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ACCA考试P1-P3模拟题及解析14

来源：高顿网校 2014-07-18

　　以下是高顿网校小编为学员整理的：ACCA P1-P3模拟题及解析。

　　Jojo Auditors is an audit practice with five partners. The five partners have worked together for several years and, as well as being work colleagues, are personal friends with each other. At Jojo it is customary for the performance of all student accountants to be appraised after their first year of a training contract using a range of criteria including examination success, technical ability and professionalism. Three levels of outcome are possible:

　　1.‘Good’, allowing students to continue with no issues;

　　2.‘Some concerns’, meaning students are counselled and then allowed to continue; and,

　　3.‘Poor’, where students are dismissed from the audit practice.

　　The appraisal committee is comprised of three people: managing partner Jack Hu, the training manager (both of whom are professional accountants) and the person responsible for human resources. The committee receives confidential reports on each student and makes decisions based on the views of relevant engagement partners and also exam results. It is normally the training manager who makes the recommendation and in most cases his appraisal is agreed and then acted upon accordingly. Because the appraisals are confidential between the student and the firm,the list of students and their appraisal categories are not publicised within the firm.

　　When the 2010 intake was being appraised last year, one student was appraised by the training manager as ‘poor’but was not dismissed. Polly Shah was unpopular among other students because she was considered lazy and technically weak. She also failed a number of her exams. Other students who were appraised as ‘poor’ were dismissed, but Polly received a brief counselling session from Jack Hu and then returned to her duties. Polly stayed for another year and then, having failed more exams, left Jojo to pursue other career interests outside accounting.

　　Polly’s departure triggered some discussion amongst Jojo’s partners as to why she had been retained when other poor performers had not. It later emerged that Jack Hu was a close friend of Polly’s parents and had enjoyed free holidays in the Shah family’s villa for several years. Because he was the managing partner, Mr Hu was able to insist on retaining Polly, despite the objections of the training manager and the human resources representative, although the training manager was reported to be furious at the decision to retain Polly.

　　Required:

　　(a) Define ‘conflict of interest’ and assess the consequences of Jack Hu’s behaviour after Polly Shah’s appraisal.(10 marks)

　　(b) Describe four ethical safeguards that could be used in Jojo to prevent a recurrence of the events like those described in the case. (8 marks)

　　(c) The case raises issues of the importance of senior management performance measurement. In a public company,this refers to directors, and in a privately-owned partnership like Jojo, it refers to partners. The managing partner (Mr Hu’s position) is equivalent to the role of chief executive.

　　Required:

　　Explain the typical criteria used in the performance measurement of individual directors and discuss the reasons why individual performance measurement of partners may be difficult to implement at Jojo.(7 marks)

　　(25 marks)

　　Answer:

　　(a) Conflict of interest and discuss the consequences.

　　Conflict of interest

　　A conflict of interest occurs when a person’s freedom of choice or action is constrained by a countervailing interest, which means that the most objectively correct course of action cannot be taken. The discretion to act correctly is fettered by the need to protect a related but contradictory interest. In the case of Jojo Auditors, Jack Hu experienced a conflict of interest between carrying out the agreed policy of dismissing all students assessed as ‘poor’ (such as Polly Shah) and his familiarity with the Shah family and his making a personal gain from the family in the form of free holidays.

　　Consequences

　　Mr Hu acted against the best interests of the firm including his fellow partners. In his role as managing partner, he owes it to the other partners, and to the employees and clients of the firm, to act responsibly and always in the best interests of the firm. His conflict of interest prevented this from happening.

　　In acting as he did, Mr Hu compromised the other committee members and made them compromise their own professional values. Both the training manager and the representative from human resources are engaged in order to maximise their benefit to Jojo and as managing partner, Mr Hu ‘bullied’ them into accepting his view. This decision undermined the training manager and thus circumvented the normal chain of command in matters of student assessment.

　　He knowingly allowed a technically weak student to be retained thereby potentially compromising the quality and integrity of the audits she would work on. He owes a professional duty to the shareholders of the companies that Jojo audits. Audits should be conducted diligently, and technical accuracy should underpin the application of auditing standards and in following procedures and protocols. A technical weakness (such as Polly’s) would potentially weaken the effectiveness of the audit and hence be a failure of a duty of care to the client’s shareholders.

