ICAEW staff members are feeling the pain of belt-tightening at Chartered Accountants Hall in 2009, institute CEO Michael Izza revealed today. Speaking at a council meeting, Izza said that there had been 'huge demands' on staff during the year. 'We've been running at about 60-70 vacancies,' he said, adding that 57 of those positions had now been cancelled. Although there had been a significant uplift in productivity, Izza said: 'There are parts of the organisation that cannot go on at the level they are now without some sort of support.' In February, Izza revealed that ICAEW staff in the UK had had their pay levels for 2009 frozen to prevent redundancies being made. The current UK headcount of ICAEW staff stands at 553, while staffing costs totalled £31.5m for the financial year ending 31 December 2007. Izza also told the council today that Ernst & Young was now training its students with the ICAEW again after switching to ICAS in 2,000. In addition, Deutsche Bank, RBS and Goldman Sachs are training ACAs with the institute and it has nearly 1,000 students training outside the UK. Izza said the institute's revenues looked like they would remain flat in 2009.