A CULTURE of greed and cack-handed management coursed through construction company Carillion.

Anyone who has been following the scandal of the collapsed firm, which used public money to support its increasingly dodgy dealings, will have guessed this was the case but an in-depth Parliamentary report published yesterday still makes for shocking reading.

The scale of the greed was staggering and the mismanagement and disregard for the company’s workers and pensioners showed many of Carillion’s top brass were rotten to the core.

MPs are calling for the Insolvency Service to look at whether former directors breached their duties and should be recommended for disqualification. Any sensible person would support those calls. It is shocking that Carillion was allowed to go on for so long, hiding the true levels of debt and create a veneer of respectability.

MPs have also accused some of the UK’s biggest accountancy firms for being complicit in Carillion’s wrongdoing. This is a very strong accusation indeed. It goes to the heart of Britain’s corporate culture and asks questions about whether these accountants have a conflict of interest and if they can be trusted.

Rachel Reeves, who chairs the Business Committee, believes the Competition and Markets Authority should look to break up the so-called Big Four accountancy firms, KMPG, PwC, Deloitte and EY, which she said had pocketed millions of pounds for their lucrative audit work.

Is it time that the accountants are held to account?