　　In acting as he did, Mr Hu gave the appearance of unfairness and a lack of objectivity. The appearance of integrity and probity is important in leading organisations and even were it not true, Mr Hu allowed his integrity and objectivity to be seen as questionable. Once discovered to have made the decision he did, confidence in the assessment process at Jojo would have been lost and this could have the effect of damaging its reputation as a provider of training contracts, and therefore in the services provided by the firm.

　　(b) Ethical safeguards.

　　Mr Hu could undergo some instruction or continuous professional development (CPD) on the fundamental principles of professionalism and the need to avoid conflicts of interest. As a professional accountant, he is bound in any case by the codes of ethics and/or rulebook of his professional body and the IFAC code. Most of these specifically warn against such conflicts,including the acceptance of gifts unless the value is trivial and inconsequential, and his professional body may provide such a course of instruction.

　　Enforce a requirement to declare any conflicts of interest at the beginning of each meeting to consider student assessments.

　　This could be made a ‘standing item’ on the agenda so that it had to be considered before each time that assessments were considered. The declaration of conflicts of interests could also be made a part of the recruitment process for new partners where appropriate.

　　Rotate the partner who chairs the assessment committee. This would mean that the chance of Mr Hu being the partner considering Polly Shah’s case would be reduced (in the case of Jojo) to one in five. Other partners without the conflict of interest would, in any given meeting, be more likely to be chairing.

　　Involve an additional partner in the review of student assessments, more able to confront Mr Hu than the training manager or HR manager, neither of whom are at partner level. Another partner would have the organisational ‘weight’ to confront Mr Hu in a way that the training manager or HR manager evidently did not.

　　The outcomes of the assessments could be validated by an external party (akin to the role that a non-executive director might play if Jojo were a public company). A retired partner could discharge such a role, for example, or a human resources consultant. The final decision on each student would not be made known until each had been ‘signed off’ by the external party.

　　Keep an internal HR file formally recording the list of students by assessment category. This would make the decision to retain Polly, in spite of her ‘poor’ assessment, much more visible to relevant business managers. This would apply greater consistency because it would be more transparent that Polly was retained even though her assessment was rated as ‘poor’.

　　Criteria for individual performance measurement

　　The criteria used to measure the performance of directors and/or partners (in a partnership) vary according to the situation.

　　Some criteria will be much more important than others, and highly context-specific criteria may apply in some organisations.

　　In general terms, however, four typical criteria are helpful to consider.

　　The level of independence of the person (such as being free from external vested interests) and commitment to the public interest. This is especially important in accounting practices where serving the public interest is an important component of professional service.

　　Preparedness and fitness to practise including maintaining the relevance of skills and undertaking relevant continuing professional development. For the partners and Jojo, this would involve maintaining knowledge of current audit and reporting standards, for example.

　　Practice, including levels of participation in their allocated roles and their competence in those roles. Linked to this is the contribution made to the formulation and implementation of the organisational strategy.

　　Contribution to committee work and administrative duties as appropriate. Mr Hu’s effectiveness in his role as member of the committee that evaluates student progress would fall within this area, for example.

　　Difficulties of individual performance measurement at Jojo

　　As a privately-owned business, there is no external pressure for such a procedure. This is because, as an unincorporated business, there are no listing rules enforced by a stock exchange and no external shareholder pressures to be applied. There is no agency gap created by a separation of ownership and management.

　　There is unlikely to be an independent non-executive director (NED) structure in place to support and carry out the performance measurement. Because of the difficulties raised by full-time senior management appraising each other, NEDs take a role in this in listed companies. Without this element of external independent scrutiny, it would be very difficult to maintain independence and fairness in a performance measurement system.

　　The informality of relationships in a smaller partnership may make objective assessment impossible, especially if, as in a smaller practice, longstanding personal friendships may be a strong component of the culture. With the five partners being personal friends with each other, it would be very difficult for the partners to conduct objective performance appraisals on each other.

　　There is likely to be resistance from some partners, at least from Jack Hu, who, if appraised, would be likely to receive a poor assessment on some criteria. As the managing partner (the equivalent of a chief executive in a partnership), it would be difficult to arrive at a fair measurement process for Mr Hu without the involvement of external parties (such as NEDs).

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