If you are a qualified Chartered Accountant who has obtained certification from a recognized overseas professional body, currently working in an accountancy firm in England and Wales, and considering acquiring the England and Wales Chartered Accountant designation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) through their Pathways Scheme, proceed with caution. What’s marketed as a streamlined route for professionals like you may instead be a labyrinth of arbitrary hurdles—designed not to assess competence, but to exploit it.
Several of my acquaintances in the accountancy profession have raised concerns about this Scheme, prompting me to share my perspective. These individuals are highly experienced professionals with solid academic records, extensive international and local industry experience, and strong reputations in their field. Despite their credentials, they have found themselves struggling to obtain the ICAEW ACA qualification, a gatekeeper to career advancement in the region. While some attribute these challenges to thinly veiled racial discrimination, almost all of them cite significant issues with the examination process itself. Their concerns broadly fall into the following categories:
- Professional Competency: These individuals possess years of hands-on experience, a deep understanding of technical matters, and a track record of problem-solving and decision-making at a senior level, including board-level exposure, yet ICAEW deems them “unqualified” for career progression.
- Exam Preparedness: Despite their professional commitments, they dedicated ample time to exam preparation and felt confident with the course material and examination content.
- Suspicious Scoring: Many candidates observed inconsistencies in the scoring process. Regardless of their perceived performance across different exams, they often received nearly identical failing marks—just below the passing threshold.
- Zero Transparency: Some individuals challenged their exam results and requested access to their scripts for evaluation, only to have their requests flatly denied by ICAEW.
- Disparity in Pass Rates: These professionals, who often manage and train ICAEW trainee Chartered Accountants, noted that school leavers and fresh graduates pass these exams with ease—even those accepted as less competent.
Examining the Motives Behind the Institute’s Approach
Initially sceptical of these claims, I dug into ICAEW’s public materials. Their annual reports and marketing strategies tell a revealing story with several troubling patterns emerging.
The Institute's primary focus appears to be attracting school leavers and graduates who register for their first professional qualification. Their main competitors in this market are ACCA and CIMA. To maintain its competitive edge, the Institute boasts a first-time pass rate of over 80% for these candidates—an advertisement tactic aimed at ensuring a steady flow of new members. If these young candidates were frequently failing, they might opt for rival institutions, weakening the Institute's market position. As a result, the exams for this group may be ritualistic— setting a low bar to ensure a steady membership pipeline than a true test of competence.
The Pathways Scheme, introduced in 2007, provides an alternative route for experienced professionals who have obtained qualifications from overseas professional bodies. However, since these individuals are not ICAEW's primary target market, there is little incentive to accommodate them. Instead, prolonging the examination process of candidates in this group is financially beneficial to ICAEW in the form of examination entry fees from repeated exam retakes, generating long-term revenue for ICAEW.
ICAEW does not provide an independent appeal mechanism for failed candidates, nor does it disclose pass rates for the Pathways Scheme. This lack of transparency further calls into question the objectivity and fairness of their marking process.
The Problem with Labelling Candidates as “Incompetent”
Perhaps the most alarming revelation was a video on ICAEW’s website that openly describes members of overseas professional bodies as "incompetent." While doing so it does not cite any empirical evidence to support this claim. This rhetoric serves two purposes: (1) gaslight candidates into doubting their own skills, despite proven expertise and (2) justify the arbitrary failing of Pathways Scheme candidate, by branding them as “unskilled,”. This helps legitimizes opaque exam grading. If a particular group is systematically subjected to a different, opaque marking process, it becomes easy to brand them as incompetent, regardless of their actual capabilities.
I also noted that that King’s College in England and Wales has been working on a project to explore the collapse of public sector Accountancy in England and Wales. In my view a profession is only as good as its practitioners. Additionally, being ethical is a culture. Unethical practices rarely remain isolated and affect the whole organism. If candidates are arbitrarily allowed to pass (and indeed failed, as in the case of the Pathways Scheme) the exams just to maintain market position, as noted above, they are likely to exhibit not only poor technical standards but questionable ethics as well.
Conclusion
To me, it appears that the Pathways Scheme is primarily a revenue-generating mechanism that exploits unsuspecting candidates rather than a fair assessment of professional competency. Perhaps a more ethical approach would involve considering the following suggestions:
- charging a higher upfront fee from such candidates to support any revenue targets that ICAEW might have from the Pathways candidates.
- ensuring a transparent, objective, and fair examination process with independent oversight.
- publishing Pathways pass rates.
For a professional body, engaging in questionable practices undermines its credibility and the integrity of the accountancy profession as a whole.
Share your experience: Have you faced unfair barriers in professional certification?
Should the ACA examination process be independently audited? Yes / No / Only for Pathways candidates.
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