Historical ICAEW Members' Handbooks and regulations

Between 1950 and 2009, ICAEW issued a series of Members’ Handbooks. These contained official information, regulations, guidance, and – at times – accounting and auditing standards. Members of the Institute were expected (and in many cases required) to be familiar with, and abide by the provisions of, those sections which related to their work.

Since the publication of the final edition of the Handbook, the Institute has made all of the regulations and codes by which its members must abide (along with related guidance) available on its website, across a number of standalone documents.

Whilst the specific content of the Members’ Handbooks and their successor regulatory documents has varied considerably over time, key components have included the following:

• The Institute's Royal Charters and bye-laws;
• Details of ICAEW offices and facilities;
• Guidance on professional ethics;
• Regulations and guidance for members in practice, and for members in business;
• Accounting standards and guidelines;
• Auditing standards and guidelines;
• Complaints, disciplinary and fitness regulations and processes;
• Regulations corresponding with particular statutory regulated areas (eg, insolvency, probate);
• Regulations relating to learning and continuing professional development.

Since its foundation, ICAEW has periodically issued publications of various kinds – documents providing guidance to members, reporting on disciplinary matters, responding to consultations, and so on.

During the first few decades of the Institute's existence, some guidance and regulations were gathered together and published within the annual ICAEW members lists, while other official notifications were disseminated through The Accountant. However, there was no single place to turn for a complete picture. By the late-1940s, the Institute had begun to take steps towards the publication of a consolidated reference work which would bring together a range of material likely to be of use to its members.

In an address to a special meeting of members on 2nd November 1949, the President of the Institute, Sir Russell Kettle, announced the Institute’s intention to create a Members’ Handbook. The purpose of the Handbook, he said, was to ‘provide all members with a convenient reference to all matters pertaining to the Institute, such as its constitution and regulations, its various activities and the facilities available to members, memoranda submitted on taxation matters, evidence submitted to official committees, pronouncements on disciplinary matters and so on’ (as recorded in the preface to the first edition).

ICAEW's Recommendations on Accounting Principles, issued from 1942 onwards, were not initially included in the Handbook — though they would be incorporated later, as their status and importance grew (see below).

The printing of the first edition of the Members’ Handbook was authorised by Council on 2nd August 1950, ‘on the report of a special committee, and following consideration of a report of the Planning Committee’ (The Accountant, 12th August 1950, p.156).

It was originally envisaged that the Handbook would be primarily of interest to newly admitted members, though it was recognised that it would also be of value to existing members. A copy was therefore sent to every member. The Handbook was to be regularly updated with new information as it arose, ensuring that the content remained current and relevant.

As noted above, the Members’ Handbook was issued as a looseleaf publication between 1958 and 1991 (in several iterations). During this time it was periodically updated with changes, beginning with Supplement 1, issued 13th November 1958.

For the most part, the looseleaf editions held by the Library have been updated, with supplements being either consolidated in the text or interfiled. The 1961 printing held by the Library is updated to Supplement 8, with Supplements 9-18 appended. The 1970 reprint is updated to Supplement 58, issued on 15th January 1980. The 1980 reprint is updated to Supplement 70, issued in January 1991.

In addition, in the later years of the Handbook’s existence, new versions of particular sections were sometimes published on the website in advance of the publication of an updated print edition. The 2009 ed. of the Handbook includes a note instructing members to ‘always refer to the website […] for the most up-to-date version of any section’ (p.iv).

All of this can make it difficult to pinpoint the guidance/regulations in place at a particular point in time. When seeking to reconstruct the Handbook, or an element of it, as it stood at a given date, it may be helpful to explore the following options.

From time-to-time the Institute published standalone print reproductions of certain sections of the Handbook, capturing their content as at a particular date. The Library holds a number of these, including:

• Part I of the Members' Handbook (1983-1991)
• ‘Ethical Guide for Members' / 'Guide to Professional Ethics' (twelve editions, 1975-1990)
• Royal Charters and bye-laws (several editions, up to 1989)
• Statements on Auditing (1976 and 1978)
• Recommendations on Accounting Principles (several editions, up to 1978)

Details of our holdings of various other reproductions, in addition to those referenced above can be found on the Library catalogue.

It is usually possible to track changes made to looseleaf editions of the Handbook by using the updating sheets filed at the back of the binders.

Where necessary, these may then be cross-referenced with noteworthy accountancy periodicals in the Library collection (such as Accountancy, The Accountant, the Institute Newsletter, and Audit News), where significant updates were often reproduced or summarised. Accountancy magazine was the official journal of ICAEW from January 1958 until February 2012.

Sometimes it is sufficient to consult the updating sheets to determine that a particular section was unchanged.

Some of the looseleaf editions of the Handbook held by the Library contain unfiled updating supplements.

For example, the second volume of the 1961 reprint contains unfiled copies of supplements 9-18 (16th August 1961 to 11th October 1966), and the fifth volume of the 1980 reprint is comprised of pages from supplements 60-69 (January 1982 to January 1990).

Between 2002 and 2009, the full text of the Handbook (along with related material) was routinely made available on the ICAEW website.

Captures of content from the Handbook as it existed on the website at various dates during this period are available online via the Wayback Machine.

The Members’ Handbook was discontinued following the publication of the 2009 edition. Rather than issuing a 2011 edition of the Handbook as per its biannual publication schedule, the Institute opted to make all of its regulations and related guidance material available on its website in the form of standalone documents – an arrangement which remains in place today.

For the current versions of ICAEW’s codes, regulations and associated documents, please see the Regulation section of the website.

Archived digital versions of regulations and related guidance issued since 2011 (along with a few issued earlier) can be accessed via the following links:

• Archive of complaints processes and ICAEW regulations
  

  Page signposting to archived versions of ICAEW's complaints, disciplinary and fitness regulations, as well as other ICAEW regulations, including those covering the statutory regulated areas.

• ICAEW Digital Archive: Regulations
  

  Browse and access the full range of regulations and related material held in ICAEW's Digital Archive.

If you cannot locate the historical document you need via the links above, please call us on +44 (0)20 7920 8620, email library@icaew.com or contact us through webchat.

Proposed amendments to certain regulatory documents, such as ICAEW’s Principal Bye-laws, go to the Institute’s annual and special meetings for approval.

The latest annual and special meetings resolutions are available on the ICAEW website.

Papers relating to past Annual and Special meetings going back to 2000 can be accessed via the Digital Archive, with some older papers being held in print format in the Library collection. These papers generally include details of the resolutions published in advance of each meeting, as well as the results of voting.

If you are seeking information on particular historical amendments to ICAEW Members’ Handbooks or regulations, please call us on +44 (0)20 7920 8620, email library@icaew.com or contact us through webchat.