms) spend 2 hours to provide feedback to the ACRA
team was more cost effective to the firm, compared to a few man days writing and vetting
the feedback.
• The stakeholders included public accounting entities (the big four firms), professional bodies
(e.g., ACCA, CPA Australia), academics and general public.
• The public consultation exercise took place over two months.
• Closing the loop via ACRA’s annual Public Accountants Conference.
• In 2008, ACRA closed the loop via a presentation to round up its consultation exercises.
Outcomes:
• The final report of the consultation outcomes were also posted on the ACRA website at
http://www.acra.gov.sg/News_and_Events/Public+Accountants+Conference+2008.htm
• Quality feedback and validation of ACRA’s Statements of policy intent and regulatory
strategy: Stakeholders provided valuable feedback which supported and validated many
of ACRA’s observations and proposals. At the ACRA conference which was well attended by
the majority of the public accounting firms registered with ACRA, the ACRA representative
also addressed feedback which did not translate into eventual policy decisions, or where
the original proposal put forth for consultation was modified after due consideration of
feedback.
• Timely action resulting in good reputation of ACRA as a responsive government agency: The
participants were pleased to note that ACRA did a prompt follow-through on the issue of the
then “talent crunch” faced by the accounting profession, by committing to a review of the list
of recognised qualifications for registering public accountants.
Learning points:
• Given the segmented nature of the public accountancy profession, the consultation enabled
ACRA to better understand the diverse concerns of different stakeholder groups. The strategy
to extensively reach out and engage different stakeholder groups ensured comprehensive
coverage of the profession’s interest.
• ACRA closed the loop effectively with participants and stakeholders through:
(a) A well-documented report of the consultation exercise. The consultation
report is available on the ACRA website at: http://www.acra.gov.
sg/NR/rdonlyres/4C5D29D8-A7BC-4216-B951-18D47EAF0789/9845/
TheRegistrationFrameworkforPublicAccountantsPathto.pdf
(b) Arranging for the final report (post consultation) to be presented to the consulted
parties, at an annual ACRA conference. In so doing, the consulted parties received
the benefit of a face-to-face presentation, as well as the opportunities to clarify any
remaining questions which they had on the policies being consulted.
(c) Posting the presentation slides (outlining the outcome of the consultation exercise) on
ACRA’s website. In so doing, the information contained in the “closing the loop” phase of
the consultation process is “preserved” for future reference. It also helped ACRA maintain
its reputation for being a transparent and responsive regulator.