عرض العناصر حسب علامة : المملكة المتحدة
الأربعاء, 21 سبتمبر 2022 13:24
كورونا وعدم المساواة بين الجنسين
ما هي تأثيرات كوفيد -19 على المساواة بين الجنسين؟
معلومات إضافية
-
المحتوى بالإنجليزية
The Social and Economic Impacts of COVID-19 Have Not Been Gender-blind – Neither Should Our Response
RACHEL BLEETMAN | MARCH 8, 2021
COVID-19 and gender inequality
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every corner of the world and all aspects of society, and the impacts of it will be felt for decades to come. One particular troubling consequence has been its devastating impact on gender inequality. The evidence is clear – the gender inequality gap is widening despite decades of progress that sought to close it.
As a result of the pandemic, women’s employment is 19% more at risk compared to men’s (UN Women 2020) and women are more likely than men to take on unpaid care and domestic work in households. In addition, it is estimated that global domestic violence cases are up around 20% (BBC 2020). For women in more marginalised communities – such as women with disabilities, LBTQ women and women from ethnic minorities, compounding factors have led to even greater discrimination and inequality.
Addressing the crisis
To tackle gender inequality, governments around the world can employ a critically important public policy tool known as gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) when designing COVID-19 economic recovery packages. GRB is defined by UN Women as a ‘process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes, in all areas and at all levels.’ It is importantly, not a process of allocating resources to men or women separately nor is it necessarily about allocating more resources than originally planned. Rather, it is a technical process of assessing existing budget policies to better evaluate their impacts on gender equality as well as being a high-level commitment to combat gender inequality. It is also not a new concept – it has been implemented in some form in over 80 countries (Stotsky 2020) since it was first developed in the 1980s.
To be most effective, gender-responsive budgeting techniques should be found throughout the policy and budget cycle. From the initial policy design, through to design and implementation and of course, in the auditing and evaluation stage. By adding a gendered perspective to each part of the cycle, policymakers and public finance professionals can ensure that they adequately account for the differing needs of men and women in a more holistic way. To promote the use of GRB in the COVID-19 response and to enable public sector finance professionals to employ the tool effectively, ACCA has developed a set of tools and resources to help the profession learn more about GRB and implement it wherever they are based.
An example of how to use gender-responsive budgeting
The UK’s Office of National Statistics releases data on unemployment disaggregated by both sex and sector each quarter. For August to October 2020, the unemployment figures were as follows:
74,000 people were classified as being unemployed in the construction sector. When filtered by sex, it shows that men accounted for 86% of that figure while 14% were women.
So, when designing a policy response aimed at tackling unemployment in the construction sector, it is critical that policymakers consider the gendered impact of what a construction job package might look like. It is clear from the sex-disaggregated data that the majority of end-users of this policy decision and budget allocation will be men. Therefore, subsequent or supplementary measures should be considered to ensure that female-dominated sectors are also prioritised in job retention or reskilling schemes to avoid women being overrepresented in the unemployment figures.
Additionally, exploring qualitative data can help better understand why women are so underrepresented in this sector – what barriers exist that have clearly prevented women from entering the construction sector? And for men, more data could probe thinking around, for example, the impacts of unemployment on mental health. Policymakers could also consider what policies could be used to equip those made unemployed with skills beyond construction. This initial process will encourage a more holistic approach to this particular package to fully understand its broader objectives outside of simply saving jobs. By assessing the impact of the policy on both men and women, policymakers can ensure that this policy response does not unintentionally exacerbate or perpetuate gender inequality.
Having explored the objectives, the next stage involves designing the policy and allocating the adequate resources to ensuring the policy will achieve its intended outcome. To do so, a number of useful techniques can be employed, for example –an equality impact assessment can be carried out to assess the expected impact on both women and men. The policy should also be subject to parliament scrutiny with a gendered lens. It is important to ensure that the way the policy is designed and measured will achieve the ultimate objective. For example, considering whether to use performance-based budgeting to measure outcomes or whether a zero-based budgeting approach would work better if this is a new policy objective.
