welcome!

I hope you enjoying reading our first executiveteam newsletter, which includes the latest newsfrom our executive team functions: BusinessDevelopment, Facilities, Finance andAdministration, HR, IT, Marketing and Trainingand Development.

We have decided to theme the first issue around our five core values:

1. Innovation2. Integrity3. Service4. Sustainable Growth5. Teamwork

We believe that these are the standards and behaviours which we allneed to consistently aspire to and live by in order to make us a betterfirm for both our employees and our clients. These are also thosevalues which clearly differentiate us from our competitors.

We have related these core values to projects that the executiveteam has carried out to show how we can act by our core valueseach day through our work.

Welcome fromSandy MansonChief Executive

Aberdeen Office

01224 212222sandy.manson@jcca.co.uk

In this issue

New Budget Package

Health & Safety Update

Engagement Model Promotion

iXBRL

Directors’ Conference

Training Survey

Student Recruitment

Business Development - Just Do It!

New Website News

Issue 1 June 2011

Our Core Values

SustainableGrowth

Innovation

Teamwork

Integrity

Service

Innovation

DocumentManagement

We constantly strive for innovation,looking for ways to make our businessand our clients’ businesses better.

This can be done by consulting othersto get a better answer and using efficientand effective procedures and systems.

FromSandie MowatE-Marketing Coordinator&Dave PyettIT Systems Engineer

In July we asked you for your opinions onthe Intranet and how you would like to seeit develop. We had a great response fromalmost 300 of you , so thank you for yourtime and involvement. After that survey,we went out and met with departmentheads to understand the diverse needs ofthe company.

We have now decided the best route totake, and are working on the designprocess. The aim is to provide a simple,easy-to-use solution that aids you withyour daily tasks.

The new intranet should be in place by theend of June, and we will be carrying outtraining sessions once it’s gone live, so thatyou can get the best out of it. ■

Intranet

FromDouglas RintoulPartner

One of the key components of thenew CCH practice managementsystem is an integrated DocumentManagement System. This will allow usto file client documents including e-mailinto the system, so that as well as beingable to see the WIP and tax return for aclient in CCH, you will be able to viewtheir documents. This will take place in thenext financial year and we will be workingwith various departments to ensure theprocesses are correct. ■

Email SystemFromSandie MowatE-Marketing Coordinator

Our email campaigns are now co-ordinated through the new website. Users (both clients andnon-clients) can register on our website, giving the user control over the news and updatesthey receive from us. Users can manage their personal information on the system,ensuring details are as up-to-date as possible.

Users can choose to receive thevarious sector newsletter,emails, firm News and Taxupdates. The Audit teamhave also begun sendingupdates.

There is also the option tosign up for a weekly emailfrom our web providers, whospecialise in accountancywebsites. This email is sent outweekly and our clients have to‘opt in’ to receive this email.

As this is a completely separatesystem from CCH, we will bedoing a monthly comparison ofboth systems to ensure thatboth the email system and CCHcontain the same clientinformation. ■

FromJohn JossSystems Developer

Our existing CMS practice management system was replaced at the end of March 2011with the new ‘fully integrated’ practice management system from CCH software.

The new CCH system combines functionality from the existing CMS and CCH systems. A single ‘Central’ database will replace the existing CMS JCLive, CMS JCBSLive and CCH Taxdatabases.

The new system will provide Campaign Management functionality to automate newsletterdistribution and a document management module will be introduced early in the newfinancial year. We will also see the introduction of the new CCH Accounts Productionmodule in 2011.

The new system gives a complete view of information for each client including contactdetails, addresses, WIP balances, outstanding debt balances, tax returns, accounts, fees,documents, and marketing campaign information.

One of the benefits of this ‘fully integrated’ system is that client records only need tobe set up once in the central database. At the moment we may have to setup thesame client in all of the CMS JCLive, CMS JCBSLive, Viztopia and CCH PersonalTax systems. Maintaining information, like client contacts and addresses, in onecentral database will also be a lot easier than it was, where client informationmay be duplicated or spread across three different databases.

