Professional bodies were created to uphold standards, protect the public, and act as the ethical compass of their industries. When they function well, they safeguard trust. When they drift, the consequences ripple across the whole financial ecosystem.
In July 2025, Professor Atul K. Shah — a respected academic, ICAEW fellow, and long-time advocate for ethics in finance — attended the ICAEW AGM and did something increasingly rare:
he asked the questions that hold power to account.
His report from inside the AGM deserves attention far beyond the walls of Moorgate.
It is not merely a critique of one institute; it is a diagnostic on the health of the entire accountability architecture in the UK.
1. A Profession at a Crossroads
Atul’s central warning was clear:
The accounting profession is drifting away from its public-interest mission.
He raised concerns that cut to the core of credibility:
- A widening gulf between professional practice and academic research
- Over £160m of fine income sitting in reserves without clear strategy for reform
- Visible influence of the Big Four over governance and direction
- A curriculum that avoids politics, power, and social impact
- Equality Act obligations still unmet 15 years after implementation
- Annual accounts that read more like corporate PR than guardianship documents
These aren’t abstract points.
They speak to whether the profession is capable of confronting its own failures — or if it has become structurally incapable of doing so.
2. Speaking Truth to Power Inside the Room
AGMs of large professional bodies are usually controlled, choreographed events.
It is highly unusual for a member to challenge the leadership so directly and comprehensively.
Atul raised pointed questions about:
- The independence of governance
- The lack of diversity data and compliance reporting
- The absence of contemporary research in the curriculum
- The systemic nature of audit failures
- The treatment of fine income
- The influence of former Big Four partners in senior roles
- The need for interdisciplinary education that reflects modern societal realities
These questions were not inflammatory.
They were the kinds of questions any profession committed to public interest should welcome.
The responses, however, were mixed:
- Some constructive engagement
- Some procedural deflection
- Some dismissive comments
- And afterwards, quiet private acknowledgements from individuals who agreed that these issues matter
This is what structural capture often looks like — public defensiveness and private agreement.
3. A Pattern We See Across Cases: The Architecture Is the Problem
At Get SAFE and AoLP, we repeatedly observe the same structural pattern in case after case:
- Audit firms dominating every layer of the system
- Professional bodies defending the profession rather than the public
- Governance roles filled by individuals with deep industry conflicts
- Curricula that avoid discussing power and inequality
- Significant fine income not reinvested into meaningful reform
- Victims left navigating opaque systems with no guidance
- Accountability watered down through internal processes
Whether it is Wilko, Carillion, HBOS, NMC Health, or dozens of pension and investment failures, the scaffolding is the same.
The issue is structural, not episodic.
Professional bodies often occupy a dual role:
- Guardian of public interest
- Representative of industry members
Increasingly, the second role overshadows the first.
4. Why This Matters for Ordinary People
When professional bodies drift from their public-interest duties, the damage falls on:
- Workers
- Savers
- Pensioners
- Small businesses
- Victims of financial harm
Audit failures don’t just “happen”.
They take years to build, and their consequences take years to repair.
When governance oversight weakens, the downstream effects are:
- Job losses
- Pension scheme losses
- Supplier bankruptcies
- Local economic decline
- Erosion of trust in financial institutions
The public feels the impact long before institutions acknowledge the problem.
5. Why Academics and Professionals Must Step Forward
Atul’s intervention underscores a critical point:
We need more public-interest professionals willing to ask uncomfortable questions.
The UK is home to some of the world’s most advanced accounting research — research on ethics, governance, sustainability, inequality, and systemic risk. Yet very little of it shapes the curriculum or professional standards.
This gap weakens the profession and exposes the public.
Professional bodies cannot fulfil a public mandate if they exclude the very knowledge that would strengthen it.
6. The Role of AI: Finalising the Shift from Institutional Dependence to Citizen Power
One of the reasons Get SAFE exists is because ordinary people can no longer rely solely on traditional gatekeepers to protect them.
AI changes the balance of power:
- It can analyse annual reports, audit findings, and governance documents at scale
- It can detect inconsistencies and patterns in regulatory behaviour
- It helps victims organise evidence and timelines
- It spots what institutions hope no one will read
The aim is not to replace professionals — it is to make the system accountable to the people it serves.
