In response to calls from the FSCS to have a risk-weighted levy, currently the fines imposed by the FCA go into a general Treasury purse – a nice little earner.
If we accept the idea that the broad mass of IFAs should pay very little, as they are responsible for little of the risk, this is, in effect, a tax on the sector rather than the few responsible.
Until the Treasury is prepared to forego this easy source of income, and the government and the FCA accept the situation is inequitable and some sort of trade-off between fines and the cost of the FSCS is appropriate, nothing will happen.
I have referred to the government and FCA as separate organisations, as the latter is only notionally answerable to the former. I am not holding my breath, anyway.
Ron Willott
Technical paraplanner,
Beaumont Robinson,
Shipley,
West Yorkshire
