Morale improves at the Financial Conduct Authority
Morale amongst staff at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has improved after last year’s pay dispute.
The City watchdog overhauled remuneration for its 4,000 employees last year which caused the first strike action in its history.
Read more: FCA has 10 questions ahead of Consumer Duty deadline
The FCA’s latest annual staff survey, seen by Financial News, showed that there are still questions over leadership and pay.
Employees raised concerns around strategy, integrity and communication failures, with less than half of staff rating leadership and people management positively.
However, confidence in leadership rose 17 percentage points from last year’s survey and the proportion of staff who felt their talents were being well used was 43 per cent, gaining 10 percentage points.
The category with the lowest proportion of positive responses was pay. Only 38 per cent rated their reward package favourably, in comparison to 31 per cent rating it unfavourably.
Read more: FCA chief paid £455k during year of staff pay disputes
Chief executive Nikhil Rathi reportedly told staff in an internal memo that work still needs to be done, despite steps going in the right direction, according to the Financial News report. The FCA said it has made more than 700 internal promotions in the last year and has hired over 1,000 staff.
A number of senior staff left the organisation recently, including Tom Willetts, communications director and Mark Steward, enforcement head.
Read more: FCA staff reject more than two days a week in the office