One of the main challenges we faced in moving to the new system istransferring our current data from the existing CMS and CCH databases

to the new central database. To achieve this we have been workingwith CCH software to create a conversion process which will

combine, consolidate and convert data from our existingsystems in to the new ‘fully integrated’ CCH system. ■

New PracticeManagement System

FromSandie MowatE-Marketing Coordinator

With the benefits of B2B social mediaincreasing, Johnston Carmichael has begundeveloping a social media strategy to utilisethe various channels.

LinkedIn – We have company profiles forJCCA and JCFS and we encourage staff tohave their own personal LinkedIn profiles. Ifyou would like to create your own profile,please refer to the Johnston CarmichaelLinkedIn Guide.

Mark Houston, Partner, Glasgow office, hascreated a group on LinkedIn for Tax Planningfor Entrepreneurial Scottish Companies,which has been successful and even resultedin being asked to tender. If you would like toset up a services or sector focused group,please get in touch with a member of theMarketing Team.

Twitter - Craig Hendry, one of the Directorsof Johnston Carmichael Financial Services,recently began utilising Twitter and at time ofprint had 81 followers, not quite as many asLady Gaga, but only another 7,704,111 to go!As this has been a success, we have launcheda JC Twitter page, which has helped drivetraffic to our website and increase our onlinepresence.

Watch this space as we are working on aFacebook page to be launched latesummer. ■

twitter.com/craigshendrytwitter.com/JC_Accountants

FromAlistair BuchanFinance Director

As the firm continues to grow there an increasing desire for the Finance Department toproduce succinct and meaningful financial information that the Operations Partners can useto manage their office as efficiently as possible. Part of that process is to ensure we settargets that have a meaningful basis, and to give all of us a realistic and fair challenge for thecoming months. The firm’s budget and cash flow projections have historically been created inExcel but we have well out-grown the existing model. Therefore, we are currently in theprocess of implementing anew budgeting andreporting tool fromIBM - CognosPlanning.

As well as allowingus to custom-build the budgetmodel to suit ourbusiness, it will alsobe linked to ournew PracticeManagementsystem CCH,which has just gonelive and willtherefore allow usto use thereporting capabilityto produce ourvariousmanagement reportsmore efficiently.

The budget process for2011/12 was completedusing the new model. ■

Social Media New Budget Package

Brand Guidelinesand New Templates The Johnston Carmichael brand is such animportant asset of the firm, in order tokeep our brand reputation, we have beenworking on revised set of BrandGuidelines which will be distributedshortly and will be available onthe Hub.

This document outlines theintegrity of the Johnston

Carmichael brand, what itstands for and how it should

be displayed. The documenthas been produced to

ensure all staff andrelevant external

agencies, such as

Integrity

EngagementLetter Revision

Encryptionof e-mails

iXBRLThis is an acronym for “Inline ExtensibleBusiness Reporting Language”. As from 1April 2011 it became mandatory to fileCorporation tax returns, tax computationsand accounts with the HMRC using iXBRLfor companies with accounting periodsending after 31 March 2010.

For more detail or clarification regarding thislegislation, please refer to Graham Seager’se-mail of 10 December, but I will cover whatit means from an IT viewpoint.

FromDouglas RintoulPartner

There was a change in the law back in April2010, where the maximum fine for breachingthe Data Protection Act was raised from£5,000 to £500,000.

At the same time extra guidance came outregarding the security of client information, inparticular e-mail communication. ICAS havesince provided advice in that where clientsoutsource their employees’ payroll to us, weshould be encrypting all e-mailcommunication which holds their employeespersonal data. As such we are currentlyrolling out a product across JCBS andcommunicating with clients so that they areable to open the encrypted mail. Dependanton advice of best practice from ICAS this maybe rolled out across JC as well in the future.

Instead of providing a paper copy or evenan electronic PDF to HMRC, theinformation has to be in this iXBRLformat. So what does this mean? XBRL iswhere information on say a set ofaccounts or CT600 tax return is taggedusing a standard code list called aTaxonomy. Thus “Sales” or “Cost of Sales”will always be a certain code no matterwhich coding structure the parentaccounts system uses. This means whenHMRC receive the information they cananalyse it in a standard way with nohuman intervention. The “i” part of iXBRLmeans that as well as producing a list ofTaxonomy codes with values against them,the actual format of the tax return oraccounts is maintained, so it can be readby a human. The tagging is stored in thedocument which can be read in anybrowser. Thus you are able to open theiXBRL set of accounts and by hoveringover figures the coding is shown.

