REGULATION

The financial services sector has lived with formal regulation since 1987 with the Mortgage and General Insurance markets being specifically regulated in 2004 and 2005 respectively.

In 2005 a Government commissioned review, led by Sir Philip Hampton, was published making recommendations as to how national regulators could improve their conduct using a set of principles aimed at reducing the burden on business yet still managing appropriate risks.

In 2007 the the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), using the services of the National Audit Office (NAO), made an assessment of the five main regulators in the UK, namely:

The Financial Service Authority
The Food Standards Agency (the other FSA)
The Environment Agency
The Health and Safety Executive
The Office of Fair Trading.

This 'Hampton Implementation Review' of the FSA found that, overall, it is a transparent regulator that has an embedded culture of 'better regulation'.

However, through the collection of evidence by the NAO and BERR, the Review identified the following areas for the FSA to develop:

Simplifying data requests from small firms
Ensuring continuity of supervisory staff
Ensuring that an appropriate balance is achieved in the use of its different sanctioning options.

A number of Telos experts gave evidence to the Hampton Implementation Review on the effectiveness of the functioning of the FSA.

For more information on the Hampton Review click here