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ICAEW Regulation and Conduct Annual Report 2024

Protecting the public interest

As a world-leading improvement regulator, ICAEW acts in the public interest and strengthens consumer confidence and trust by holding ICAEW members and firms to high professional standards. Underpinned by independent decision-making, ICAEW delivers impartial and robust assurance to oversight regulators, the profession, the government and the public.

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Access the full Regulation and Conduct Report 2024.

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Our role and commitment

Read how we, as an improvement regulator, protect the public interest by enabling, evaluating and enforcing high standards of professional competency and conduct.

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Independent adjudication and oversight

Find out how ICAEW’s governance structure ensures its regulatory and conduct roles are not influenced by its representative functions.

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Parjinder Basra, Acting Chair, ICAEW Regulatory Board

IRB Acting Chair's Foreword

“I know that this report will bring home to you, as it did to me, just how much work is carried out by ICAEW’s dedicated Professional Standards Department (PSD) staff and the independent regulatory and disciplinary committees, all working to help ICAEW members and firms maintain high professional standards, and to hold them to those standards.”

Parjinder Basra, Acting Chair, ICAEW Regulatory Board
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Duncan Wiggetts, Chief Officer, Professional Standards Department

Chief Officer’s Outlook for 2025

“While we have navigated successfully through a number of challenges during 2024...there are further challenges ahead."

Duncan Wiggetts, Chief Officer, Professional Standards
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KEY STATISTICS

1,996

firms registered for statutory audit* 

348

firms accredited for probate services* 

9,802

firms supervised for compliance with AML regulations*

97%

satisfaction with the management of our monitoring process

1,171

investigations completed**

7m

sponsored and organic social media impressions**

(* as at 31 December 2024)
(** figures for the whole of 2024)

752

licensed insolvency practitioners* 

1,579 

firms authorised to provide investment business advice*

2,398

monitoring reviews carried out**

1,132

new complaint files opened**

1,195

regulatory applications received**

376,990

unique website visits**
Our role is to act in the public interest and to strengthen consumer confidence and trust
Dean Neaves, Senior Manager (DPB and Practice Assurance), Quality Assurance Department
two women sitting at a conference table
Dean Neaves, Senior Manager (DPB and Practice Assurance), Quality Assurance Department

"Countering the myths of self-regulation"

Catherine Boyd (member, ICAEW Regulatory Board) and Duncan Wiggetts (Chief Officer, Professional Standards) challenge the myths around ‘self-regulation’ and explain how independent decision-making lies at the heart of the regulatory regime.
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“Improvement regulation in practice”

Emily Healy-Howell (Director, Regulatory and Conduct) and Rama Krishnan (Chair, Audit Registration Committee) explain what improvement regulation looks like at ICAEW.
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“Finger on the pulse – proactive monitoring in practice”

Dean Neaves (Senior Manager, Quality Assurance Department) and Rebecca Carr (Audit Risk Officer, Quality Assurance Department) explain what proactive monitoring looks like and how it contributes to strengthening public trust and raising professional standards.
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How we achieve our self-financing targets

Read how we maintain a self-financing model for our regulatory work.

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Oversight of ICAEW’s regulatory and conduct roles

Find out which regulators oversee ICAEW’s regulatory and conduct work.

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Roles of ICAEW’s regulatory and disciplinary committees

All significant decisions are made by regulatory and disciplinary committees with a lay majority or lay parity.

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PREVIOUS ANNUAL REPORTS

ICAEW Regulatory and Conduct Annual Report 2023-2024 ICAEW Regulatory and Conduct Annual Report 2022-2023 ICAEW Regulatory Board Annual Report 2021–2022 ICAEW Regulatory Board Annual Report 2020 ICAEW Regulatory Board Annual Report 2019 ICAEW Regulatory Board Annual Report 2018