Sun behind the clouds

Over the last four years Compliance Monitor has joined forces with City recruitment specialists Joslin Rowe to survey compliance professionals about trends in the industry, the work of the FSA and their personal thoughts on their careers to date. Through an online questionnaire we collated the views of over 80 senior individuals in financial services compliance: 36% of our respondents were heads of department, 21% were senior managers whilst a further 43% were managers and other experienced staff. Anonymity was assured which meant that the survey generated some hard-hitting insights.

We began by asking if current compliance staffing levels were adequate to meet UK regulatory requirements. While 64% said they were, over a third (35%) disagreed. More encouragingly, 79% pointed to the fact that their permanent headcount had increased over the last year with, for the first time in our survey history, not one respondent suggesting that employee numbers had fallen. The most popular reasons for the predominant rise in employees included “business expansion” or the “creation of a new department” and “work pressures.” Some respondents also pointed to a shift in recruitment policies towards “swapping from temps to perms ” and certainly as permanent staff numbers rose, temporary numbers either declined (14%) or stayed the same (64%). Only 21% said that their temporary headcount had grown.