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Bribery and corruption in SMEs
ACCA conducts in-house survey
19 Feb 2007
ACCA will shortly be publishing the results of an in-house members' survey assessing the experience of bribery and corruption issues among accountants working within the UK's SME sector.
Background
The recent OECD and UN Conventions on bribery and corruption, as well as the UK Government's new operational initiatives to prosecute offenders, suggest that there is an accelerating momentum of commitment to tackling this problem. The OECD report on the UK's implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention of 2005 highlights concerns about SMEs' low awareness of the UK's anti-corruption legislation and how it affects their business practice.
Given the unique advisory role of accountants, with research consistently showing that they are the first-choice advisers of SMEs, ACCA decided to explore their unique insight into this under-researched area.
The survey
The survey was carried out by ACCA's Technical Department in October 2006. The sample consisted of two main groups of ACCA members - those actually working in SMEs as accountants or general managers and those in public practice who provide professional services to SMEs.
The survey explores the respondents' perception of their clients' experiences of dealing with issues of bribery and corruption, looking into a number of issues, such a: the identity of those from whom SMEs would be most likely to request help when confronted with this issue; the most effective deterrents; and, more generally, whether bribery and corruption are causes for concern to SMEs.
The results of the survey are expected to be published in Spring 2007.
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