Staples agrees to step down from Amey

Brian Staples, the chief executive of Amey, the troubled support services group, will leave at the end of February.

Mel Ewell, currently the group operations director, has been upgraded to chief operating officer and will work alongside Eric Tracey, the acting group finance director. Both Ewell and Tracey will report to Amey chairman Sir Ian Robinson.

Staples joined from United Utilities three years ago, previously having headed up Tarmac. He immediately accelerated Amey's headlong rush to transform itself from a conventional construction group into a services provider. Amey's share price rocketed as the group was repositioned by the London Stock Exchange.

However analysts were increasingly uncomfortable with Amey's accounting policies - and with the group's unwillingness to explain them.

For three consecutive years, Amey's accounts had to be restated, the biggest shock coming in August 2002 when an anticipated profit of £55m was transformed into a loss of £18m after the group adopted a new accounting rule known as UITF 51.

Staples had clung on to the hope that jettisoning other members of the board might save his bacon. Rumours surfaced in December that Staples had only managed to placate leading Amey shareholders by agreeing to bite the bullet in the early part of 2003.