Stewardship in the ascendant?

Despite the accounting standard setters' determination to downplay the importance of corporate governance and the control of directors' potential excesses, the current crisis is focusing minds on the need to make companies accountable for the resources entrusted to them. Most recently Gordon Brown's article in the Daily Telegraph in which he calls for greater attention to the stewardship exercised by companies. The BBC reports him as follows:

The markets must reflect society's values, including "fairness, stewardship and co-operation," he said.

Mr Brown said he wanted to uphold these three key ethics in public policy and across the public arena, as "markets work best when underpinned by an ethic of fairness".

This is a "defining moment for our emerging global society", he added.

"The ethic of fairness means we reward hard work, thrift, enterprise, effort and responsible risk taking, but refuse to condone or reward irresponsible or excessive risk taking," he said.

Also, the "ethic of stewardship must restore to all financial institutions their public purpose.

If the IASB and FASB take this as a prompt to rethink their objectives for financial reporting, it would be a small step in the right direction.