This has caught many of the softwareproducers on the hop, as they have towrite new versions of the software tocreate the output files, but we are ontarget to have our systems up to date inadvance of the deadline. ■

FromSarah RobertsonMarketing Manager

designers achieve a consistent style across allour communications.

Every piece of communication which goes outfrom the firm, needs to be consistent in style,from an email to a tender document.

As such, we have produced a new tendertemplate and are working on a newpowerpoint template which must be used.These templates reflect the style of ourwebsite, ensuring that everything has a similarlook and feel to it.

By ensuring consistency of ourcommunications with clients, contacts andtargets will help reinforce the strength of theJohnston Carmichael brand. ■

As individuals we work with integrity,discretion, honesty and trustworthiness andtreat people with courtesy and respect tobuild relationships.

The firm’s assets are our people, ourreputation, our clients and our culture andto protect these assets, we act legally andethically.

FromNicola BrownTraining & Development Coordinator

Lesley Wilson is currently reviewing andupdating the firm’s policy documents with theassistance of various Heads of Service Linesand Executive Team Heads, as it is some timesince this has been done. It is proving more ofa challenge than anticipated - not least inensuring that all policies are actually in thePolicy Documents folder on the DocumentLibrary!

We are taking this opportunity to alsoreconsider what are ‘policies’ (rules of thefirm) and what are procedures or guidance,and to tidy up our style template for policydocuments. We will draw your attention asappropriate to any policies which arechanging. ■

Policies review

ICAS recommends we review ourterms of engagement regularly andupdate as appropriate and the timing ofamendments is largely driven byregulatory changes in relation to thework we perform. However, it is sometime since we updated our general terms– i.e. those standard areas that cover all ofour clients, regardless of the type of workwe do.

So, we have recently commenced acomplete revision of our terms. We alsoplan to change the format of what weproduce in line with that recommended byICAS, ACCA and CIoT, and so will provide theclient with three separate documents being (1)a covering letter which highlights the main areasof work covered (2) separate “schedules”detailing the specific terms of each area of workand (3) standard terms of business covering areassuch as client ID, data protection and feeing andpayment terms etc. In future, should the scope ofwork extend to an area not previously included, we willsimply issue a further schedule as an addendum to theletter already in place.

We have issued the various heads of functions with templateschedules covering their respective areas of expertise forreview, and have reissued engagement letters to all of our clients. ■

FromAlistair BuchanFinance Director

FromLesley WilsonPartner

The firm carries out regular reviews of keyareas of work to ensure that standards arebeing maintained and that any issues in anarea, or opportunities to improve matters forthe clients’ benefit, are taken. The areas whichare looked at most years include:

• Audit files and audited accounts• Business recovery and insolvency• Clients’ money• Company secretarial• Consultancy• Corporate finance• Corporate tax• Investment business• Money laundering• Office support, e.g. reception, filing,

storage• Payroll• Personal tax• Pink pack accounts and files• Tax credits• Trusts and executries• Unincorporated accounts• VAT

Considerable time and effort is put into thisprocess, to ensure we are identifying the risksin the work we do, reviewing work widelyacross the firm, and then take action on anypoints arising. The good news is that wegenerally find we are producing high qualitywork, and there is consistency around thefirm in how we do our work and lay out ourfiles. While the process is managed by LesleyWilson, Chief Executive Sandy Mansonreviews all review reports and agrees theactions to be taken.

The review cycle started in February 2011. Ifyour files or your area are being reviewedplease do continue to give every cooperationto the internal reviewers, who work hard toensure we continue to be a quality firm. ■

Internal Review A plea to talk FromSarah TaylorHR Director

Every six months we analyse staff turnoverlevels to see what the statistics can tell usabout your engagement and we carry outexit interviews to get to the bottom of staffmembers’ feelings about the firm.

