There is a withering assesment of the accountancy profession in today's Financial Times, from Warren Tayler, the chairman of AIM-listed direct marketing group Themutual.net.

In a latter to the paper (you can read extracts at AccountancyAge.com) he says the group's auditors have failed to explain the reasons for a trebling in fees and the need to appoint two sets of accountants.

'While many businesses have cut overhead and staff costs by the use of technology, the accounting profession, while stating that they too are moving with the times, end up greatly increasing the costs to clients,' Tayler writes.

I suspect Taylor is voicing what many of his fellow executives privately believe.

The accountancy profession, while fantastic at carving out niches for themselves as industry commentators, are appalling at discussing 'issues' that affect the profession more directly. Too often firms hide behind 'client confidentiality' when there is none at stake and point to a lack of regulation requiring them to do something as a reason for doing nothing.

Taylor also raises an interesting question: why can't auditors use the internet to update client accounts in real-time instead of wasting time and resources on client visits. A recent survey from the IAAITC suggests too many firms barely know what the internet is, having no web presence themselves and at best emailing clients from Hotmail addresses. In that light, Taylor's suggestion might be a problem, though it shouldn't be.

It seems the curse of Accountancy Age strikes again. Just weeks after she helped judge this year's Accountancy Age Awards, Standard Life confirmed today that finance director Alison Reed would be leaving. Now it seems BAA's Margaret Ewing, whom we interviewed last year, is on her way out too. If these things come in three which female finance director featured in Accountancy Age might we expect to depart next? Well, it would be unfair to name names and we wouldn't want to wish misfortune on anyone. But with Helen Kilpatrick recently the subject of one of our profiles - and the Home Office officially and famously 'not fit for purpose - can any senior official count their job as safe in that branch of Whitehall?

Smith & Williamson is considering going public, and at the current valuation would become the largest listed accounting firm in the UK. City figures indicate a multiple of 15 times earnings would be appropriate for S&W - Tenon for instance is valued that way too.

Gareth Pearce, chairman and group chief executive (there is no need to separate these duties in the non-listed world), told Accountancy Age this week why discussions were continuing: ‘The main advantage is profile raising and being better known. We see a listing as playing a part in that process.’

S&W would leapfrog the other listed firms in terms of size if its potential value is realised - Vantis is valued at £110m, while Tenon is worth £39m.

But consolidation rears its ugly head again - analysts spoke this week of 'bolt-on acquisitions’. So will S&W be in the market for other firms? It's not been a great model so far but that doesn't mean it can't work.

And it might look attractive to partners elsewhere too especially if S&W partners pick up the mooted seven-figure windfallsthat would result from a £250m flotation.

Next month marks the fifth anniversary of the listing on the Alternative Investment Market of Numerica, the first UK consolidator.

All went well, initially: with Levy Gee as the largest member firm, the company raised £25m and won awards for its branding. Chief executive Tony Sarin was feted for his vision and all looked rosy.

Since then the consolidators have been through the mill. Partners realised their share options tied them in rather than offering them realisable value and the consolidators failed to make an impression on investors.

Tenon, which followed Numerica onto AIM, has stumbled under various incarnations since its debut, most recently reporting a £1.5m loss and scrapping plans to go private amid rumours that debt levels scared off potential investors. Meanwhile Numerica itself was swallowed up by Vantis, the smallest of the three listed accountancy firms.

In short, accountancy firms’ experiences of the financial markets have not been happy ones.

So it was a surprise last week when Smith & Williamson said it had appointed advisers to look into the possibility of a public listing.

The firm, which counts a private bank for the great and good among its assets (if you have attended one of their champagne-soaked parties at the Royal Academy's summer exhibition you'll know just how great and good), said that after considering the move for no fewer than four years, financial advisers had been appointed 'to help us with this process'.

