RegulationDec 14 2015

MPs want FSA staff named and shamed over HBoS

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MPs want FSA staff named and shamed over HBoS

The Treasury select committee has said it will look into naming the so-far anonymous FSA staff identified but not named in the Bank of England’s report into the failure of HBoS.

Giving evidence to the committee on Monday, Andrew Green QC, who wrote the 114-page Report into the FSA’s enforcement actions following the failure of HBoS report last month, said he believed that the names of everybody he identified in his report should appear in the final version of the report.

He said: “I took the view that there should be full transparency. The view the regulators took was that they didn’t want to identify any former FSA employees below the level of director, so that would include heads of departments and managers, I made it clear I thought there should be full transparency.”

Mr Green, whose report concluded that another investigation into HBoS was in the public interest as the original probe had sanctioned only one, former HBoS executive Peter Cummings, said the regulator believed that identifying less senior personnel would inhibit robust decision-making going forward, and also because they wanted to protect employees.

He added: “I took the view that neither of those reasons were sufficiently compelling to remove people’s names. The first of those reasons didn’t strike me as a compelling reason at all.”

Mr Green told the committee that he invited the regulators to reconsider their decision in September 2014 but they insisted on removing the names. He referenced this decision by the FSA to an FSA meeting on 9 January 2009 to pursue only Peter Cummings, and said the four FSA employees at that meeting would have been involved in the decision-making process and included two from supervision and two from enforcement, all four given fictitious names.

Mr Tyrie said: “The committee has the authority if it wants to exercise it to require the provision of these names, and we will have to take a view ourselves in private session about this. Any guidance you have, we have no intention of going on a witch hunt, we want to do what’s best in the public interest. We have spent £7m producing this report in order to learn lessons and improve the quality of regulation.”

Mr Green replied: “I regard it as an unsatisfactory situation, there should be full transparency and as far as I’m concerned the regulator’s reasons were not sufficiently compelling to remove the names.”

Mr Tyrie said: “You’re basically saying there’s a public interest override to the concerns expressed.”

Mr Green replied: “Indeed.”