It is very frustrating to feed back the results ofthis to partners and line managers only to betold “I had no idea they felt that way”.Regretfully, no-one in our business has acrystal ball. If you feel we’re not offering youwhat you need - be it better feedback, careerdevelopment etc. – please tell someone. We can’t fix what we don’t know about –and we’d appreciate the opportunity to try! ■

Health & Safety Update FromAvril McLeodDirector

The cold snap last winter certainly brought usmany challenges in each of our offices and weworked hard to ensure there were appropriatearrangements in place to keep car parks andexternal walkways as clear as possible.

We used 2 tonnes of rock salt last November/December, which we certainly didn’t expectto be the case so early in to the winter. Roofleaks, broken guttering and frozen heatingunits, the joys that seasonal weather brings!

The team have invested quite a bit of work onhealth and safety this year, particularly with thedevelopment of the new health and safetypage on the Hub.

From this page there is a link to the documentlibrary and the firm’s health and safety policyand information can be found here. We hopethat you find this useful and informative. Asthe firm grows it is important that our policiesand working procedures are periodicallyreviewed to ensure they are fit for purpose.

This year we engaged the services of anexternal health and safety consultant toundertake an audit of our current health andsafety policies and working procedures andwill report back with any findings andsuggested recommendations. The auditor hasbeen provided with our health and safetyinformation and we currently await hisfeedback.

As a firm we are required to carry out thespecific testing to all electrical equipment inthe workplace. The programme for the testingof our portable appliances and fixed wiring hasbeen completed. I am pleased to report thatto date no significant problems have beenidentified however there is no room forcomplacency and the team work hard toensure high standards are maintained.

We also encourage input and feedback fromyou all as this is very important – if you evercome across a situation which you believemay result in a health and safety issue thenplease report this to your local health andsafety representative or office managerimmediately. ■

Service Newsletters At Johnston Carmichael we take pride inthe level of service we provide and wantto make a difference for clients. We giveexceptional personal service through onekey point of contact forall client services.

We think ahead and work with energyand enthusiasm.

We strive to be the firm of choice in themarkets in which we operate and ourrange of services and specialism’s isextensive and growing.

New Website

FromClaire MiltonMarketing Communications Coordinator

We continue to publish annual newsletters for our keysectors, with the introduction last year of a Food and Drinknewsletter.

With the Green Energy sector growing so quickly, werecognised the need to revamp our current EnergyNewsletter and replaced it with two sector focusednewsletters, Green Energy News and Oil & Gas News.

Another new development in 2010 was the introduction ofour ‘flippy newsletters’, which are available for downloadingon the Hub and website. These make it much easier toemail our newsletters to clients and contacts.

We would like to thank those of you who give up your time to write articles for ournewsletters and if you have any new article suggestions, please get in touch with Claireor Sarah. ■

FromSandie MowatE-Marketing Coordinator

On 24 September we launched our new website. The website has been designedusing our corporate colour palette and uses typography as well as images to getour key messages across, add colour and create impact.

The home page opens using our new strapline ‘Let’s talk about growing yourbusiness’.

Since going live, we have had over 130 non clients sign up to receive ouremail updates and this number continues to increase each month.

Number of new clients/new client enquriesThe new website has already provided us with an increase in the numberof new client enquiries we receive online, with 20 enquiries since the newwebsite was launched. This has resulted in three new clients signing up toour services so far.

Visitor numbers increase on 2010?We are pleased to see an increase in the number of visits, averagenumber of pages viewed per visit, number of visitors and the average timespent on the new website, compared with the same period in 2010.Comparing the figures of January to March 2010 to January to March2011 shows that our visitor numbers have increased by 14%. ■

Events Public RelationsFromClaire MiltonMarketing Communications Coordinator

In 2010 we held three agriculture seminarsacross the country. These seminars wereheld jointly with Stronachs Solicitors andcovered the various issues which couldarise when passing on the family farm tothe next generation.

When Sex and the City 2 was released incinemas in June, a few of the CRMs in theAberdeen office seized the opportunity totake their female clients out for an eveningof cocktails and canapés followed by ascreening of the film in the cinema, this wasa really successful evening and somethingdifferent to the dinners we often do.

The FIFA World Cup provided an excellentopportunity to meet with our clients overa few beers and the Glasgow, Edinburghand Aberdeen offices all held events.

