FSA spending longer on permission extensions

Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC) found that the average number of days it took for the FSA to approve a regulated firm’s expansion plans (called a “variation of permission”) was now up to 97 days in the year to June 30 2011, from 88 days during the same period last year.

The time taken to gain FSA approval has more than trebled over the past four years from 25 days in 2008.

Jonathan Davies, regulatory partner at RPC, said: “The FSA’s remit is to ensure that a company’s business plan will not