Working together

David McWhir of Corporate Training Partnerships, explores whether the traditional adversarial relationship between business units and compliance monitoring teams is the best approach. He also offers ten suggestions for improving this relationship.

David McWhir is a director at Corporate Training Partnerships (www.ctp.uk.com). He may be contacted on +44 (0) 1327 858292, davidmcwhir@ctp.uk.com

Tension undoubtedly exists in the relationship between those employed to generate income from clients and those charged with ensuring that such transactions take place within external and internal regulatory and legal processes. The prevailing view is that this is a deliberate tension created to ensure that checks and balances are in place to prevent business-generating functions from stepping outside such processes. It is presumed that this somewhat adversarial approach offers the best means to achieve equilibrium between two supposedly conflicting sets of objectives.