Interestingly the firm is growing at a rate of knots – even by the Top’s 50’s recent standards - income for the year to April 2006 leaped from £134.3m from £105.8m. And it’s profitable too - PBR climbed to £20.1m from £12.4m

Those numbers make S&W different to the consolidators. And it hasn’t yet revealed plans to acquire other firms. Moreover with its attractive investment management arm growing by over 20% last year, it is something of a unique proposition. But can it square the partner reward circle? ( Theoretical) share options are not the same as partner capital.

I wondered last week whether the accountancy bubble was about to burst and a couple of posters suggested I was being too cautious. It's not the first time I've been accused of that but on this one I'll hedge my best for a little while longer.

Yes, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a slowdown is underway (comments from PwC chairman Kieran Poynter, less-good-than-previously financials from a big recruiter etc.) but I struggle to see evidence that a crash is on the cards.

Deloitte's chief executive John Connolly says: ' "Calling" the market in the year ahead is challenging. The first quarter of the financial year saw continued strong growth in line with the previous year but the outlook remains uncertain.' He sees M&A as a great opportunity. Ernst & Young is thought to be more aggressive and while new KPMG head honcho John Griffith Jones is a little more cautious, his firm has posted the biggest gains in the last 12 months and so is bound to see slower acceleration going forward.

Below that top tier it's hard to imagine a more confident business person these days than Jeremy Newman of Stoy Hayward. And Grant Thornton continues to be perky too.

Of course they would say that. No chief exec wants to sound less bullish than a competitor and, with no listing authority to call them to account, there is little need for the big players to curb their enthusiasm. Neither do they want to talk the market into recession, always a very real danger.

But if Poynter is, forgive me, pointing to slower growth - albeit of the high single digit variety - that's not the end of the world. A few years ago Clive Thompson was known as Mr 20% for consistently delivering on the services group's annual revenue target. It didn't last and neither did his tenure as chairman.

Surely there is a normal level of growth we can expect from accountancy firms which doesn't require us to call a recession?

Des Hudson left ICAS last Thursday, bringing his colourful two-year tenure as chief executive to an end. During his time he got up the noses of CIPFA and the ICAEW in objecting very publicly to their intention to name a merged institute the Institute of Chartered Accountants. By my book, he was right to do so. Why should two institutes have a monopoly on a name that has traditionally required a national designation and should continue to do so?

Hudson has wasted no time in starting his new job, as chief executive of the Law Society, getting his feet under the desk on Monday. It should be an interesting ride - the legal profession's reputation for infighting makes the accountancy business look like a rank amateur.

ICAS's new chief executive, Anton Colella, the current chief executive of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, takes over at the beginning of next month.

I came across a great website today - CPAPodcasts. It features hundreds of links to accountancy related audio and video on the web, from the serious to the surreal. So if you are looking for footage of accountants dancing at office parties or business insights from Deloitte I suggest taking a look.

For most of the last three years the only thing holding back the seemingly unstoppable growth in accountancy firm revenues has been a lack of suitable staff. Corporates' appetite for work has shown no signs of diminishing, fuelled by a diet of Sarbox compliance and IFRS conversion.

But there's evidence that that's changing, if today's results by accountancy recruiter Hays are anything to go by.

The company reports net fees in accountancy and finance 6% ahead of last year at £158m. Not bad, you might think. But it doesn't look so good when you bear in mind that last year the division posted an 11% gain.

As the company said this morning: 'The overall performance of accountancy & finance was moderate and fee growth slowed from a combination of both weaker volumes and pricing pressure on the temporary margin as we reached the end of the year.'

And worse, other comments suggested the start of a regional slowdown. 'There was strong growth in the home counties but this was off-set by weak performances elsewhere,' it said.

So is this the beginning of the end? Possibly, though it could simply be that Hays had a flatter year than the market as a whole.

Robert Walters, which reported decent results yesterday, doesn't provide numbers broken down to a

UK

But it goes without saying that a boom cannot last forever.