In November we co-sponsored TheScottish Opera’s performance of TheMarriage of Figaro in Aberdeen withLedingham Chalmers LLP. Both firmsinvited clients and non-clients to enjoy apre-theatre meal, followed by theperformance. A great night was had by allwho attended.

The last few months have also been packedwith a range of free seminars held in ouroffices. These include Corporate Seminarswhich provided an update for FinancialDirectors in Inverness, Elgin, Glasgow,Aberdeen and Edinburgh, Tax Seminarscovering strategies for high earners in Elgin,and Cash Management Seminars for smallbusinesses in Aberdeen. The feedback fromthese seminars has all been positive andthey enable us to provide added value tomany of our clients. ■

FromSarah RobertsonMarketing Manger

We work with two PR agencies, KD Media in Edinburgh and Glasgow and MacKenzie PR in allother offices. In 2010, we had extensive coverage in all of the major press in Scotland, below is aselection of the cuttings.

We secured lead coverage in the Press & Journal and The Herald for both budgets, by negotiatingsponsorship deals.

The charity efforts during the year were also well reported in a variety of publications, includingthe Fraserburgh Herald, Business 7, Scotland on Sunday, Farm North, The Northern Scott andthe Press & Journal.

We’ve had some very goodcoverage during 2010across all our offices andwe are grateful for allyour efforts writingthese articles. If youhave any ideas forfuture articlesplease get in touchwith Claire orSarah. ■

SustainableGrowth

Directors’conference

At Johnston Carmichael we want to growat a pace that we can manage withprofitable fee income. This is crucial toour success.

We value technology, learning andleadership and commit to investing inthese areas.

FromJonathan BevanIT Systems Engineer

We have now moved to a Managed Print Service withCapital Solutions providing support for approximately90% of all printers and copiers used within the business.

The benefits of this strategy to the business are, it:• provides a cost effective solution to our printing

needs, allowing substantial savings to be made on document printing costs

• replaces all the older and inefficient print devices

• reduces resolution time for issues with any device in any office - Capital Solutions have their own Helpdesk and local highly-trained engineers who provide a fast and efficient response

• lessens the impact on the environment by using fewer and more efficient printing devices

• frees up the IT Team to focus on pro-activesystem support. ■

FromNicola BrownTraining & Development Coordinator

The 2010 Directors’ Conference tookplace at Dunkeld House Hotel, and 40directors worked hard on a widevariety of agenda items, all of whichshould move the firm forwards.

Sandy Manson (Chief Executive) andAndrew Shepherd (Chairman) were inattendance throughout lending theirsupport, and Julia Timmins kept theconference ticking over from anadministrative point of view. This yearwe had two external speakers, onaspects of communication. Onespeaker, Lorna Hudson, focused onstandards of personal appearance anddress, which was thought provokingand challenging. ■

Throughout the year Johnston Carmichael has had some significant new client wins includingthese companies. ■

New clients

FromMartyn WinterburnIT Support Assistant

We have recently invested in replacing over 150 PC’s and laptops across the firm. These weremachines which were over 5 years old, and causing efficiency problems for those using themin terms of poor performance and increased IT Support calls. At the same time we investedin some new technologies to speed up the roll out of new and existing equipment.

Inverurie became our staging area because of its central location and available free space fordeliveries and the build process. Recycling of the packaging was done via Moray Council in Elgin.

Asset tagging and licensing information have to be recorded for both Insurance and SoftwareLicence compliance. Next came the preparation and installation phase which has beensignificantly improved by utilising a pre-installed Johnston Carmichael specific Windows 7Image from Dell.

This image removes many off the slow manual configuration steps, and coupled withsome in house ‘IT black magic’, has allowed us to prep and distribute over 150 new

computers over 10 offices, over a 2 month period while maintaining normalsupport operations and with minimal impact to the end user.

Dell managed the collection and recycling of the old hardwarethus saving us valuable storage space and ensuring we remain

true to our culture of Corporate Social Responsibility. ■

PC and laptop replacements

New Year - new printers

Business devlopment - Just do it!FromAdam HardieBusiness Development Director

In 2010, we developed a client management and development training programme which we have put approximately 50 of ourclient facing staff through, as part of our Professional Excellence Programme.

