At the FCA’s Annual Meeting back in July 2017, FCA chairman John Griffith-Jones described SMCR as possibly “the most single significant issue that we have dealt with in the last four years” 
So if you’re in any doubt - now you know. 

Senior executives in firms will be held personally responsible for misconduct as part of plans to extend the senor managers regime.  First introduced in 2016 for banks, the regime will include insurers from December 2018.  Yet more regulation coming down the tunnel.  And this one is not EU in origin, and is the new FCA personal baby.  But equally it is instructive to notice that the news of the deadline to be imposed by the FCA came not from the FCA, but from the Treasury!   

So here is some change coming of which you should take care and take notice!

The Staley fine (£642k) is a reminder that the regulator expects to make good use of its new powers when rolled out to a wider audience. A principal feature of the regime is the Statement of Responsibility. These apply to a manager’s discharge of his oversight duties.  The way for the manager to deal with the responsibility, is to consult and follow advice wherever possible.  Staley’s expensive offence was a breach of ICR2 (Skill, care and diligence). While FCA took exception at his failure to consult appropriate experts and failure to make a note of the all-important meeting on which he based his decision to hunt down a whistle-blower.

Training for your staff and for you is both mandatory and will help to reduce risk – it should begin in good time and IFAC are looking to focus on training over the second half of the year.