31st March 2017

Accountability of the Regulator & 2017 sentiments

The growth of regulation is often cited as one of major changes in the UK constitution.  

However, it often appears that this has been put in place with little thought given to subsequent regulatory accountability and for regulators to do what they want without needing to reference parliament for approval.

With seemingly little or no consideration attached to the cost or impact regulation has upon firms trying to do a decent job, lack of regulatory accountability also effects the consumer as the higher regulatory costs of paying for failures are simply passed back to  all involved in the advice process. 

The FCA stated, in reply to a Panacea FOI request, that “Senior Managers are accountable under their SMR responsibilities.  Should an error or failure occur, and a senior manager failed to take reasonable steps to prevent that error or failure, the action that would be taken would reflect the seriousness of the failings by the senior manager.

Since the implementation of the SMR at the FCA, nobody has been disciplined, dismissed or had contracts terminated for either personal or departmental failure”.

The last paragraph is of great interest but should it be one of great concern?

Panacea Adviser would like to assess how much advisers understand about the FCA’s levels of accountability in financial regulation and get a view on potential policy measures that could be introduced to strengthen the accountability of the regulator. 

In addition we would also like to get your views on some other key industry issues to assess the mood of the advisory community so we can continue to raise awareness via the press, the FCA and trade bodies and consequently better help advisory businesses in the future. 

This is an anonymous survey, which will just take a few minutes of your time. 

If you are unable to see the survey below please click here.

Panacea Surveys