To The Guardian
While working in the consultancy arms of a couple of major accountancy firms, I was continually struck by the fact that one English regional office seemed to have as many accountants as were present in the whole of other European countries with which I had contact. Indeed, Professor Prem Sikka pointed out in 2009 that the UK had as many accountants as the whole of the rest of the EU.

Maybe they are to blame for the tidal waves of performance measures which consume far too much of the energies of organisations, private and public, and for the dominance of short-term thinking over strategic outlook. It is hard to think what they might directly contribute to productivity performance. In an earlier phase of concern about UK industry’s failings, Akio Morita was invited to talk about his company, Sony’s, success. He expressed amazement that so many UK corporations were headed by accountants, whose “central concern is for statistics and figures of past performance” which made it hard for them to “reach out and grab the future”.
If “grabbing the future” rather than delight in “efficiency savings” is the way forward in improving productivity, then that way seems to be blocked by an infestation of accountants.
Trevor Hart, Shipley, West Yorkshire

More on this subject tomorrow.