Thursday 20 May 2010

UK: the Coalition's programme for Government - governance and financial regulation

The Coalition has published its programme for Government - see here (pdf) - expanding on the broad policy agreements in the coalition agreement. The document contains the following commitments (in no particular order) with regard to corporate governance and financial regulation:
  • Reinstate an Operating and Financial Review to ensure that directors’ social and environmental duties have to be covered in company reporting, and investigate further ways of improving corporate accountability and transparency.
  • Make it easier for people to set up new enterprises by cutting the time it takes to start a new business ... reduce the number of forms needed to register a new business and move towards a 'one click' registration model.
  • Look to promote gender equality on the boards of listed companies. [note: the Conservatives' pre-election pledge - see here - to require the long list for public company directorship appointments to include 50 per cent female candidates, appears to have fallen by the wayside].
  • Reform the regulatory system to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis ... bring forward proposals to give the Bank of England control of macro-prudential regulation and oversight of micro-prudential regulation [note: the FSA survives, despite the Conservatives' pre-election pledge for radical reform of the regulatory structure, but see the final point below].
  • Bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the financial services sector.
  • Create a single agency to take on the work of tackling serious economic crime that is currently done by, among others, the Serious Fraud Office, Financial Services Authority and Office of Fair Trading.

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