New PwC senior partner Ian Powell cut his teeth in the region and so did an astonishing number of other senior industry figures.

Alchemy's Jon Moulton (fast-emerging as the go-to guy for TV journalists looking for a credit crunch soundbite), turnaround and football specialists Trevor Birch and Mark Palios, PKF's Philip Long, Deloitte's Nick Dargan, Grant Thornton's Malcolm Shearson, Scott Martin (who worked on Railtrack and is now a director of Wembley Stadium) and many, many others all hail from the region.

Insolvency association R3 labelled Bolton Britain's business graveyard a few years ago, alongside Manchester, based on the number of companies going bust by postcode.

And while the Policy Exchange report was much less well sourced and even more immoderately presented, it would be naive to ignore the link between a region that has had well-publicised economic woes and the growth of a discipline that thrives in the bad times.

Even so I believe the emergence of such a talented cadre of professionals says as much about the power of networks, shared experience and, perhaps, hard work as it does about economic gloom.

Discuss.

New BDO managing partner Simon Michaels was previously national head of the firm's business restructuring stream. The background of incoming CEO of Grant Thornton, Scott Barnes, is similar.

New PwC supremo Ian Powell is, according to The Birmingham Post, 'the man who "closed down" Rover'. (Look out for an interview with him in next week's Accountancy Age; it will be online on Thursday 14 August).

Equally interesting is the fact that the other three are run by corporate financiers.

Ernst & Young's Mark Otty, Deloitte's John Connolly and KPMG's John Griffiths-Jones are dealmakers at heart.

So will the dealmakers deliver greater success for their firms than the undertakers over the next few years?

I can feel a new league table coming on.....

They are a pain in the arise to deal with at the corporate level," he said in typically forthright style. 'They don't speak with one voice.'

But for me it was his other comments, effectively ruling out the prospect of a long-expected flotation in the looming recession that were more interesting, more revealing and utterly salutory.

'Personally I can't think of anything worse to do,' he said. 'I am finance director and marketing director and it is a thankless task to be finance director of a public company in the UK. One day it will float, but I won't be the finance director.'

I imagine he's not the only private company FD to feel that way

Alarmed, New York and Washington undertook root and branch reviews of the US's attractiveness, reviews that were somewhat overtaken by the crunch.

Fast forward to today and fears are rising that it is London that risks finishing last in a four-horse race with New York, Hong Kong and, the new favourite, Dubai.

It's prompted Mayor Boris to call in the consultants. McKinsey is tasked with studying the competitiveness of London's financial services industry.

Tax will be on the agenda, as will regulation. More than anything though, the committee should focus on certainty and the need for more of it.

It may be good to listen but it's better to talk. The yo-yoing on policy needs to stop.

There is some good news, though....

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand (remember them?). It should be a cause for celebration. And to a degree it is. The merger created the blueprint for the modern accountancy colossus: a global assurance and advisory business built on solid audit foundations with plenty to offer the world's biggest and most ambitious companies.

But PwC, in the UK at least, is also in reflective mood.

He is demanding - and these are his capitals, not mine - that we 'PREVENT UNQUALIFIED ACCOUNTANTS,TAX AND FINANCIAL ADVISORS PROVIDING SERVICES UNLESS THEY HAVE PROFESSIONALLY RECOGNISED QUALIFICATIONS'.

To put that level of support into some kind of context I took a look at other petitions created on 24 June.

I'm speaking for the motion that many companies will water down their current commitments as they seek to reduce costs at a time of falling revenues. It's something I fear is inevitable.

There is of course danger surrounding the negative PR that may result, though in many cases this can be easily dealt with.

With soaring energy prices, green commitments can be maintained for cost reasons rather than CSR reasons.

And other parts of the CSR piece are much less likely to survive.

It's been easy to forget in recent months that there is much more to CSR than environmental sustainability.

To be a member of the FTSE4GOOD Index, for instance, eligible companies must do more than simply work towards a green goal.

They should develop positive relationships with stakeholders, uphold and support universal human rights, ensure good supply chain labour standards and counter bribery.

Yet there are already signs those other criteria are suffering.

More than one in three of the international business leaders surveyed last month by Ernst & Young reported a worsening of corrupt business practices.

At home, Boots is one of 14 (largely retail) companies to have come under fire for imposing a 'settlement fee' on smaller suppliers. And earlier this month Channel 4 pulled from its schedules a documentary about the ongoing sourcing of low-cost high street fashion.

Tonight's ICAEW-sponsored debate should be interesting. (Other speakers include Mallen Baker, development director of Business in the Community, Dr Robert Barrington,
director of governance & socially responsible investment with F&C Investments, Dr Kevin Money of Henley Management College, Owen Espley of Friends of the Earth and Miriam Kennet. co-founder of the Green Economics Institute.)

But it won't be victory on the night that matters.

If companies are serious about CSR it's essential it's not treated like a menu, with different options to be picked and refused at different times, depending on your mood.

Uncertainty around the economy, house prices and job security has kicked the ball firmly back into the corporate court.

As one of the highest profile accountants in the sustainability debate told me this week, these factors – and, perhaps most importantly, a lack of government leadership and clarity on the issue - has already caused a consumer greenlash.

So it begas the question: Will companies respond?

The findings apply particularly to non-Big Four audit firms, 'which tend to have less consistency in their audit quality', according to the study by three academics of more than 8,000 enforcement releases from 2004 to this year.

It couldn't happen here, could it?

Anyway in this inaugural post: ACCA and AAT bury past rows, ICAEW ups member communication spending and is rapped by its auditor and those CIPFA council results are in. And in today's moan: why don't accountancy institutes better publicise their accounts?

You might recall that after his wife was told by Citibank that her credit card would not be replaced after it expired because she was, inter alia, no longer ‘eligible for credit from Citi Cards', he wrote that it was she who was in fact no longer prepared to enter into a financial business arrangement with the bank.

Among a number of reasons given was its ‘flawed’ business plan, ‘wildly optimistic’ valuation of sub prime exposure and ‘evidence of reckless and uninformed use of shareholder’s funds’.

The letter demanded the refund of his wife’s £4 credit balance.

Well, the debate has moved on.