The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) is
pleased to announce the following improvements to the Continuing
Professional Education (CPE) requirements for public accountants.
Public accountants can count their CPE over a rolling three-year
period instead of over a single year, starting from 1 January 2011.
Enhanced CPE syllabus with:
- clearer and tighter focus on core areas of auditing, financial reporting standards and ethics,
- more flexibility in selecting CPE for non-core areas of expertise, and
- tailored requirements for public accountants who are judicial managers and approved liquidators.
ACRA’s Chief Executive Ms Juthika Ramanathan said, “The refinements
to the CPE framework aim to make public accountants CPE obligations
clearer and focused on the core public interest areas of auditing,
financial reporting, and ethics, while at the same time enabling them to
better manage their learning needs for their own niche areas of
expertise. This forms part of ACRA’s continuous efforts to ensure that
public accountants produce a consistently high level of audit quality
even in a constantly changing business and professional environment.”
CPE requirement period
ACRA has changed the CPE requirement period from a one year period to
a three-year rolling period, to allow public accountants more
flexibility in managing their CPE requirements according to their
learning needs and priorities each year.
The move towards a three year rolling period is in line with
international practice including the standard set by the International
Federation of Accountants for its professional body members.
The new requirements retain the same required number of CPE
hours but these will now be set over a three-year rolling period, with
the minimum requirements being 120 CPE hours in each rolling three-year
period including:
- 90 structured learning CPE hours out of the 120 hours, and
- 20 structured CPE hours each year.
The first three-year rolling period applies with effect from 1
January 2011 to 31 December 2013. The second period will be from 1
January 2012 to 31 December 2014 and so on.
CPE is a very important obligation for public accountants to ensure that they keep their expertise up-to-date.
ACRA takes this requirement seriously and will not renew the
certificates of registration of public accountants who fail to meet the
CPE requirements, except in very limited circumstances, such as illness.
The introduction of the three-year rolling period will enable public
accountants to adjust their annual CPE according to their professional
needs or in the event that their professional work is interrupted by a
study sabbatical or family commitments.
Enhanced CPE syllabus
All public accountants are required to undertake CPE each year in
accordance with a syllabus approved by the Public Accountants Oversight
Committee (PAOC). Additionally, the CPE syllabus applies to the CPE
hours that an applicant must obtain in the year before he or she applies
to be a public accountant.
The CPE syllabus is structured into categories, comprising core and
non-core expertise categories. The PAOC has issued a revised CPE
syllabus with enhancements to the core expertise categories.
The new core expertise categories will ensure that public accountants
obtain CPE in all areas in which it is essential for these
professionals to maintain current technical knowledge and professional
skills. Besides restructuring of the core expertise categories, public
accountants will now have more flexibility in assessing the non-core
expertise CPE which is relevant to their needs.
In addition, a new category on Insolvency and Restructuring has been
included in the revised CPE syllabus to better meet the needs of public
accountants who are judicial managers or approved liquidators.
To ensure that the revisions to the CPE syllabus meet current
professional needs, the PAOC drew on the knowledge of practising public
accountants from across the profession, who formed part of a PAOC CPE
Sub-Committee.
The CPE Sub-Committee was advised by Prof Pang Yang Hoong, Vice
Provost (Undergraduate) and Dean of the School of Accountancy of
Singapore Management University, and supported by ACRA and the Institute
of Certified Public Accountants of Singapore (ICPAS).
The revised syllabus is effective for the purposes of meeting the CPE
requirements for the 2011-2013 rolling three-year CPE period, and each
three-year period thereafter.
For registration purposes, the new syllabus will be effective for all applications received after 1 Oct 2011.
About ACRA
The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) is the
national regulator of business entities and public accountants in
Singapore.
ACRA also plays the role of a facilitator for the development of business entities and the public accountancy profession.
The mission of ACRA is to provide a responsive and trusted regulatory environment for businesses and public accountants.
As at 30 June 2010, over 371,000 business entities and 919 public
accountants practising in public accounting firms, accounting limited
liability partnerships and accounting corporations are registered with
ACRA.
For more information, please visit www.acra.gov.sg
