FSA vetting and the Wanless wonders
Share
The increasing intrusiveness of the regulatory regime is not only irritating a growing number of chief executives who feel they might as well have the Financial Services Authority sitting in on the board, it’s also attracting some pretty pointed criticism.
For example, on the practice of the FSA vetting the appointment of nonexecutive directors one chief executive recently observed that some candidates could tick all the boxes with regard to industry knowledge and yet fail an or - ganisation spectacularly.
As an example he cited Sir Derek Wanless. who was a non-executive director at Northern Rock at the time of its fall and chairman of its risk committee.
As the Times pointed out, Wanless had no shortage of City experience. “Former chief executive of NatWest Sir Derek is an adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and has other directorships including the chairmanship of Northumbrian Water,” the paper stated at the time.
“He is vice-chairman of the Statistics Commission and a member of the Board for Actuarial Standards at the Financial Reporting Council. So quite how Sir Derek ended up at the centre of the biggest UK banking crisis in three decades is an interesting question.”
Obviously, with the FSA on the case there’s no chance of history repeating itself.