7. A Call for Structural Trustworthiness
AoLP and Get SAFE advocate a simple principle:
If a system claims public-interest status, its structures must reflect public-interest priorities.
That requires reform in:
- governance
- curriculum
- transparency
- use of fines
- engagement with academia
- independence from dominant firms
- diversity and equality obligations
- public accountability
Atul’s AGM intervention shows how much work is still needed.
8. Moving Forward — The Work Continues
We stand with everyone who challenges structural capture, whether that’s in audit, financial planning, regulation, academia, or professional governance.
AoLP will continue training planners to operate as structurally trustworthy professionals, free from product sales agendas and conflicted incentives.
Get SAFE will continue equipping citizens with the tools, knowledge and AI support to challenge opaque systems and seek justice.
And we will continue amplifying those who, like Atul, have the courage to speak truth to power in rooms where silence is the norm.
If you want to understand how to protect yourself, your community, or your clients within these systems, reach out. The architecture may be compromised, but together we can build something far more honest.
🧱 ICAEW – A Watchdog That Won’t Bark?
In our last post, we exposed how systemic redress is routinely blocked by the very institutions designed to uphold public trust. Nowhere is this more stark than in the conduct of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW)—a professional body with regulatory authority over auditors who play a central role in enabling, masking, or failing to detect financial exploitation.
We turn to a real-time case study: Paul Birch, a British citizen defrauded through a cross-border QROPS pension scheme. At every turn, key enablers in the chain included auditors regulated by the ICAEW—both in the UK and across connected jurisdictions like Malta and the Isle of Man.
🔍 What went wrong?
Paul submitted formal complaints to the ICAEW against UHY Hacker Young (London)—auditors to a network of companies implicated in the structuring and administration of toxic pension schemes. Despite detailed dossiers, documented misstatements, and ongoing criminal proceedings by the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the ICAEW:
- Refused to engage substantively, repeatedly deflecting the matter with generic replies.
- Demanded public evidence of misconduct, while knowing the evidence is currently held by law enforcement and therefore not publicly accessible.
- Ignored conflicts of interest and failed to initiate proactive investigations despite mounting red flags.
- Provided safe harbour for UK-registered firms acting as professional service providers to unregulated or offshore entities involved in pension harm.
🚫 A pattern of delay and denial
Paul’s experience mirrors what many other victims have encountered. The ICAEW appears to adopt a reactive stance, requiring airtight evidence before acting—despite having the authority to investigate proactively, especially in cases of widespread harm.
Their strategy? Delay until the complainant gives up or dies out, and maintain the illusion of regulatory oversight without ever inconveniencing their member firms.
💥 Why this matters
Accountants are not neutral bookkeepers—they are gatekeepers of integrity in financial systems. When they fail to speak up, fail to qualify accounts, or worse, actively shield misconduct, they become part of the extraction machinery.
When their regulator is structurally incapable of—or unwilling to—hold them to account, the whole system of checks and balances collapses.
🧭 Get SAFE’s Position
We call on the ICAEW to:
- Reopen Paul Birch’s complaint and launch an independent audit of UHY Hacker Young’s role in the QROPS chain.
- Create a redress protocol for financial crime survivors that doesn’t rely on civil courts alone.
- Support the SFO by making internal auditor findings available in the public interest, not just when subpoenaed.
In short: regulate, don’t rubber-stamp.
👁️🗨️ Structural takeaway:
When regulators protect the profession more than the public, they are no longer regulators. They are participants in harm.
See also: PwC’s Global Business Model: A House of Cards Failing British Expats in the QROPS Scandal
📢 If you’ve had similar experiences with accountancy bodies blocking redress, we’re building a coalition. Reach out via Get SAFE.
Get SAFE: A Fellowship for Those Walking Through Fire
Get SAFE is becoming what people are desperately searching for —
a structured, ethical, trauma-informed community for:
- victims of financial exploitation
- whistleblowers
- bereaved families
- citizen investigators
- advocates and moral leaders
The Fellowship is simple but profound:
We gather to recover agency, share truth, deepen courage, and support one another in the long path from harm to justice.