The below guide was produced to encourage better client focus for Partners and Client Relationship Managers.

FromSarah TaylorHR Director

If you recognise this then you must be getting familiar with theFirm’s ‘Engagement Model’ which we launched last year as aquick and easy guide for managing people.

Managing people well can sometimes seem to be something of a black art, but this should onlybe the case if we’re asked to do it without being shown how. Many managers struggle withwhether to be ’nice’ to their staff, or to concentrate on getting results. But this shouldn’t be an‘either / or’. The very best managers are highly demanding, setting their staff challenging targetswhich, when met, deliver a great sense of achievement, but they do so supportively and kindly.

The Engagement Model – which you can find on the HR pages of The Hub, and on thewallet cards sent out last year – is thirteen simple statements that show our managers howto pull this off. If you can answer ‘strongly agree’ to most of these statements, then yourmanager ought to be a pretty effective people manager. And that means that your teamshould also be delivering results for our business.

But the Engagement Model is no use to a manager in isolation. He or she will needyour help to understand what works for you, and what doesn’t. Feedback needs tobe two way – your manager needs it from you just as much as you need it from himor her.

So this year we will be asking you, as part of your main appraisal, to have a thinkabout the thirteen statements and let your manager know how he or she is

doing. We are all different, and like to be managed in different ways, so helpyour manager understand what matters to you, what you’d like him or her

to continue doing, and what you’d like him or her to change. Giveexamples to aid understanding.

People management needn’t be a black art – let’s keep it simple! ■

Engagement model promotion “My manager setshigh standardsand actively workswith me toachieve them.”

Teamwork

FromSarah TaylorHR Director

Flexible benefits, salary sacrifice for trainingcontributions, child care vouchers, pensionchanges... we’ve looked at a number ofdifferent pay and benefit initiatives over thepast couple of years. So where are we?

‘Flexible benefits’ is the big one. We’d liketo introduce an on-line platform to alloweach of us to select from a menu thebenefits that matter most to us, tradingbetween cash, benefits, and holidays, withincertain limits.

We took a long, hard look at this andworked up what it could look like forJohnston Carmichael. As you might imagine,the costs – both up front and ongoing – arevery substantial. With the economy in such afragile and uncertain condition, and with theother financial pressures that our business iscurrently experiencing, we concluded that itwouldn’t be prudent to introduce such a schemeat the moment. So it has been parked – but by nomeans forgotten.

Instead, we have taken some alternative steps toimprove our benefits. By switching our pensionprovider to Scottish Widows, we can now offer you awider fund choice and lower management charges,making sure more of your hard earned cash ends upwhere it belongs - in your pension pot. And for those ofyou with substantial childcare fees, we now offer a voucherscheme which could save basic rate taxpayers over £900/year.

We place a great deal of emphasis on the importance oftraining, so we’re also exploring whether the Revenue can pickup part of the tab for your contributions. This isn’t quite as simpleas saying “great idea - let’s do it”. Contrary to popular belief, salarysacrifice schemes aren’t always self financing, there are question marksover the VAT treatment, and we have to be sure the potential savingsfor you justify the changes to employment contracts etc. Watch thisspace, because we hope to be able to make a decision on this shortly. ■

Compensation& benefits

Although the firm is based around 10locations, we are one team.

To ensure we work as a team, we must,work well together, share our knowledgeand challenge and support our people.

The firm is committed to makingJohnston Carmichael a great place towork and values and rewards hard work.

FromNicola Brown Training & Development Coordinator

The Training Team (aka Nicola Brown) hasbeen busy reviewing all the appraisal interimforms for additional training needs, andadding them to our Training Needsdatabase for actioning.

You may receive calls from the team toclarify what you and your line manager arelooking for. ■

Appraisals

Student recruitmentFromIain Abernethy Learning & Development Director

During the autumn we were busy working to secure the services of students who will join thefirm in 2011. This intake includes at least one student for every office and to date we have 20students ‘signed up’. The students will be joining us to participate in one of the followingschemes:

Graduate recruitment is a very competitive market and we continue to work hard in order toseek innovative methods of keeping one step ahead of our competition. We are delighted to havesecured very strong candidates for 2011who we hope will enjoy working with the firm. To helpthis process be successful representatives of the firm have attended and presented at recruitmentevents across the country.

