Catching up on tv #2 - House of Lords enquiry
Posted by Christie Malry on October 25, 2010 at 9:59 am
The heads of various accountancy bodies were earning their keep last week when they were summoned to explain themselves in front of the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords.
You can see Helen Brand (ACCA), Robert Hodgkinson (ICAEW), Charles Tilley (CIMA) and Iain McLaren (ICAS) battle it out against some occasionally baffling questions from a bunch of Lords, including Lord Lawson, former Chancellor (and Nigella's dad). I mean, why does Lawson think auditors could spot systemic risk when everyone else - the regulators, government, the company's own board of directors and senior management, shareholders, and ordinary people - didn't? Auditors are good, for sure, but they're hardly superheroes.
The best bit comes when one of the Lords asks if it would be a good idea for auditors to review more of the front half of the financial statements. Oh yes, drool Brand, Tilley and McLaren, thinking about all the money this will bring their members. "Are you lot all fooking mad?" Hodgkinson thinks, before pointing out that there might be just one or two little problems with this idea. Well, it's about as good as chartered accountancy gets.
Watch it here (sorry, the Parliament's embedder is garbage, so use this instead. If it stops working, let me know as I have the file downloaded).
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