The proposal from accountants' body ACCA of a merger with the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) must be welcomed. Such a merger could start the streamlining of a profession which is currently represented by far too many professional bodies and has had some high-profile problems regulating its members.

Initiated at the ACCA London headquarters, a successful merger would result in the world's biggest international professional accounting body with 120,000 members and 200,000 students. But a larger number of accountants would remain outside the new body. Could the next step then be a merger of the new body with the ACCA's old traditional rival, the Institute of Chartered Accountants? And what about the Institute of Incorporated Public Accountants (IIPA)? ACCA's case in the Irish courts against the IIPA for alleged plagiarism of part of the ACCA rule book has been adjourned until September.