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Assess the 15.8 per cent rise against body’s own strategic goals, two high-profile members say.
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CA ANZ pay vote ‘a chance to channel frustration’
25 October 2022
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Two high-profile chartered accountants have urged Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) members to channel their “negative” feelings about the body by voting on a 15.8 per cent pay rise for directors this week.
Using social media and a podcast released yesterday, David Boyar of Change GPS and Paul Meissner of 5ways Group say members should assess the board against CA ANZ’s own five-pillar strategy in making their decision.
Both give the body fail marks and say the pay rise should be denied on merit but say voting is crucial regardless where members stand.
“You cannot be in the accounting industry and not sense the vibe of anger, disappointment, frustration at the lack of service and support given by member bodies towards public practising accountants,” Mr Boyar said
“It touches on almost every area of practice life. You talk to an accountant and it comes up, you jump in a Facebook group you see it, you go to a Xero kind of technology conference and every second person’s talking about it.”
Mr Meissner said the online vote, due by Wednesday morning, gave members the chance to “do something about it”.
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During the podcast, they run through CA ANZ’s five strategic pillars and award marks from zero to five.
The five pillars are:
- Word class member experience
- Our brand and influence
- Sustainable profession and professional body
- Digital transformation and delivery
- A culture of difference makers
The harshest comments involved accountability and integrity in the wake of the KPMG exam cheating scandal, which generated a wave of anger among members because it punished only a handful of the hundreds acknowledged to be involved and failed to name the culprits.
“That KPMG thing really, really rattled a lot of members in public practice,” Mr Meissner said. “I just think there's no accountability … the structure of CA ANZ is set up to keep those in power, in power.”
By the end of the podcast, Mr Meissner had awarded just 4 points from a possible 25 and while Mr Boyar was more generous, with 13 points, he said “it’s not good enough to get a pay rise in my book”.
He encouraged members to repeat the exercise and make “a decision for yourself”.
CA ANZ said the idea that members were being asked to vote on a pay-rise at Friday’s AGM was “incorrect and misleading”.
“Members have been asked to vote on an increase to the total remuneration pool used to pay fees to directors, the president and the vice-presidents by $150,000,” it said. “The pool is to cover 12 directors and includes mandatory increases in superannuation over several years.
“The outcome of this vote does not automatically increase the salaries of directors or executives of CA ANZ. This increase has been recommended by independent remuneration specialist Mercer Consulting and, if approved, would be the first increase since 2019.
“If passed, the Nominations and Governance Committee will separately consider if it is appropriate to increase any fees and the amount, based on factors such as inflation and the need to attract and retain experienced candidates.
“As they acknowledge themselves, the podcasters’ assessment of CA ANZ’s performance against the organisation’s strategic pillars are based on their own opinions rather than factual evidence.
“For example, the suggestion that the deficit in this year’s Annual Report indicates CA ANZ’s is ‘losing money’ overlooks that this deficit was a deliberate decision made by the board in mid-2021 to accelerate our digital and data transformation.
“In the past financial year, we also grew membership by 2.1 per cent and revenue by 1.5 per cent. We look forward to engaging with our members on these issues and much more, at our AGM this week."
Mr Boyar told Accountants Daily that getting members involved was more important than the outcome of the remuneration vote itself.
“There's this general unhappiness about Chartered Accountants — all the professional bodies — there's an opportunity to have a voice and I think we should take advantage of that opportunity.”
“I never really want to get rid of my designation. But I do think that CA makes a lot of promises and commitments to us and, as I commented on the show, we’ve got a five-pillar strategy and if they just got rid of some of those strategic items I’d probably think they were doing a better job.
“But they promise these things and it doesn't feel like we get it.”
The voting process involves following a link from an email sent to CA ANZ’s 134,000 members on October 20.
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