We have also been working with The Robert Gordon University to secure students for the yearlong placement. There are four students joining the firm who will work in the Aberdeen, Elgin,Huntly and Inverness offices.

Summer placement positions have also been filled and again this has been helped throughpresentations and contact with Aberdeen, Dundee, Strathclyde and Edinburgh universities. The summer placement is an excellent time for students to gain real life experience within anaccounting practice and can be used as an extended interview forpossible future work with Johnston Carmichael.

In the autumn we dealt with over 300 applicationsand interviewed 62 students. ■

• Aberdeen University Bursary Scheme • Banff and Buchan College Partnership • Dundee University Placement Scheme • Edinburgh University Placement Scheme • Inverness College Partnership

• JC Graduate Training Programme • Strathclyde University Placement Scheme •The Robert Gordon University

Placement Scheme

Career map development FromLesley WilsonPartner

We started to roll out the Career Maps in 2006, and we now have Career Maps in place for:

• Accounts• Audit• Business Recovery and Outsourcing• Tax• Outsourcing• General practice• JCFS• JCBS VAT team

We are working on the drafts of the Corporate Finance and Administration/SupportCareer Maps. Once these last two are in place we have no plans at this time to developany further Maps - we need a sizeable work group for a Career Map to be beneficial tostaff and their managers, however we will develop further maps where needed.

The feedback received to date is that they are useful to you, in that they have achievedour objectives of achieving consistency around the firm in our expectations of people, andhave also brought transparency into what is needed if people are looking to get on in thefirm. Also, as far as we are aware, the short but formal process people need to gothrough in order to move from one Stage of a Career Map to another seems to beachieving the necessary balance between having enough challenge in the process withoutbeing overly bureaucratic.

We are about to go back to the beginning, to review each Map to check it still entirelyreflects the career ladders in an area, and what is expected of people at each Stage. Wewill do any review in the same way we create any original map – in full consultation with arepresentative group. Again, if you have any thoughts on if and how we should developthe maps, please let me know. ■

360 feedbackreports

“We will do any review inthe same way we createany original map - in fullconsultation with arepresentative group .”

FromLesley WilsonPartner

As you are probably aware, the firmwas incredibly busy over the firstquarter of 2011, as a number of timeconsuming projects were underway:conversion of corporate tax returns toonline filing, with the tagging ofaccounts which involved; the move tothe new practice management systemCCH, which involved considerablework across the firm; and reissues ofengagement letters in connection withthose matters. Finally the move to LLPstatus effective 1 June 2011 hasinvolved quite a bit of work too.

To avoid additional stress to partnersand staff in completing what can be aconsiderable number of individualfeedback reports, we have taken thedecision to defer the 360 feedbackexercise for partners and managersuntil the summer of 2011, by whichtime the above projects will have beencompleted. The intention is to have theindividual reports for partners andmanagers ready for the autumn updateappraisals rather than the spring mainappraisals. Note that directors andsenior managers are due to receivetheir feedback in spring 2012.

If anyone has any queries on thisplease contact me. ■

StaffNews -Around theOffices

Firm -Wide Exam Success!Congratulations to everyone who passed their exams so far this year.

The following students passed exams towards their ACCA qualification: Scott Allan, KirstyPark and Andrew Craig (Aberdeen), Sarah Stewart, Sam Holden and Karen Wilson (Forfar),Kian Coertze (Edinburgh), Louise Gow (Perth) and Amy Inglis (Elgin).

We are also delighted that our Association of Accounting Technician(AAT) students have achieved a fantastic 100% first time pass rate in the AAT exams.

Our successful students are Sarah Anderson (Aberdeen), Nicola Hepburn (Fraserburgh),Jenna Wilson (Fraserburgh), Susan Scarborough (Huntly), Rachael Adam (Inverurie) and GailLittle (Perth) and all progress onto the next stage of their AAT studies.

Congratulations to Rebecca Bliss (Inverness) for completing her VQ Administration Level 2and to Emma Green (Huntly) for completing her SVQ Business and Administration Level 3. ■

FundraisingStaff have also been busy fundraising around the offices with activities ranged from therecent London Marathon to a Casino night and a sponsored silence.

