My husband Dan and I have been binge watching the old BBC drama series Life on Mars and its sequel Ashes to Ashes in recent weeks. We’d heard the writers have just finished the script for a follow-up called Lazarus, so we wanted to remind ourselves of the story so far.
For those of you who didn’t see them when originally shown, both series follow modern-day police officers who become seriously hurt while on duty. These officers are probably in a coma or dying in the real world but wake up doing their jobs in 1970s Manchester and 1980s London respectively.
Current policing practices and ethics are contrasted with those you see on classic British TV shows like The Sweeney, where it’s perfectly acceptable for officers to use violence and intimidation to get results.
Modern detectives Sam Tyler and Alex Drake lock horns with, and eventually rub off on, their brutish, sexist and homophobic back-in-time boss, DCI Gene Hunt. Hunt is an enigma until the end as you’re never quite sure if he’s one of the good guys or baddies.
I’m too young to know what real policing was like in the 1970s. But as a kid in the early 1980s, I saw a police officer break up a street fight then use the toe of his boot to force a young man into the back of a police van. It wasn’t a kicking – the young man was throwing himself around like a child having a tantrum, so the officer needed to do something. But it still looked rough – enough for my gran to remark on it to my mum. It didn’t stack with the image of the jovial police officer who visited my school.
Society is different now as the rules we have are tighter. To give a silly example, the kids’ toy Spirograph now comes with Blu-Tack to hold drawing stencils in place. In the 1980s, mine came with sharp metal dressmaking-style pins. My kids can’t believe the lack of health and safety back then, but I was never hurt by those pins. However, what was once acceptable no longer fits, and that is exactly the point made about regulation in Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.
The characters of Gene Hunt – aka ‘the Guv – and his nemesis, DCI Jim Keats of Scotland Yard’s Discipline and Complaints department, raise some interesting points about professional ethics. Does trying to change the status quo make you a hero because you’ll make things better or a villain because you trample over the good in what you already have? Does professional integrity always come first, even if not strictly following the rules produces the fairest outcome? And what do you do if the prevailing culture and rules enable bad apples to hide under a respectable façade?
I mention all this not because I’m excited that actors Philip Glenister and John Simm are reported to be reprising their roles as Hunt and Tyler – although I am. It’s just that I’ve been brushing up on the FCA’s proposed Consumer Duty, as I’m hosting a podcast series on the subject with Royal London. And my TV trip down memory lane has made me think about rules and regulation in a wider sense than the 240-odd page document I ploughed through on the FCA’s website. Depending on your point of view, financial services regulation is either inspiring, pie in the sky or just more red tape to get in the way.
One of the things that struck me about the FCA’s feedback document on the Consumer Duty was how it paints a beautiful picture of the financial services system it would like to see – one where everybody benefits from higher standards of consumer protection in retail markets.
The vision is of firms competing to meet consumer needs and regularly measuring their performance in terms of consumer outcomes. The reasoning is that this should encourage innovation, as it’s in all firms’ interests to stay ahead of the pack and treat customers well to keep them happy. The only way for consumer confidence and trust in financial services is up. What’s not to like?
When I was reading this document, John Lennon’s Imagine was going round in my head thanks to my kids’ fixation with all of the Beatles. But to me, the summary page of the document I’d read was like the FCA’s version of those lyrics.
It’s inspiring because it shows there is another way within reach if everyone does their bit and works together for the common good. Having said that, do these ideas tend to pan out as exactly as intended?
There may be consultations and feasibility studies in advance, but the effectiveness is still uncertain until there’s full implementation or at least a pilot. That’s when any flaws and unintended consequences come to light, with further regulation often needed to sort them out.
I think that’s why some people start feeling bogged down by it all. They see themselves unable to move or breathe without permission or justifying everything they do. But does that mean we should stop striving for the ideal? Even if the vision doesn’t work out completely as intended, arguably being halfway there is better than not bothering to improve things at all.
Regulation can inspire people to do better, but it can also kill the passion advisers have for their work. Can you ever have the former without the latter?
Going back to Life on Mars for a moment, there’s a scene where Sam Tyler briefly returns to the present and is sitting in a boardroom with various other professionals. Everyone is suited and booted, with no place for the battered leather jacket Tyler wears as part of Hunt’s team.
It’s the antithesis of his experience in 1973 – you know the criminals ‘the Guv’ would have locked in a cell are probably having a field day while civilised policing by committee happens over coffee. But you’re also aware that Tyler – who is an innovative force for good in the 1970s parallel universe – is a product of this seemingly sterile environment, so it’s not as black and white as it might appear.
