British accounting academic Prem Sikka has long been a savage critic of the accounting and audit industry. One of the few public interest accountancy academics, Sikka has argued that the problem with the Big Four is that they are unaccountable. Sikka is from a growing army of critics who claim that the Enrons of this world are caused by the big firms drawing incomes greater than the gross domestic product of many nation states and which, like another profession, will do almost anything for a quick buck. He says the problem lies with a cabal that publishes little meaningful information about what goes on inside the firms. He claims that accountancy firms are some of the most secretive organizations in the world. Information about auditor relationships with companies, conflict of interest, details of the audit team, audit contract, audit effort, profitability, and contents of auditor files is remarkably scarce. And when things go wrong, he says, the accountancy bodies and regulators individualize the problem, blaming company directors, corporate governance practices and slack accounting standards. This deflects attention away from organizational practices and values in the firms that have created the cancer in the first place.

It's not a case of a few bad apples, he says, but a rotten orchard!

Here he is again, getting stuck into the industry in this week's Guardian.

Audits are lucrative, he says, because they are controlled by only four firms. And the quality of audits has not improved. Worse still, regulators have failed to create more competition, allowing these abuses to continue.

"Accountancy firms, EU commissioners and regulators routinely preach competition to everyone else, but go soft when it comes to dealing with auditing firms. They could restrict the number of FTSE companies that any auditing firm can audit and thus create for space for medium-sized firms to advance. They could insist that some quoted companies should have joint audits and thus again create space for medium-sized firms. They could insist on compulsory retendering or company audits and rotation of auditors. They could invite new players to the audit market. The Securities Exchange Commission or the Financial Services Authority could take charge of audits of banks and financial institutions. None of these proposals are on the radar of the corporate dominated UK accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council. It advocates market led solutions, which raises the question of why the markets have not resolved the problems already, and exerted pressures for better audits.

"As a society, we continue to give auditing firms state-guaranteed markets, monopolies, lucrative fees and liability concessions. None of it has given us, or is likely to give us better audits, company accounts, corporate governance or freedom from frauds and fiddles. Without effective independent regulation, public accountability and demanding liability laws, the industry cannot provide value for money."