Carillion

A key business group is proposing improvements to how firms are run in the wake of scandals such as Carillion.

The Wolverhampton-based engineering giant went into liquidation in January 2018 after running up debts of about £1.5bn.

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The 10-point proposals are from the Institute of Directors (IoD) and include urging an end to shareholder primacy - whereby corporate profits trump public concerns - and more commitment to environmentally friendly policies.

The IoD's director of policy, Edwin Morgan, told the BBC's Today programme governance in the UK was generally good but there was "room for improvement".

"We have seen major collapses like Carillion which have dented public trust... you can be director of a public corporation and have no training in corporate governance," he said.

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The Institute of Directors (IoD) has launched a 10-point plan to improve corporate governance in the wake of scandals such as Carillion.

Director of policy Edwin Morgan told Today that governance in the UK was generally good but there was "room for improvement".

"We have seen major collapses like Carillion which have dented public trust... you can be director of a public corporation and have no training in corporate governance," he said.

Among other things the plan urges an end to shareholder primacy - whereby corporate profits trump public concerns - and more commitment to environmentally friendly policies.

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Yesterday yet another British government outsourcer Kier announced that it was in trouble.

Kier said it will cut 1,200 jobs and sell its homebuilding business, Kier Living, as well as shutting or selling other interests, including its recycling and rubbish processing units.

But will it go the same way as Carillion, which went bust in January last year?

Stephen Rawlinson, an analyst at Applied Value, doesn't think so.

"I don't think anyone wants to see another Carillion, because they realise that making these companies go into administration is expensive in itself, but not withstanding that, there is insufficient competition in the UK anyway to build the assets for the schools, the roads, the hospitals that we all need in our everyday lives," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"But also it actually has physical assets it can sell. It can sell the land, it can sell the property, but it's not a great time to do it, so it may well be that it has to sell more assets than was announced yesterday."

The UK's competition regulator has recommended a major shake-up of the UK's accountancy market.

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Alarm bells have rung over recent accountancy blunders, such as the collapse of Wolverhampton-based Carillion, which was audited by KPMG.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said auditing and consultancy services should be entirely separate.

But it has stopped short of calling for the Big Four accountancy firms to be broken up.

However, industry bodies criticised the proposals, with one saying there was no evidence that they would lead to better audits.