Salary bill for staff soars at FSA

Salaries at the FSA have been steadily rising.

It said that the average salary for ‘rank and file’ staff for the year to last March was £51,232.

That was 6% up from 2009 and 22% up from 2005.

Senior management salaries rose 14% over the same period from £206,391 to £236,950.

The biggest salary bill was in the enforcement division when experienced investigators and lawyers were brought in. In this department, salary shot up 26% between 2005/6 and 2009/10 to £53,207.

But in the operations division, which includes IT and support, salaries rose a modest 3.5% over the same period to average £34,702.

The overall salary bill at the FSA also increased because numbers of recruits rose. There were 300 recruits in 2006/07 and 500 in the last fiscal year.

FSA chief executive Hector Sants said: “These figures reflect our tougher approach both to enforcement and supervision, which we have underpinned by bringing in more experienced people.”

It was after the 2007 collapse of Northern Rock that the FSA sharply increased its overall hiring and the number of staff assigned to supervision and risk. There are currently 1,158 people working in supervision and 391 in enforcement, says the FSA.

Fewer staff have been leaving: in 2007/08, 355 employees quit but in 2009/10 the figure was just 181.