IT'S unfair to single out business “fat cats” for criticism and not Robbie Williams or highly-paid footballers. That's the view of the CBI regional chief Nigel Bourne after the CBI launched a campaign to clean up the tarnished reputation of business.

The organisation believes the contribution of business to the life of this country is misunderstood and undervalued. It recognises that high-profile financial scandals at Enron and Worldcom, and screaming headlines about bosses’ pay hikes, have seriously damaged its reputation.

Digby Jones, the CBI's director-general, was forced during the CBI conference in Manchester to reveal that his annual pay packet had risen from £250,000 to £285,000 since he started in the job nearly three years ago.

Mr Bourne said it was important for pay and bonuses to be linked to performance. But it was wrong to slam talented business people for high pay while footballers and pop stars escaped criticism.

"You won't find people who complain about fat cat salaries complaining about how much Robbie Williams gets for doing a concert," he said. "And what about football salaries?"

Mr Bourne said business was treated differently because of a "perception problem”. It was important for firms in the county to have "good corporate citizenship" running through them "from the chief executive to the tea lady."

"They all have to believe it and walk the talk," he said.

Carly Fiorina, chairman and chief executive of the newly-merged Hewlett-Packard/Compaq computer group, told bosses in Manchester that "reputation is the one thing that can take a century to build and be lost overnight."

Ethics should be "strongly coded" into a business. It was important to make words match deeds and for firms "to leave things better than we find them”.

It was important to remember that two billion people in the world were living on "less than two dollars a day."

"If we learned anything from September 11, we learned that a global economy creating prosperity for millions will not be sustainable if billions feel they have no stake in it."

She added: "There is a difference between the legal thing to do and the right thing to do. That to do what's profitable without doing what's right is ultimately to do what's wrong.

"Our oldest values of trust, honesty, integrity, accountability and responsibility are more important than they have ever been.

"The winning companies will be those who not only increase profits by maintaining their high standards but those who increase social values at the same time."

Sir John Egan, CBI president, said: "Repairing the reputation of business must become our overriding cause, a prerequisite for achieving other goals.

"Reputation matters. Reputation for reliable performance attracts investors. Reputation for fairness guarantees good industrial relations, Reputation for quality and value for money wins customers.

"Without public trust, we'll be vulnerable to even more heavy-handed regulation, to even greater political interference and to even higher taxation."