The CA sector can be stratified into the following main constituencies:

•        Big four firms;

•        Medium sized firms; and

•        Small firms.

The majority of trainees (approximately 70%) are employed by small and medium sized firms with approximately 25% of the learnership contracts being held by black trainees. On the other hand the big four, who employ approximately 28% of all trainees, employ 36% of black trainees.

The Codes take cognisance of the fact that it would be difficult, and possibly unfair, to apply the same indicators to the evaluation of B-BBEE across the board to large, medium, small and micro enterprises.

Therefore statement 000 of series code 000 provides a framework for the measurement of B-BBEE for Qualifying Small Enterprises (QSEs). It contains the following definition, which will also be applied to QSEs in the CA sector:

'Any enterprise with an annual total revenue of between R5 million and R35 million qualifies as a qualifying small enterprise.'

A further guiding principle of this Sector Code is thus that small firms in the CA sector to whom these indicators apply, will be measured in terms of the QSE Scorecard, as set out in paragraph 13.1, while all other firms will be measured in terms of the Generic Scorecard, which is set out in paragraph 12.1.

A micro enterprise is defined as an enterprise with an annual revenue of R5 million or less (statement 000, code series 000). Such a micro enterprise is deemed to have B-BBEE status of a level four contributor with a B-BBEE procurement recognition of 100%. The statement also sets out conditions that would enable it to qualify for a B-BBEE status of a level three contributor.

Start-up enterprises are measured as exempted micro enterprises for the first year following their formation or incorporation. This provision applies regardless of the expected total revenue of the start-up enterprise.