Accountants may be pondering how their professional bodies are faring as Britain emerges from recession. You need wonder no more, because it's their annual reporting season, so we can assess their performance.

Having flicked through a couple of reports, I'm struck by how the accounting bodies seem to have emerged unscathed from the crisis by putting the squeeze on their own staff:

ICAS

ICAS's summary and full financial statements are available here and here.

In 2010, ICAS staff will be getting no pay rise at all, following on from a year where they got 2.5%:

ICAS's directors weren't so unfortunate, however. Anton Colella, the chief executive, got a £41,000 bonus, and the other directors shared a pool of £45,000, up from £37,000 in 2008.

ICAEW

ICAEW's annual report and accounts are available here and here.

There's a similar story at the ICAEW. Only theirs is more brazen. First, they tell us just how tight things were in 2009, with staff having their pay frozen:

Things weren't so tight that they couldn't find a bit of money to pay their directors what's rather euphemistically described as "deferred variable pay".

Er, so you mean a "bonus" right? Isn't this a bizarre bit of obfuscation from a body which promotes the merits of transparent reporting?

Perhaps they want to hide the fact that, while staff received no pay rise for the year, directors walked away with nearly a quarter of a million quid in bonuses.

People who read this post also read:

• The ICAEW annual review and AGM 2011
• Ritchie on the teaching of accountancy
• KPMG and bonuses for trainees, a personal reflection
• How much do the Institutes cost in 2012?
• A meta-review of the EC audit reform proposals

Filed under: Accounting, Financial management, Institutes with tags bonuses, icaew, icas