The example of the FSA is too good a one to pass up when considering what kind of beast the FRSB needs to be. Staffed by senior people from the industry it was set up to regulate, many have since acknowledged that the FSA was just too close to its former colleagues and employers. Some appear even to have been associated with all those innovative, risky practices that are considered to have resulted in our current, sorry economic pass. Little wonder then that they were reluctant to shine a light in the murkier corners of such activity.
And herein lies the quandary for the FRSB. How good a friend should it be to the fundraising sector it has been set up to regulate? One reason it has struggled to recruit the necessary volume of members is that the sector hasn't liked its tone, its attitude or its totally illusory willingness to do the sector down (no actual evidence of such behaviour has ever been produced). But the FRSB has responded to the criticism by taking a more conciliatory approach with the current recruitment strategy, trying to show organisations how FRSB membership can in fact be helpful to their fundraising. We are on your side is the underlying theme.
How realistic is this? Can a regulatory body and those it regulates ever truly be pals? If members have too much influence in how, what and why the FRSB does what it does, can all the other stakeholders - and especially the individuals, businesses and grantmakers who give - feel confident in the self-regulatory body's independence and robustness? That it is a tiger with teeth? Put it this way - knowing what we all know now about the FSA, how much confidence do we have in its ability to hold the banking sector to account for what it does with our money?
