Every year thousands of students consider career in audit.  We are interested in what these students think auditing should be like in the future. What role should their profession play in business and society? What institutions should have the responsibility for providing audit services and what should they look and behave like? Do we have too much or too little auditing? Could audit be doing different things? Could auditors be different people or just different in their outlook? Listening to the voices of students is essential in understanding the role of the profession in 21st century society.

What would make you proud to be in a profession?

We invite you to join a project seeking to identify what it means nowadays to be a profession; or rather what are the attributes and qualities that you want from the profession of your choosing?

Our first event of the AuditFutures University programme will be in Manchester on Monday, 29 April in the afternoon. Join the brightest students from the University of Manchester and the Manchester Metropolitan University in an open discussion with academics and professionals.

• What are the major social challenges of the 21st century and what is most important to you?
• What are the qualities needed for socially minded leadership in your future profession?
• What is the role of professions, especially auditing, in rebuilding public trust in key social, business and regulatory institutions?

By methodically distilling the insights from the two assemblies and from the consultations with diverse group of stakeholders, we have better understanding of what should be the target areas of systemic change in audit. Accordingly, we have built a model of the spectrum of innovation needed based on the four areas of: the role of audit in society, the structure of audit institutions, the relevance of information, and the behaviour of people in audit. We are now implementing projects and programmes in these areas and expanding our international influence.

Download the second edition of the AuditFutures Panorama newsletter

There is a vacuum in public trust, created by failing institutions. We often rush to be fill this space with left brain approaches that lead to bureaucracy, micromanagement and overregulation. What makes our initiative unique is that we take a broader and systemic approach. We look at the opportunities for the audit profession to be part of the answer to the challenges ahead.

We are not interested in Greek tragedies that focus on dramatic problems and blaming our ills on others. Such stories have a single hero in the role of the leader, like Jason, who led the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece.

In our journey today there are no individual heroes. This is about the public interest. We are all heroes.

AuditFutures reflects the world we are living in today. This is about us being connected, about linking individuals. It is about the paradigm shift from the individualistic society of the 20th century to the world of connected networks. It is about us working together.

So this is our Golden Fleece – the triumph of the team player. The triumph of the higher collective purpose over the ambitions of the individual ego.

I think this is what has captured the imagination of so many of us. This is the momentum that the Audit and Assurance Faculty of the ICAEW has set out to build and this is the movement that the Finance Innovation Lab initiated on 4th of July. This is our AuditSpring.

We are taking radical new approach and inspiring not only people from the profession but also academics, think tanks, policy-makers, standard setters, investors, bankers, and leaders from the civil society. We have all come to work together. Using the proven facilitation methods of the Finance Innovation Lab we hosted participatory discussions in small groups. We have discovered new ways of how we can work together and have understood that collaboration is needed in order to achieve a significant goal.

We have gained a deeper understanding on the need to innovate and have identified innovation themes that we want to explore further. Over the last few months we have been building our collective intelligence and synthesizing our insights.

We have conducted lengthy internal and external consultations with a large number of professionals. The aim of each conversation has been to open up a deeper discussion around the innovation areas of audit that were identified in the 1st Assembly. These lengthy interviews with stakeholders have helped us to create a sense of community, to develop a strong network and to gain knowledge into the fundamental issues and questions that we are trying to address.

We have distilled our ideas and thinking into something more concrete that has given us further insight into how change happens in the profession. This has enabled us to develop an understanding of the broader systemic areas where innovation is needed. Further analysis has enabled us to develop the following model, which describes how change happens in the audit profession.

These are the four areas for systemic change in audit that we want to develop further. They are the four pathways that we have to collectively take. They are not alternatives that we have to choose from but simultaneous work at different levels. They interconnect and interact with each other and create the spectrum of change for greater systemic impact. This model organises our thinking on innovation in audit in the four areas of society, profession, information and people.

Society. Fundamental to our work is the definition of the purpose and the role of audit in our society. We need to understand better the demand for audit and what the dynamic in the market for trust is. How can we reframe and repurpose the role of audit in society?

