ICA insolvency regulation to be reduced
The English ICA is braced for trouble over proposals to halve the number of regulatory and oversight visits it makes to licensed insolvency practitioners.
A new monitoring programme, to be announced shortly, will recommend that the present visiting system of once every three years be made more flexible and allow for longer times between visits.
Raymond Fear, director of practice regulation at the institute, said: ‘Desktop monitoring is the approach we use for investment business and audit monitoring. I don’t see why we should repeat visits just for repeating’s sake. You’re just spending money for the sake of it and it’s absolutely ridiculous.’
However, Anthony Booth, director of professional standards at ACCA, said: ‘They want to reduce the number of visits to reduce costs. But there remains significant evidence of wrong-doing in the insolvency profession.’
A spokesman for the Department of Trade & Industry, which is responsible for overall regulation, said: confirmed that it was in negotiations with the English ICA.’
Fear said he believed that the institute’s regulatory efforts should be targeted at those who ‘give grounds to be concerned about’. ‘Practitioners do not have a problem with their perception of monitoring, it is the charging that they don’t like,’ he said.
‘But we have given appointment takers in the lowest bands a reduction of up to 58% in fees over the last two years