When asked about the ethics of keeping someone in custody for 48 hours without formal charge in violent cases where mental health reports might be required, Tyler’s response is blank. He cuts his finger and says he can’t feel it, but you know he’s referring to the job, not his injury.
It’s as if layers of regulation and political correctness have rendered the job meaningless to him. With no passion for what it has become, Tyler takes extreme action to get himself back to 1973 where his colleagues are in a dangerous situation, doing ‘proper’ policing.
I wonder if advisers, particularly those who have been in the profession for a long time, can relate to Tyler when they’re faced with the latest crop of ideas coming from the regulator. I know how frustrated they can feel when new rules are introduced for everyone, rather than targeted and tougher measures for those who cause the problems and break existing rules.
Over time, that can lead to advisers falling out of love with their profession. Some advisers have told me they’ve discouraged their children from following in their footsteps because the ‘aggravation is not worth it’. That is not what we want when we’re trying to encourage more young people into the profession.
But we all need rules and boundaries that evolve – I don’t think anyone would seriously suggest regulation is a one-time occurrence. Even if most people do the right thing, there’s comfort in having structures and processes to underpin what that looks like in a changing world.
It’s a bit like parenting – rules and boundaries show you care and are a responsible parent, not a neglectful one that allows their children to do as they please. But at the same time, a parent’s job is not to crush all independence and creativity out of their kids so that they never function as well-adjusted adults. There’s a balance to be had which changes as the child gets older and it’s not easy to achieve.
Having thought deeply about this, I think rules and regulation only become a problem when they make everything so prescriptive that there’s no room for autonomy – when conforming means becoming identical.
I’m not saying the FCA is perfect and I know some advisers in smaller firms feel micromanaged by it. But I can’t see it ever wanting to create Stepford Wives-style advice firms that are rigidly compliant clones of each other.
For a start, that doesn’t fit the vision around innovation and competition laid out in the Consumer Duty proposals. At this stage at least – the final proposals aren’t due until the end of July – the regulator seems to want firms to be different from each other, but consistent in treating clients well.
I have a friend who works for the FCA and he sent me the web link to a recent speech on technology and regulation delivered by Jessica Rusu, FCA chief data and intelligence officer, at the Money 20/20 event in Amsterdam. In that speech, Rusu talks about how innovation and technology are transforming financial services, meaning the regulator also needs to change and be innovative in its approach.
She refers to the FCA’s two-day CryptoSprint event, which was held in May, as an example of how the regulator is ‘willing to experiment with new approaches to policy discussions that focus on sharing ideas and proposing solutions in an agile and inclusive way’.
This event provided an open forum in which academics joined people from regulatory, technology and financial services sectors to discuss various issues around crypto markets. Not being present at the event myself, I have no idea how productive it was. I hope it was nothing like Sam Tyler’s boardroom meeting.
I like the idea of everyone from various fields chipping in, as you can learn a lot from people with different experiences, perspectives and approaches – providing you are prepared to listen and act upon what you hear.
One of the things I wasn’t keen on in the feedback report on the Consumer Duty was the way the concerns that some respondents had in relation to things like effective competition in the interests of consumers were dealt with. Some respondents expressed concerns that the cost of more regulation could put some firms out of business and make the market less, not more, competitive. But the FCA disagreed and just batted it away with a reiteration of what the proposed rules intend to do.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to worry about the cost implications of proposed regulation given that the cost of everything else is going up in the current environment. But if the FCA is saying that going forward, it is prepared to truly listen to those it invites to its discussion tables, perhaps there really is a chance for regulation to be inspiring and achieve great things.
Indeed Amanda
As one gets older one looks back at the pre Woke and PC era. There seemed to be greater respect for the police. A clip round the ear wasn’t considered a hanging offence. You could actually call a spade a spade without being mealy mouthed.
As to regulation. It could indeed be inspiring, but our regulators have made it a passion killer and a drudge. The old FIMBRA was almost along the right lines.
The FCA’s ‘beautiful vision’ is one of firms competing with one another in ‘a race to the bottom’ in terms of the value of the services offered to customers and the price charged for them. They wish to reduce a complex but highly responsive free market to a small group of ‘options’ which will readily suit cheap ‘robo-advice’ commoditisation. It will seem fantastic – subject to anything better being expunged from the market – whilst the ‘rich and successful’ will seek advice from firms regulated elsewhere – as the UK financial services industry ceases to serve anybody but the ‘average customer’ well. An ever expanding FCA to supervise a far less complex market, with fewer UK regulated firms to pay its uncontrolled levies. ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ and its six core principles provided an excellent yardstick against which to judge regulated advice firms – so those developing the new ‘Consumer Duty’ would have been far better employed devoting their attention to enforcement and monitoring – as events have already proved all too often.