PwC Channel Islands Transparency Report 2019
This Transparency Report is published in accordance with the requirements for third country auditors in Article 45 (5)(e) of the European Communities (Statutory Audits) (Directive 2006/43/EC) for our financial year ended 30 June 2019.
At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We’re a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 276,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. The Transparency Report was approved and signed by Simon Perry as Senior Partner on 31 October 2019 on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers CI LLP (‘PwC Channel Islands’).
Message from our Territory Senior Partner
I’m delighted to present our Transparency Report, which aims to help our key stakeholders and wider society within the Channel Islands understand our objectives, what we expect from our people and how we are governed.
Our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We seek to bring this purpose to life in everything we do, from providing investors with the confidence in financial disclosures they need to make key decisions to helping businesses and the wider community within the Channel Islands navigate through disruption and complexity. At a time of uncertainty and upheaval within the UK, Europe and worldwide, this mission has never been more relevant.
Transparency is a critical part of this mission. We recognise that there can be no real trust without transparency, which is why this report is so important.
A good place to start is explaining who we are and what we do. I first came to the Channel Islands from Ireland in 1993 and, apart from a few years in Sydney, this has been my home ever since. I became the territory senior partner in January 2018.
The team I lead here in the Channel Islands is multi-talented and multi-disciplinary, but to marshal our activities and direct our capabilities we group them into three core lines of service:
Simon Perry
Territory Senior Partner
PwC Channel Islands
Strengthening quality and credibility
Quality is the watchword for everything we do and continues to be a key focus for investment. This year we adopted a new PwC global quality management framework, which we have adapted to make it appropriate for local regulatory requirements and ensure it fully delivers for our clients and wider stakeholders. Key objectives include building quality management into business processes, monitoring against key quality thresholds and identifying and tackling risks that could undermine quality. The framework is supported by independent assessment.
The importance of continuous improvement is heightened by the intensifying public scrutiny and challenge facing the audit profession in the UK and elsewhere. We understand the concerns and recognise that the audit profession has not kept pace with the expectations of society and therefore needs to evolve and reform. Through developments such as our new quality management framework and the commitment to transparency demonstrated by this report, we’re determined to ensure that our audit services are relevant, credible and fit for the future.
Tackling misconceptions
While critical everywhere, the question of credibility has particular resonance in the Channel Islands given the widespread misconceptions about our economy and policies on taxation. It’s therefore hugely gratifying that the Channel Islands has been awarded with the highest OECD rating for the quality of its tax transparency and international information exchange. The OECD has also confirmed that our tax regime is not harmful to the global economy. We at PwC will continue to do all we can to address lingering misconceptions and meet the exacting standards needed to sustain these international endorsements.
Making diversity a reality
Diversity and inclusion are critical to how we operate, from both a moral and business perspective. We believe that the breadth of experience and perspective that comes from promoting diversity and inclusion are a critical part of our ability to sustain quality.
A sign that our commitment is beginning to pay off is our achievement of a negative gender pay gap within PwC Channel Islands. To put this into perspective, the pay gap for the UK as a whole is more than 10% in favour of men. However, we recognise that we still have a long way to go, especially at the most senior levels of the firm. Two of our 11 partners on the Channel Islands are women and all our partners are white. We need to address this by identifying and nurturing people with potential on the one side and tackling the lingering biases and barriers that hold back people from underrepresented groups on the other.
Within the community, our commitment to diversity and inclusion includes the release of the Channel Islands Women in Work Index earlier in the year, which measures female participation in the economy and how pay compares with men. The report highlights the extent to which women are a critical but still under-utilised source of talent and economic dynamism here in the Channel Islands. We’re determined to address this, not just within the opportunities we offer within PwC, but also our work with schools and advocacy within government and client businesses.
Transforming the way we work
Flexible working can support diversity, though it’s important to stress that we see this as an option for all our staff as part of our commitment to autonomy and agile working. We’re happy to consider any flexible working arrangement including compressed hours, part-time, flexible hours and remote working. And with more than 50% of our employees likely to take up one of these options at some point in their careers, it’s the norm rather than the exception. We’re pleased to have seen some of our younger employees asking to work 9 months on and 3 months off to go travelling. This has proved to be a great talent retention tool. I and my leadership team need to demonstrate that we ourselves embrace working flexibly and that it is in no way a barrier to progression.
The other big push in our workforce modernisation is ensuring that all our employees have the digital skills to improve client service and boost their employability. The roll out of new systems and associated training covers areas ranging from client engagement and business intelligence to tools that enable our people to make the most efficient use of their time. We’re also bringing in new artificial intelligence capabilities that enable us to carry out comprehensive screening to identify potential client risks and compliance issues. Our teams can then take the results to carry out targeted assessments and remediation.
Feel free to get in touch
I hope you find this report useful. If there are any issues that you would like to discuss, please feel free to get in touch.
Contact us