At the implementation stage, considerations include whether line ministries have the training and capacity to implement the policy, and if sufficient resources have been allocated to achieve the objectives. Importantly, public finance professionals can use an expenditure tracking system to ensure actual spending meets planned spending – this will also improve the audit trail for the final evaluation stage. Finally, the finance professional can help ensure that the policy objective was met – this is where the vital role of auditors comes into play, to assess:
Was the intended objective met?
How mainstreamed was gender throughout the process?
And critically, what should be improved for the next cycle?
Supreme Audit Institutions have a critical role to play in ensuring that governments achieve both the objectives they lay out in budget statements, but also in ensuring governments meet their commitments to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)– in this case, SDG 5 on gender equality.
The central role of the finance profession
As the resources on ACCA’s website outlines, GRB can be implemented in any jurisdiction if certain conditions are in place. The public finance profession can play a key role, wherever they are in the world, to make GRB a reality and to shed a renewed light on COVID-19 and its impact on gender inequality. From ensuring data is disaggregated by sex, using that data to inform policymaking, designing budgets that can measure defined objectives and measuring progress made on achieving those objectives - the public finance profession is at the heart of GRB.
To learn more about what GRB is, where it can be found, how to implement it and what the profession can do to raise awareness of this policy tool, go to ACCA’s website to see our newly published resources and register here for our CPD webinar on GRB and the COVID-19 economic recovery.
نشر في
موضوعات متنوعة
الأربعاء, 21 سبتمبر 2022 12:50
استقالة رئيس شركة كي بي ام جي في المملكة المتحدة بعد أيام من انتقاده للموظفين
استقال رئيس شركة KPMG في المملكة المتحدة بعد أيام من إثارة غضب واسع النطاق لإخباره الموظفين بالتوقف عن الشكوى من الوباء
معلومات إضافية
-
المحتوى بالإنجليزية
KPMG U.K. chair resigns days after slamming ‘victim card’ staff
By Michael Kapoor
February 12, 2021, 1:38 p.m. EST
KPMG’s U.K. chairman has resigned days after sparking widespread anger for telling employees to stop moaning about the pandemic.
Bill Michael, KPMG’s U.K. chair and senior partner since 2017, will leave the firm at the end of the month, admitting that his position had become “untenable.”
He had been placed under investigation after telling KPMG’s financial services consulting team to “stop moaning” and “playing the victim card” when employees voiced concern over possible cuts to their pay and pensions at a virtual meeting Monday.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“I love the firm and I am truly sorry that my words have caused hurt amongst my colleagues and for the impact the events of this week have had on them,” Michael said in an emailed statement Friday. “In light of that, I regard my position as untenable and so I have decided to leave the firm.”
Michael stepped aside from his position as chair on Wednesday for the duration of the investigation and apologized for his comments.
“It’s further evidence of a bullying culture and Bill Michael won’t be the only example of that,” said Prem Sikka, an accounting professor at Sheffield University. “They need to mend the culture and concentrate on improving audit quality rather than bullying staff.”
The pandemic has taken a toll on all professional services firms. KPMG said earlier this month that its partner profits would fall by 11 percent and it said in July, that it would cut as many as 200 jobs from its U.K. workforce.
Senior elected board member Bina Mehta has been named acting U.K. chair, with KPMG saying it would “undertake a leadership election in due course.” Mary O’Connor, KPMG’s head of clients and markets, will take over Michael’s role as senior partner.
“Bill has made a huge contribution to our firm over the last 30 years, especially over the last three years as chairman, and we wish him all the best for the future,” Mehta said.
The move comes as the so-called Big Four accounting firms have faced increasing criticism in Europe. Auditors are under greater scrutiny than ever after a series of high-profile lapses in recent years, with EY’s role in the collapse of German payments provider Wirecard AG now under the microscope.
In the U.K., KPMG has faced fierce criticism over its auditing of Carillion Plc, whose collapse prompted the government to launch a series of inquiries into auditing standards.
