Independent review of Financial Services Authority Report on RBS
5 May 2011
The Chairman of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, announced today, in agreement with the FSA, that the Committee will request independent experts to carry out a review of the FSA’s report into the failure of RBS. This is currently being prepared for publication by the Authority at the request of the TSC.
Sir David Walker and Bill Knight have been asked to undertake this review. They will report to the Treasury Committee in due course.
The report will include analysis of the causes of RBS’s failure, a summary of the findings of the FSA investigation into matters relating to RBS’s decisions, risk controls and governance processes, and an assessment of the FSA’s regulation and supervision of RBS, identifying any deficiencies and actions taken by the FSA subsequently.
The independent reviewers will, among other things, examine whether the FSA report fairly reflects the findings of the FSA’s investigation into the failure of RBS. It will also examine the FSA’s analysis of its own regulatory and supervisory activities in the run up to the failure of RBS.
Terms of reference for the review will be published in due course.
Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Mr Tyrie said:
“It is essential that Parliament gets to the bottom of this.
“There are crucial lessons to be learnt for the current conduct of bank regulation.”
“We need to know the decisive mistakes which destroyed RBS, how they came to be made, whether the FSA was asleep at the wheel, and whether we can have confidence that they are awake now.”