Introduction
In September 2011, Ontario’s Office of the Fairness Commissioner assessed the way the
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario
registers people who apply for a licence to practise in Ontario, to ensure that the registration practices are fair and continue to improve.
This summary of the assessment includes commendable practices that are under way and recommendations for improvement.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario is subject to Ontario's fair access law, the Fair Access to Regulated Professions Act, 2006 (FARPA). The law spells out the institute's obligation to have transparent, objective, impartial and fair registration methods and requirements.
The Office of the Fairness Commissioner
To encourage accountability under the fair access law, the Office of the Fairness Commissioner (OFC) works with professions’ regulatory bodies to improve the way they register people who apply for professional licences. As a result of the OFC’s work, qualified people, no matter where they were originally trained, will have faster, fairer access to their licence to practise here.
In its work with regulators so far, the OFC has found that they have succeeded in streamlining their registration processes, but they need to do more. For example, regulators need to be more transparent and hold their assessment agencies more accountable for fairness.
To encourage, and hold regulators accountable for, continuous improvement, the OFC assesses their licensing practices in a two-year cycle. This cycle includes recommending improvements where needed and monitoring the bodies’ action plans that address the OFC’s concerns. This approach benefits applicants, the professions and the province.
You can read more about the OFC’s strategy for continuous improvement and its guide for assessments elsewhere on this site.
For more information about this particular assessment, contact the OFC.
Note: The words license, register and certify all refer to authorizing a person to practise a profession.
Recommendations
The OFC recommends improvements in the following areas. (These areas correspond to the sections of the
assessment guide, and are derived from the fair access legislation. Recommendations marked "Required" correspond to the practices regulators must demonstrate in order to meet the specific duties in the legislation. Recommendations marked "Good" correspond to the practices the OFC encourages a regulatory body to adopt in order to meet the general duty to provide registration practices that are transparent, objective, impartial and fair.)
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Status
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- To improve the accessibility and clarity of the ICAO's registration information, the OFC recommends that the ICAO do the following:
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December 2011
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- Continue redesigning the Admissions section of the website, in time to meet the proposed completion date. [Required]
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December 2011
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- In the registration materials, clarify what applicants must do, and what supporting documents they must submit, to demonstrate good character. [Good]
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December 2011
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- Create examples that illustrate some of the ICAO's past decisions related to the assessing of applicants' qualifications and the assessing of requests for exemptions from registration requirements. Include examples where exemptions are granted, and describe the rationale for the decisions. Complete these examples in time to meet the proposed completion date (February 2012), and include these examples in materials for applicants. [Required; Good]
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December 2011
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- In the registration materials, tell applicants that they are responsible for the cost of translating the documents they must submit for registration (if any translation is required), and that the costs may vary depending on the translation service and the volume of documentation. Also state that they should first submit transcripts of their courses or programs. The ICAO will review the transcripts, and after reviewing them will request only the course outlines and translations it needs, to help minimize the applicant's translation costs. [Good]
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December 2011
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- The OFC recommends that the ICAO:
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December 2011
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- Use consistent terminology in its website and registration materials to describe the documents that applicants need to submit and how to submit them. [Required]
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December 2011
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- For each document type required for registration, clearly describe the required content and format of the document, and the way that the document must be sent to the ICAO (for example, sent directly by the issuing institution; submitted by the applicant). [Required]
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December 2011
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- To improve the clarity of the ICAO's assessment methods and criteria, the OFC recommends that the ICAO establish and follow definite timelines for posting the following material on its website:
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December 2011
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- the policy documents it uses to assess academic credentials [Required]
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December 2011
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- course descriptions that it uses to compare the content of different courses, in order to determine whether a course an applicant has taken warrants a course credit [Required]
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December 2011
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- Recommendations concerning transparency are the same as the recommendations described earlier, in these categories:
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December 2011
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- Information for Applicants, sub-points 1, 2, and 4
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December 2011
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- Assessment of Qualifications
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December 2011
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- To better explain the benefits of the Core-Knowledge Exam, the School of Accountancy, and the Staff Training Program, the ICAO will develop communication materials identifying their individual purposes and their role in helping applicants to successfully complete the Canadian Uniform Evaluation. The OFC recommends establishing and following definite timelines for developing these materials. [Good]
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December 2011
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- In 2010, the ICAO received 38 applications from internationally trained applicants. This represents approximately two per cent of the total new applications. This percentage is lower than the corresponding percentage for two other accounting professions. This may result from several factors. The OFC recommends that the ICAO monitor future trends and develop a greater understanding of the reasons for this difference. [Good]
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December 2011
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Blank = Implementation is in progress.

= Recommendation is implemented.
Acceptable alternative = Regulator implements acceptable alternative to this recommendation.