نشر في
موضوعات متنوعة
الأربعاء, 21 سبتمبر 2022 09:18
عواقب فضيحة وايركارد تتوالي علي EY
تصاعدت مشاكل Wirecard بالنسبة لشركة Ernst & Young
نشر في
موضوعات متنوعة
الثلاثاء, 27 سبتمبر 2022 14:18
تحديث المعايير الدولية لإعداد التقارير المالية (IFRS) للشركات الصغيرة والمتوسطة لشهر سبتمبر 2020
تحديث المعايير الدولية لإعداد التقارير المالية للمنشآت الصغيرة والمتوسطة هو ملخص فريق العمل للأخبار والأحداث والمعلومات الأخرى حول المعايير الدولية لإعداد التقارير المالية للمؤسسات الصغيرة والمتوسطة
نشر في
محاسبة و مراجعة
الأحد, 06 سبتمبر 2020 14:00
الاجتماع السنوي السابع للمنظمات الدولية
تلعب المنظمات الدولية (IOs) دورًا حاسمًا في دعم التعاون التنظيمي الدولي وفي مساعدة البلدان على تحقيق أهداف سياستها العامة
نشر في
موضوعات متنوعة
الأحد, 19 يوليو 2020 12:17
عضوة مجلس معايير المحاسبة الدولية تناقش فوائد وتكاليف التقارير الرقمية
إعداد التقارير الرقمية -أسئلة للممارسين، واضعي المعايير والباحثين
نشر في
موضوعات متنوعة
الثلاثاء, 04 فبراير 2020 09:30
هل يجب على المراجعين كشف عمليات الغش و الإحتيال؟
هل يجب على المراجعين كشف عمليات الغش و الإحتيال؟
تمت مناقشة هذا السؤال المُعقد لفترة ، ولكن للمرة الأولى ، يجيب تقرير صادر عن حكومة المملكة المتحدة ب "نعم"
معلومات إضافية
-
المحتوى بالإنجليزية
Should an auditor uncover fraud? Or is it the responsibility of directors and managers? That’s a question a government-commissioned report has grappled with as the U.K. attempts to move on from a litany of embarrassing corporate failures.
Overlapping and ambiguous legislation has ensured “there is both confusion and a gap between the reality and the expectations of performance of auditors in this area,” said Donald Brydon, the former Royal Mail Group Ltd. chairman who led the review. It’s the third government investigation in a year to look at regulatory oversight of audit.
On Wednesday, Brydon said for the first time that he wanted the incoming watchdog to make clear that auditors will be required to “endeavor to detect material fraud in all reasonable ways.”
Stung by a string of scandals at prominent British companies including failed government contractor Carillion Plc, authorities demanded reforms to roll back the dominance of the largest firms known as the Big Four -- Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers. A tribunal is currently considering whether auditors at Deloitte were too cozy with senior management at British software firm Autonomy, in the run-up to one of the country’s largest ever corporate writedowns.
“I have found the question of fraud and auditors’ related responsibilities the most complex and most misunderstood,” Brydon said.
The Financial Reporting Council, which is soon to be abolished as industry watchdog, said Brydon’s suggestions would “have significant implications for the FRC in respect of our activities and resource requirements” should the government agree to implement the new rules.
On Tuesday, the FRC moved to cut down on conflicts of interest by strengthening its ethics standards. The changes will prohibit accounting firms from providing a number of advisory services to listed companies and financial institutions.
Brydon pointed out that criticisms have been leveled against auditors for more than 80 years. He finished his 138-page report with a poem from the 1930s: “And according to our figures the enterprise is wrecked / But subject to these comments, the balance sheet’s correct.”
نشر في
محاسبة و مراجعة
الإثنين, 11 نوفمبر 2019 12:07
يوصي المنظمون في المملكة المتحدة بإجراء تغييرات في سوق التدقيق و المراجعة و إعادة الهيكلة
يوصي المنظمون في المملكة المتحدة بإجراء تغييرات في سوق التدقيق و المراجعة و إعادة الهيكلة
نشر في
محاسبة و مراجعة