A careful, steady hand

David Adams is aiming to establish Cipfa as the key accountancy body across the public sector.

Although David Adams, the newly appointed director of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, is unlikely to lead any revolutions, he can be expected to hold a steady hand on the tiller. Public accountants can be assured they have a careful leader, committed to continuity and no sudden changes of direction.

It is perhaps unfortunate then that Mr Adams will be present more as a shadow than in physical form for the next nine months, while he serves out his notice with his current job as chief executive to the Railways Pension Trustee company. It is an organisation that has had more than its own fair share of change in the last few years, after what Mr Adams describes as "a complex and difficult privatisation process" and a new chairman. Mr Adams has to finish seeing it through to the end of its own transformation.

On the delay in his appointment Mr Adams says: "I think there is a potential problem, but it is up to all of us who are involved to ensure that does not turn into an actual problem." It is hoped a close working relationship with new president John Scotford, treasurer of Hampshire County Council, and acting director Richard Morris will ensure a smooth, if long, -transition.

Mr Adams says that becoming director of Cipfa is a job he was keen to win, and at 57 he has certainly served a long apprenticeship. As well as being former director of finance and chief executive of the London Borough of Harrow, and for 12 years a Public Works Loan commissioner, he has been on the

institute's council, chairing many committees, for eight years. He would not, however, have become president, as other council members had seniority.

Bringing in someone with the depth and range of experience of David Adams, particularly with his recent experience heading a pensions board, will help Cipfa to reposition itself as the public accountancy body not just for local government and the health service, but across the public services, including within government and the quangos.

"We shall continue to see changes in management arrangements and structures, in particular if there is a political change," says Mr Adams. "We shall be helping our members adapt to cope with those changes, and will be seeking to do the other most important thing, which is to give very objective advice to the policy-formers so that the change is done in the most appropriate and effective way it can be. The institute will not take sides in any political argument, but it will point out to the politicians at national and local level what it sees as policies unlikely to achieve their intended effect." But Cipfa has no monopoly of representation of public accountants, with both the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (Cima) and the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (Acca) paying increasing attention to the public services. With negotiations off for a single accountancy institution, hard competition between the bodies is now the name of the game.

"We live in a competitive world, and if they wish to compete that is their right," says Mr Adams. "We have to convince employers and students that we are more relevant than the alternatives. We think that our training - and we are not saying anything about other people's training - is at least as good as anybody else's. I don't challenge their right to challenge us, and I can't think that they as professionals would do other than welcome healthy and fair competition."

Mr Adams believes that the accountancy institutions must put past conflict behind them, and allow closer co-operation to lead to possible integration. He suspects merger may only happen, however, after the eventual intervention of the European Commission as it continues to break down the barriers of a fully integrated single European market.

Cipfa has chosen in Mr Adams an insider, a person totally committed to the existing direction. When asked of his plans for the future he spoke instead of what has been achieved in recent years. He is clearly keen to build gradually on his inheritance from previous director Noel Hepworth's bullish 16 years at the top, during which the institute grew in membership, influence and business acumen.