HOME PAGE | FACTFILES | QUOTES | COMMENT FORM |

ISP Chartered Accountants

Punica fide (with Carthaginian trustworthiness; meaning the opposite)

Sallust - Gaius Sallustius Crispus

Members will be aware that ISP Chartered Accountants did not get re-appointed as auditors at the 2006 AGM, for the simple reason that they had approved and signed ACU&S' Accounts to 31st October 2004 although, as ISP admitted the following year, these had been inflated by an entirely fictional sponsorship to the tune of no less than £100,000.

Those Accounts were prepared by Chris Rawson. It was his name which appeared on them and he was about to sign the letter to ISP submitting them for audit, when it was realised at the last minute that the 'real' Treasurer was Peter Freeman. The name on the letter was changed accordingly and Freeman signed it.

Not that it mattered much whose name it was. They, and the then and still Assistant Treasurer, Martin Reed - how come he has not resigned? - were copied with all the e-mails which flashed to and fro as Barrie King (or Stuart-King, as he prefers) got ever more panicky at having agreed leases for which there was no money in the kitty. They were all in it up to their ears, together with David Brandon who was King's right-hand man as both cruised the country - at your expense - campaigning for (Stuart-)King's re-election under the guise of conducting "roadshows", spreading the word about the all new singing-and-dancing technological Association, and how they would soon convert it to an Institute.

A week before the 2005 AGM, a group of fifty-odd members wrote to ISP, saying that they had doubts about the validity of the Accounts, giving questions they wanted to put, and asking ISP to attend the attend. ISP sent a patronising reply, declining to be present. On reflection, they may feel that the fare to Durham would have been worth it because on 12th January the Chartered Institute of Accountants sent us this:

INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE CONSENT ORDER - 2 JANUARY 2007

With the agreement of ISP of 118-120 Kenton Road, Harrow, Middlesex, the Investigation Committee made an order that the firm be severely reprimanded, fined £5,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,500 with respect to a complaint that:

on 29 January 2005 ISP signed an unqualified audit report in respect of the financial statements for 'X' for the year ended 31 October 2004 when the audit had not been conducted in accordance with the following Auditing Standards:

(i) SAS400 'Audit Evidence' in that the firm failed to obtain sufficient, appropriate audit evidence in respect of debtors and sponsorship income; and

(ii) SAS460 'Related Parties' in that the firm failed to obtain sufficient audit evidence regarding the adequacy of the disclosure of related party transactions.

For those who have not followed the story closely we can explain that the SAS460 failure came about because BSK signed - illegibly, and with no name printed underneath - the letter allegedly guaranteeing payment of the £100,000. Of course, Rawson and Freeman knew who it was, but they must have forgotten to tell ISP, and ISP must have forgotten to ask. And, as we have said somewhere else, Rawson sent a credit note to cancel the debt on 6th April, less than three weeks after the AGM had passed the Accounts. An e-mail telling everyone of this - Freeman, Keith Smith, Reed (not resigned yet!) - was sent that day. This was a very strange thing to happen when one reads Minute 34 which reads like this: "Referring to suggestions from certain quarters [us!] that General Council, the Executive Board, the Finance Board and the Association's Auditors had, in some way, colluded to deliberately conceal a £60,000 loss, the Treasurer said they were not only a slur on the integrity of those bodies but absolute nonsense." In way he was right. Not very, though, as was evident well inside three weeks with the sponsorship evaporating faster than morning mist.

In Minute 90, "Speaking as a representative of the East Surrey ACU&S, Mr P Turner referred to a wide circulation of e-mails which had accompanied the election for chairman, initiated and continued by supporters of the challenger and which had been characterised on their side neither by logical argument nor passionate debate. Terming it the most disgraceful episode that he and his colleagues had ever been unfortunate to witness......" and so on, until he concluded by "offering his association's extreme thanks to Mr Stuart-King for all his hard work over the past three years." As can be seen elsewhere on this site, we have begged BSK and his bosom buddies to supply evidence - any evidence at all - of this alleged e-mail campaign, but they have come up with not a single one. We wonder if perhaps Mr Turner might care to re-think the comments he offered? Maybe, even offer some kind of apology?

Another addressee of the cancellation-credit-note e-mail was Graham Bullock, who taped the AGM and then wrote up the Minutes for publication in the mid-season edition No.299, of How's That? Are we being too naive in thinking that this event, transforming totally the accounts passed only a few weeks before, was enough to merit him adding a note of some kind to those Minutes, so that members could know what was happening to the Association, which now proposes - so we read - to make him an Honorary Member?

And, if he tried to do so but was censored by BS-K, by now running the Media and Marketing Board and therefore controlling, with his puppet Rebours, what went into How's That? - which was why Dave Burden, elected as Chairman but undermined by BS-K's controlling junta and with shamefully little support from most other councillors, was unable to get his statement published to members about the shambles he had found - could Mr Bullock not have let a few people know quietly? Are we being too harsh in saying that this looks to us where his duty to the members truly lay? He had all our addresses and telephone numbers at hand and he was employed by all of us, not just King. Perhaps some action could then have been taken at a time when the damage could have been limited. Think about it.