Too many masters spoiling the plot

While brokers often say that, individually, they experience difficulty in getting straight answers from the Financial Services Authority, as an anonymous collective their voice is certainly not only louder but one to which the regulator will respond.

Putting brokers' views about the impact of regulation - as recorded by the Professional Broking Sentiment Surveys - to the FSA proved this point. And, while we cannot guarantee brokers will like the answers, the exercise certainly offers an insight into the thinking within Canary Wharf.

But many will find the regulator's response a missed opportunity, blaming EU directives for the high cost of regulation, after 79% of brokers surveyed said profits had been hit - a missed opportunity because brokers will simply not swallow this. A cursory glace at the way the Insurance Mediation Directive has been adopted by the UK's European neighbours will show the regulator in the UK has been more prescriptive than any of these. The regulator's response will be dismissed in favour of the view that it is the gold plating of the IMD and other directives that has bumped up the cost, not the directives themselves.

The FSA's response to evidence that its objectives are not being met was also a missed opportunity to specify a timetable within which it expects the regime to be working as it should. While everyone sensibly accepts that a regime change on the scale the FSA is attempting to make will take time, surely it could offer some idea of when it expects the gargantuan efforts made by all involved to attain the desired outcome. It almost throws Andrew Paddick's calls for the regulator to be more transparent into new light.

Few would argue that regulation is a fact of life - a hygiene factor - which will more visibly deliver the benefits it is designed to as the great discomfort of its adoption eases. However, when asking the industry to exert such great short-term effort for long-term benefits, the regulator - while widely regarded as overboard is generally rated - would help matters if it adopted a slightly less aloof stance.

But this shiftiness seems to be tied up with who the FSA is really accountable to. Is it the Treasury, parliament, the sectors it regulates or even the EU? It sometimes seems to use this confusion to make sure it isn't really accountable to any of them.