We are not aligned with any regulator, political system, or institution.
Our strength is our independence.
People came alive when they heard it:
“A Fellowship of truth, justice, and recovery — not a bureaucracy.”
“A place where victims are finally believed.”
“A community rooted in courage, not compliance.”
And because of the AI frameworks we’ve introduced, this Fellowship is not just emotional support — it is practical empowerment.
For the first time, ordinary people can:
- build digital dossiers
- reconstruct timelines
- detect patterns of institutional misconduct
- write letters with authority
- expose evidence regulators overlooked
- collaborate safely across cases
- turn pain into purpose
This is how movements begin.
Planning My Life: Preventing Exploitation Before It Starts
What the event also confirmed is this:
People fall into financial exploitation when they fall out of sovereignty.
Planning My Life sits exactly at this junction.
It teaches people:
- how to think independently
- how to plan their lives before planning their money
- how to identify institutional risk
- how to spot predatory sales patterns
- how to avoid product-led advice
- how to stay structurally trustworthy
- how to build a life where no adviser can mislead, confuse, or coerce them
Prevention and recovery are two halves of the same circle.
Get SAFE rescues those already harmed.
Planning My Life equips people so it never happens again.
Together, they form a complete empowerment system.
A New Model of Justice Is Emerging — Built by the People Themselves
The collective energy of the event revealed a truth that no institution dares speak:
When regulators fail, citizens take up the role of regulator.
When governance collapses, the governed take up the role of governance.
When truth is buried, truth-tellers become archivists of justice.
The movement we are seeing now is not political.
It is human.
It is built on:
- transparency
- dignity
- courage
- integrity
- collective intelligence
- and the healing power of community
These are the values Paul Moore lived and died for.
This event honoured him not by remembering his warnings —
but by continuing his fight.
Where We Go From Here
The Academy of Life Planning now carries a responsibility that is both moral and strategic:
To give people the tools to understand their lives,
their finances,
and their evidence —
so exploitation no longer survives in the shadows.
Through:
- Planning My Life (self-sovereignty)
- Get SAFE (justice and recovery)
- AI-as-co-pilot (pattern recognition, empowerment, clarity)
- The Fellowship (community and courage)
- The GAME Plan (a universal cycle of intention-to-manifestation)
…we are building the world that institutions promised but failed to deliver.
A world where truth has a home.
A world where victims are lifted, not shunned.
A world where ordinary people can finally stand equal to the powers that harmed them.
A world where transparency is not a slogan —
it is a lived practice that restores dignity, agency, and hope.
This is the movement Paul Moore began.
This is the movement that rose in that meeting.
This is the movement we now carry forward.
And we will not stop until every victim finds their voice,
every truth comes to light,
and every life stolen by exploitation is honoured through justice.
In One Sentence
Goliathon turns victims of financial exploitation into confident, capable citizen investigators who can build professional-grade cases using structured training, emotional support, and independent AI.
Instant Access
Purchase today for £2.99 and get your secure link to:
- the training video, and
- the downloadable workbook.
Link to Goliathon Taster £2.99.
If the session resonates, you can upgrade to the full Goliathon Programme for £29 and continue your journey toward clarity, justice, and recovery.
Every year, thousands across the UK lose their savings, pensions, and peace of mind to corporate financial exploitation — and are left to face the aftermath alone.
Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation) exists to change that.
We’re creating a national lifeline for victims — offering free emotional recovery, life-planning, and justice support through our Fellowship, Witnessing Service, and Citizen Investigator training.
We’re now raising £20,000 to:
Register Get SAFE as a Charity (CIO)
Build our website, CRM, and outreach platform
Fund our first year of free support and recovery programmes
Every £50 donation provides a bursary for one survivor — giving access to the tools, training, and community needed to rebuild life and pursue justice with confidence.
Your contribution doesn’t just fund a project — it fuels a movement.
Support the Crowdfunder today and help us rebuild lives and restore justice.
Join us at: http://www.aolp.info/getsafe
steve.conley@aolp.co.uk | +44 (0)7850 102070
Academy of Life Planning 