Institutions: the supply side of the profession – this focuses on the question of how we do audit and how we organise the profession. the structure of the firms, policy process, our regulatory framework. How does this change our practices and institutional forms?

Information: what information do we include in audit and what is the content of audit? How does this change the scope and meaning of the information used?

People: Competency skills and behaviour that can drive change within the profession What new competencies and behaviours are needed?

The last assembly was about the need to innovate audit so that it best serves society. Today we are focusing on the purpose of audit, looking at its fundamental first principles. in the afternoon, we will look into the specific areas of innovation that we can collectively take further into incubation.

We look forward to an interesting discussion today.

We will be delighted if you would join us for the pivotal Second Assembly on 7 December. Following its successful launch in July, AuditFutures has created a positive momentum in the debate on the role of the audit in rebuilding trust in business institutions and confidence in markets.

We want to fulfil this mandate by refining our vision for audit fit for the 21st century and by prototyping the innovation pathways that will deliver this vision. Over a hundred participants from a variety of backgrounds including accounting firms, academia, investors and businesses will be working together to achieve our aims.

In building our collective intelligence, we have gained insights and deeper understanding of the opportunities for innovation. Now is the time to take action.

“… as we’ve said:

the train’s already left the station

‘cos there are no more prizes

for predicting the rain, the pain.

There’re just prizes for building the arcs,

new starts…”

Join us on Wednesday, 26 September from 5:30 in the Cellar of the Gable (25 Moorgate, London EC2R 6AR).

Please RSVP to Martin Martinoff.

One of the surprises in the morning session of the First Assembly, was the audit slam poem by Tim Merry, who eloquently captured the key themes and insights from the Audit Cafe.

…so, how about that for innovation

the creation…. like I’ve said:

the train’s already left the station

‘cos there are no more prizes

for predicting the rain, the pain.

There just prizes for building the arcs,

new starts…

Tim’s poem inspired others to write and recite witty poems:

An old audit partner said ‘damn’ I’m really concerned I now am

A creature that moves

In predestinate grooves

Not a bus, not a bus, but a tram.

 

There’s IFRS with its rule

And ISAs that really aren’t cool Each box must be ticked

Or else I’ll get nicked

I might just as well be at school

Adapted by Stella Fearnley

Malcolm Bacchus brought skillful political satire into our exotic expression of audit:

As these days it has happened and a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list,
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
 And who never would be missed. They never would be missed.

All those who claim to understand what is IFRS,
Those who turned accounting sense into accounting mess;
There are those who do discounting as if it’s meaningful,
But can’t remember how to do the sums they learnt at school,
And that academic oddity, the accounting specialist -
I’m sure they’d not be missed, they’d none of them be missed.

And Such-and-Such and so and so with BSB and Sky;
The tabloid journalist – I know he’d not be missed.
Regulators who can’t regulate but think they ought to try.
They’d none of them be missed, they’d none of them be missed.

And then there’s those who run the banks and muddle with LIBOR
The ones who sold expensive loans but only to the poor.
The one who thinks he’s really worth his million dollar pay
But lending to small companies isn’t something for today.
They drive off in Ferraris and on champagne get pissed -
Let’m go to their tax havens for they never would be missed.

 The party politicians who have caused this awful mess
- and the Government specialist. I’ve got him on the list!
They don’t understand the people and they really don’t care less.
They never would be missed, they never would be missed.

Chancellors who do u-turns and MPs who are such bores -
Whose legislation’s failed us but still think we need more laws.
The one who works behind the scenes but says he never speaks
You know the people who I mean – they’re shamed on Wiki-leaks.
It seems that there are endless names to put upon the list
But it really doesn’t matter – for they’d none of them be missed.

 

(C) Malcolm Bacchus with thanks to W S Gilbert, to the music, quite unsurprisingly, of Sir Arthur Sullivan.

July 2012

For higher resolution version for print, please contact Martin Martinoff.