The FSA has appointed five new senior advisers who will assist the FSA in its work on governance issues.

These advisers will provide input into developing the FSA’s regulatory framework for ensuring effective governance in financial institutions, and will also contribute to the panel interview process for individuals wishing to take up major board positions in the UK’s largest financial institutions.

The new advisers are: Sir Dominic Cadbury, Baroness Hogg, Lord Marshall, Sir Brian Pitman and Sir David Scholey.

As part of its new ‘intensive approach’ to supervision the FSA has made clear that it is now seeking to judge competence as well as probity with regard to individuals holding significant influence functions (SIFs). In October the FSA wrote to firms to reinforce how its intensive regulatory approach applied to the FSA’s vetting of individuals applying for roles classed as SIFs. This included details about the SIF interview process conducted by a senior panel drawn from the FSA executive and its existing advisory group. These interviews are used to judge the competence and capability of those applying for influential positions within regulated firms.

In future, for key roles in the largest firms, the FSA panel will be joined by one of the new appointees, who will act in an advisory capacity. This is likely to apply to candidates for chair, chief executive, senior independent director and the chair of audit, remuneration and risk committees, particularly in the banking and insurance sector.

The new advisors, whose primary focus is on governance and competency, will work with the existing senior advisors who provide specialist input on specific technical areas.

Hector Sants, FSA chief executive said: “These new advisers have extensive experience acting on the boards of major companies and in senior policy positions and will bring valuable insight to the work the FSA is pursuing on governance.