A huge well done and congratulations to our marathon runners who all completed thecourse with very respectable times.

Andrew Shepherd (3:22), Sarah Anderson (4.20) and Richard Walker (4:45) all ran as partof the Cancer Research UK Gold bond team and Johnston Carmichael’s seasoned marathonrunner Fiona Macritchie (3.26) also took part.

Over £15,000 has been raised by Andrew, Sarah and Richard for our firmwide charityCancer Research UK. This has helped boost our CSR fundraising total for this year, which iscurrently sitting at over £40,000. ■

Spring Dress Down Dayand Red Nose DayAll offices took part in a Spring Dress Down Day, raising £1668.17 on March 18th.

Aberdeen raised £251 by selling breakfast rolls, homebakes, dress down, raffle and a quiz.This is going to Comic Relief.

Edinburgh raised £336.67 by selling bacon rolls and car washing. Half of the money is goingto Comic Relief and half to The Pilrig Park School.

Elgin raised £213.70 by holiday a dress down day, selling Belly Button Softies rolls and a PickYour Pose poster. All the money raised is for Comic Relief.

Forfar raised £34.20 for Comic Relief.

Fraserburgh raised £35 by holding a dress down day, selling bacon rolls and doing some games.

Glasgow raised £63.10 for MD Scotland.

Huntly raised £104.80 which will be split by £10 going to Cancer Research UK, the rest isgoing to Huntly Day Care Centre. The money was raised through Dress Down and the saleof homebakes.

Inverness raised £368.70 by selling bacon rolls, homebakes, car washing, quiz and square game.

Inverurie raised £100 by selling homebakes and dressing down. The money is to go to theOlivia Downie Appeal.

Perth raised £161 by dressing down, having a curry lunch and pudding. This is going to TheBraveheart Trust. ■

Congratulations!Congratulations to Gordon McCarlie (Aberdeen) on his engagement to Suzanne

Corcoran.Congratulations to Martin Bannerman (Inverness) who got engaged to Donna

Campbell on 20 February.Congratulations to Colin Stirling in Edinburgh and his wife Judith who had a

baby girl on 21 February, who they have named Lucy.Congratulations to Chris Campbell (Elgin) and his wife Emma who had

a baby girl on Tuesday 12th April, who they named Chloe Louisa.Congratulations to Laura Anderson, (nee Ritchie), from the

Aberdeen office, who got married to Scott on April 22nd 2011. ■

Below is a brief update from around theoffices of major events over the last fewmonths.

Happy Birthday!Kaz Johnston in Elgin celebrated her 21stBirthday on 22 April.Carole Jackson in Elgin celebrated her 60thBirthday on 24 March.Neil Smith in Huntly celebrated his 40thBirthday on 23 February.Wilma Farquharson in Huntly celebratedher 50th Birthday on 14 February.Emma Green in Huntly celebrated her 21stBirthday on 28 April.Steven Massie in Inverurie celebrated his21st Birthday on 26 April. Rory Machray in Inverurie celebrated his30th Birthday on 1 February.■

Happy Birthdayto JohnstonCarmichaelThis year also marks the firm’s 75th Birthdayand our birthday party takes place on theSaturday 4 June at the Aberdeen TreetopsHotel. We hope to see you there. ■

Treasure Hunt22 people from the Inverness office went ona Treasure Hunt around the hostelries ofInverness on Friday 1st April. After leavingWeatherspoons, Team Captains from theSocial Committee escorted their teams on atour of four pubs, giving clues along the waywhich they had to solve in the quickest timepossible.

Alongside this one of the team members had towear a tee shirt and get as many signatures aspossible from members of the public. For everysignature 10 seconds came off the total time. CarrieMacrae overcame her “natural shyness” and was thestar getting 125 signatures on her tee shirt – most ofwhich were inoffensive.

A good night was had by all with Donald Begg’s team,Chris Boyd, Jill Smith and Ian Lewis proving to be clued upand Carol James’s team, consisting of Scott Jeffrey, CarrieMacRae and Fiona Macritchie seemingly clueless. ■