UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has described Martin Wheatley, former chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), as "not the right person" to continue leading the regulator at a Treasury Select Committee hearing.
Osborne was responding to a question from Committee member Mark Garnier on whether the nature of Wheatley’s departure might mean future heads might need to keep an eye on the mood at Whitehall, to which Osborne responded: "I think Martin Wheatley did an excellent job at creating the FCA. That’s a difficult task he had because we were creating a new and powerful consumer regulator. But we took the view that he wasn’t the right person to carry on with the next phase of the FCA’s development."
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He noted that, when public roles had reappointment processes, it shouldn’t be assumed they’re automatic, adding: "His term was coming up for renewal next spring, and we took a view that he had made his contribution to the FCA, and now we needed someone else to take it forward. And now we’re in the process of a very good process of making that process. We’ve had a lot of really strong applications for the job, which I think justifies the decision to look further afield."
When asked if he’d had conversation with the FCA board on the topic beforehand, Osborne said he didn’t want to make public private conversations. However he said: "Suffice to say, I am in conversation with the chairman of the FCA…And we have conversations of lots of things. I don’t want to suggest anything about the nature of that conversation, but I obviously regard it as a part of my job to stay in touch with the heads of the boards with these regulators as well as the regulator themselves."
Less stable regulator
However Osborne’s words came a day after the chairman of the FCA, John Griffith-Jones, told a separate Treasury Select Committee hearing that the decision not to renew Wheatley’s contract had made the regulator ‘less stable.’
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By GlobalDataWhen asked by Treasury Select Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie: "How confident are you now that you really have got this outfit pretty close to, or in the shape to, do the legislative job that has been asked of you by Parliament?"
In response Griffith-Jones said: "I’m feeling reasonably confident." He added that the job was not done and that: "Because of the circumstances surrounding Martin Wheatley’s departure, we find ourselves with a number of new, and I think very talented, people having joined the squad. But like all squads, we need time to get them to work as a real team.
He said these people had been recruited by Wheatley and are now working for current acting chief executive of the FCA Tracy McDermott, and that while the company was working well at the moment, he said: "We are less stable than you might ideally wish."
