BUSINESS DIARY: Mark Carney | Jann Brown | Tanya Ewing

Cricket’s innings as the centrepiece of the Bank of England’s summer sports day has ended following the arrival of governor Mark Carney.

Tanya Ewing with her honorary doctorate from Napier University, which she collected last week

Canadian-born Carney, who took over at the central bank last July, asked his 3,500 staff what they wanted to play this year and rounders, three-legged races and a tug-of-war topped the poll, knocking out cricket.

The convention of playing cricket at the sports day goes back at least 15 years, and was particularly loved by the last governor Lord King, who was a keen fan of the game.

It is thought that staff wanted to play a game that was less exclusive, less technical and used less equipment.

Brown fills up her diary

Jann Brown clearly likes to keep busy, with a nice full diary.

While she no longer has the responsibilities of running the finances at Cairn Energy after leaving the Edinburgh oil explorer earlier this year, she has just added another high-profile role to her already lengthy list of positions – forming a good helping of alphabet soup, too.

Brown is becoming chairwoman of the Consultative Committee of Accountancy Bodies (CCAB), the body which represents the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), along with ICAEW, ACCA, CIPFA and ICAI.

The new role is in addition to her existing positions including president of ICAS, chairwoman of the audit committees of Wood Group and the Troy Income & Growth Trust and a trustee of Edinburgh University Investments.

Brown says she plans to “energetically” promote the CCAB and the profession’s role in contributing to business growth.

“There are more than a quarter of a million accountants in the UK and Ireland. We form the key part of the professional and business services sector which contributes £166 billion to the UK economy every year – 15 per cent of UK GDP,” Brown points out.

Tanya takes top honours

Hats off to Tanya Ewing, a former housewife whose energy-saving invention has seen her named female inventor of the year, and who picked up an honorary degree from Edinburgh Napier University last week.

Ewing, from Perth, came up with her Ewgeco energy monitor – which shows water, gas and electricity consumption at a glance – after being landed with hefty utility bills.

It was recognised by the British Library Patents Office as one of the most iconic inventions of this century and has won multiple awards.

Ewing, who received an honorary doctorate of technology, tells us: “I got a complete shock when the honorary degree letter from the university was delivered. As someone who struggled at school because of dyslexia that was diagnosed in later life, I never even thought that this would be something that I would be considered for.”