http://batmanytb.com/Actuary%20(Comics)
BEIS published its long awaited consultation “Restoring trust in audit and
corporate governance” yesterday. UK Shareholders’ Association will be responding in due course.
However, the consultation is not just about audit and corporate governance. Chapter 11 (section 2) of the consultation is all about oversight and regulation of the actuarial profession.
The FRC Review found that the current regime ‘is not, in practice, proving an altogether effective arrangement’, noting that the regulator’s oversight of the IFoA is based on voluntary arrangements and that there are limitations in its powers to take action against individual actuaries and entities that undertake actuarial work. The Review recommended that the Government should review which powers are required to oversee regulation of the actuarial profession365 and that the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) would be best placed to take on all the actuarial responsibilities currently vested in the FRC.
My experience has been that the FRC’s oversight of the actuarial profession has been disinterested and therefore useless. To be sure, the FRC developed and published the Technical Actuarial Standards (TASs) but these proved to be completely useless as well. (Proof, current ERM models apparently passed the modelling TAS, faulty as they are). To the suggestion that the PRA take on the regulation of actuaries, which department in the PRA would do that? Well, the Insurance department which is, er, staffed wholly by actuaries.
But the answers will not be clear until the consultation is concluded. Submission deadline is 8 July 2021.