This time of year demands an award for best Christmas card. And rather than repeat the fine work of my colleagues at Taking Stock, I simply urge you to go to their blog for enlightenment - especially all you ICAEW merger fans.

And don't forget to take a look at the Christmas card from Colin, Taking Stock's resident accountant.

If you want to know where global accounting power and influence is shifting (or at least its engine room), bear this statistic in mind.

On November 12 this year, 27565 students sat the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India's common proficiency test, its new CA curriculum.

The exams were held at 160 centres nationwide, with about one in three of those taking part female. More than 18,000 passed.

(As a comparison, the ICAEW has 9,928 UK students, according to the most recent FRC stats.)

India often gets overlooked given the current global sinophilia. But with accountancy firms like  Silver Levene already contracting out work there, accountants cannot afford to.

Within his first 100 days as prime minister Gordon Brown will abolish the DTI. So says yesterday's Daily Telegraph. Meanwhile David Cameron remains wobbly on the department, the paper says.

The fact that Victoria Street has been home to six secretaries of state in nine years suggests to me it is an institution that no one knows what to do with.

It goes without saying that business needs a voice at the Cabinet table so that even if the DTI itself does not survive, high-level representation has to be maintained.

What I hope doesn't happen (and what inevitably will) is that reform is accompanied by a slew of high-minded and ultimately vacuous statement about how refom is necessary if we are to tackle the evil of red tape....harming British competitiveness..blah, blah, blah.

Plug the words 'red tape bonfire' into Google and it throws up 272,000 results. I can't confirm whether all of those references have been made by New Labour ministers but it feels like it. Two formal recent red tape bonfires (2005's Arculus report and 2005's Hampton review ) have almost been obscured by the constant rhetoric on this front. And so when last month's Davidson review landed I'm sure I wasn't alone in feeling exhausted.

A little less reviewing regulation, a little more action please, as Elvis Presley almost said.

Resource accounting news appears to be like buses: you wait months for some to come along and suddenly it's everywhere.

The Guardian even splashed on a resource accounting story this week, revealing that 13 health trusts are 'tehnically bankrupt with no chance of meeting a legal obligation to balance their books'. It was a story I read with envy and admiration. It wasn't good news by any means, but it was exactly the sort of revelation I would like to read in Accountancy Age.

Patrcia Hewitt was duly dispatched to the The Today Programme studio to discuss the implications and within a few hours the much trailed tale was fleshed out in the health department's 2007/08 priorities document.

But the detail turned out to be spectacularly unclear.

The trusts' problem is resouce accounting's requirement for health trusts to balance their books and recover one year's overspend out of the subsequent years' allocations.

But though a clearly well-informed Guardian suggested an accounting change was on the way, in successive paragraphs the new NHS framework appeared to directly contradict itself.

'We will look again at the case for reversing the impact of past resource accounting and budgeting deductions on delivery of financial balance in 2006/07,' ran para 4.9. So far, so good for the troubled trusts.

Only for para 4.10 to state: 'Any change in the application of RAB to NHS trusts cannot lead to any write-off of ‘historic debt’. NHS trusts will have financed deficits through short term cash brokerage or reducing their working capital and they will be expected to recover their cash position.'

I'm still not sure what it means though we will continue to try and find an answer. Most likely the government will only allow 'good' trusts to take advantage of financial flexibility, in the same way that good councils and good schools are allowed more freedom.

For now, though,  I'm reminded of a Tom Waits lyric: 'What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away'.

It's no exageration to say that government accounting skipped 20^th century developments in financial reporting almost entirely.

In recent years it has been dragged kicking and screaming out of a Victorian cash accounting system in a far more commercial system known as resource accounting. To enforce the new regime, driven through by Andrew Likierman, a man now concerning himself with reforming UN accounting, proper finance directors have been appointed throughout Whitehall for the first time. Things are ticking along fairly well.

Now the Government Accounting Service seems ready to go further. Now under the equally capable stewardship of former PwC partner Mary Keegan, it intends to issue a financial reporting manual on how international financial reporting standards might be applied in government as early as next May.

More than that, though, noises are being made about government convergence with IFRS as early as 2009/09. Now that is significant for a number of reasons.

One, because Whitehall has only moved to UK GAAP parity in the last few years. And two, because the Accounting Standards Board is not expecting non-listed UK companies to converge before January 2009 at the earliest. So Whitehallcould beat the private sector to the adoption of the most modern accounting system.

That would be quite a coup. What could be the spur? It must surely be a coincidence that it would be Keegan driving the change. And her previous role? Only head of the ASB.

Only one mention in the speech of the word 'prudent' and four of 'stability'. So what are the new watchwords? 'Environment' was mentioned four times amd the NHS three. Hardly impressive. Education, on the other hand, was name-checked on no fewer than 21 occasions while the words 'growth' and 'global' crossed Brown's lips 13 times. Sounds like a prime ministerial agenda to me.

Asked on the Today Programme whether today's would be his last pre-Budget report, Gordon Brown was having none of it. 'This will be my latest pre-Budget report,' he said.

It's what the world's been crying out for: Enron – The Musical.

Penned by award-winning writer Mark Fraser, the two-act play tells the story of Enron from the perspective of a former employee.

He shares stories about Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling, and former CFO Andy Fastow 'with each scene having a delightful tune to get you laughing, sometimes mad, and a little bit sad'.

Among the familiar-sounding tunes are Get Me to the Court on Time, (How Do You Solve a Problem Like) Jeff Skilling? And Thank Heaven for Off-Book Deals.

And there aren't many musicals you can point to that offer insights on the California energy crisis, the Nigerian barge deal, the broadband fiasco and the off-book debt that sank the company.

After debuting last weekend, it's showing again in Houston this weekend. You can get tickets here but if you see it I'd love to hear a review.

Football's financial crises never went away they just changed in nature. So where once financial mismanagement injured the likes of Leeds United, Crystal Palace and Hull City, now reports of bungs, corruption and tax dodges are the issues further damaging the sport's reputation in the eyes of many.

But help could be hand. The Institute of Directors is launching project to right wrongs by launching what it claims is the world’s first global Football Direction Programme for senior executives of clubs, associations and suppliers.

Transferring its philosophy from other sectors, the IoD argues investment in personal and professional development in a hotly competitive sport is 'essential for executives wanting to reach – and stay at – the top of their game'. (Obligatory pun clearly intended).

The programme will focus on good governance and personal business skill development 'to ensure that senior executives are fully contributing to the challenge of creating a competitive advantage for their organisations'.

What struck me was how – finally – the role of directors in running one of the world's fastest growing industries is getting the attention it deserves. And not just from the IoD.

Also bubbling under is the Burns review of the Football Association's structure. Next year is likely to see the reforms bite, with the board substantially simplified. There should be, the former Treasury mandarin said in his 2005 report, an FA board that consists of between ten and twelve directors, with three directors appointed from each side of the game. This, he says, would have the best chance of developing and functioning as a unitary decision-making entity over the longer term.

So positive news all round. If only it weren't for Lord Stevens review of the game's bung culture. That's due to report next week. So expect plenty more unfortunate headlines this side of Christmas.