ACCA’s global forums bring together experts from around the world to help ACCA understand key issues, trends and developments across the profession.
In all, there are 13 forums:
Accountancy Futures Academy
Accountants for business (see AB May)
Audit and assurance (see AB April)
Business law (see AB September)
Corporate reporting (see AB July/August)
Education (see AB April)
Ethics (see AB June)
Governance, risk and performance
Public sector
SMEs (see AB July/August)
Sustainability
Taxation (see AB September)
Technology (see AB May).
At the forums, experts from business, practice, the public sector and the academic world come together to debate professional hot topics, which ACCA feeds into its research and professional insights work.
ACCA is frequently called on to present its views on the profession, or to comment on wider business or society generally. The fact that ACCA has engaged with its members on these topics puts it in a strong position to respond.
This in turn helps ACCA to lead the profession, influence public policy and regulation, and shape business practices on key issues.
Inform and support
The ACCA Global Forum for the Public Sector has been particularly busy lately. With over US$9 trillion in public funds spent in six months to combat the global effects of Covid-19, public sector organisations have been front and centre in civil society.
‘The role of the forum isn’t just to inform our research and insights work at ACCA,’ says Alex Metcalfe, ACCA’s head of public sector policy. ‘It’s also to support our members in their advocacy work within public sector organisations, so it’s been an extraordinary time.’
The forum has been discussing how the public sector can be agile in its response to Covid-19, but it has also, Metcalfe says, been about ‘keeping the receipts during a time of rapid response, as well as maintaining the necessary governance processes’, since the opportunity for fraud at this time is unprecedented.
This attention has included cross-cutting work with other forums, such as the Global Forum for Business Law, which has recently been focusing on economic crime, bribery and corruption.
But the forum’s important work must continue despite the pressing concerns of the pandemic. ‘We’re working in particular on how IPSAS 42 – the social benefits standard – is being implemented,’ Metcalfe explains. ‘Public sector pensions are a ticking timebomb, and in some countries – minus coronavirus spending – public sector pensions come close to or exceed national debt.’
Expertise
With 18 members, the public sector forum is a large one with a wide range of expertise. ‘We have CFOs of local authorities, auditors general and senior civil servants – and from all over the world, too, including Canada, Kenya and Sri Lanka,’ Metcalfe says.
Of the forum’s recent work, Metcalfe says that members have been contributing to the agenda and speaker list for ACCA’s 10th Annual Public Sector Conference on 4 December 2020, which this year will be virtual.
