You see the Financial Services Authority (FSA) increased bonus payouts to staff to
almost £20 million this April, despite having overseen one of the worst ever
financial crises in the country’s history.

Figures obtained by Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, revealed
that the FSA paid out a total of £19.7 million to staff two months ago, an increase
of 40% on last year's total, even as the banking system which it regulates had to
be bailed out by the taxpayer to the tune of tens of billions of pounds.

The average payout to the 2,500 staff at the City watchdog was £8,000,
although some staff members received much more, with one individual getting as
much as £90,000. The scale of the payouts looks particularly bad given the state of
the economy at present. And the size of some of these pay outs would be hard to
justify at the best of times, but it looks especially bad in the current economic
climate.

The figures also show that 174 staff at the FSA around 7% earn more than
£100,000, and that these individuals were paid £3.9 million in bonuses. Not bad for the price of  failure! Now you might argue how culpable the regulator was in the near total collapse of the banking system but I am absolutely sure that there is some degree of culpability and they are not worthy of these rewards.

The FSA is already under scrutiny in the wake of the financial crisis, having
been attacked by the Treasury Select Committee for its handling of the Northern
Rock fiasco and other elements of the crisis.

In an earlier hearing looking into the collapse of Northern Rock, the Committee
has said the financial services industry and consumers had 'lost confidence' in the
regulator, while more recently the organisation has been attacked for not making
public the results of banking stress tests. How can this organisation continue to run like this?

You may be left wondering how does this affect me? Well the FSA is an unelected quango that receives it’s funding from levies imposed on the financial services industry; banks, building societies, insurance companies, financial advisers and the like. They in turn are remunerated by the general public so in reality we all pay for these obscene rewards.