Project Director - Competition Policy

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC)’s mission is to serve the public interest by setting high standards of corporate governance, reporting and audit and holding to account those responsible for delivering them. We are the UK Competent Authority for audit.  We also set the UK Corporate Governance and Stewardship Codes as well as UK standards for accounting, auditing and actuarial work, and monitor and take action to promote the quality of corporate reporting and operate independent enforcement arrangements for accountants and actuaries. Further information about our role can be found at www.frc.org.uk.

The Division’s policy work including developing competition policy in response to recommendations from independent reviews into the UK audit sector. Sir John Kingman’s review of the FRC recommended that the new audit regulator, ARGA (the Audit Reporting and Governance Authority) should have a competition objective. The Competition and Markets Authority has also reported to the Secretary of State for Business, making proposals to increase competition and choice in the UK statutory audit market. The FRC is providing support to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to develop policy, which will ultimately lead to legislation which creates ARGA and sets its powers and obligations.
 
The Role:
The role involves:

• Developing the FRC’s competition policy;
• Providing support to the FRC Board and BEIS to get to the right outcome in broadening competition and choice in the UK statutory audit market, in a way that will deliver high quality audit in the public interest;
• Supporting the development of powers for ARGA that will allow it to address the Kingman and CMA recommendations relating to competition; and
• Engagement with UK regulatory authorities, audit stakeholders and BEIS to develop and implement policy for the UK statutory audit market.

Over time, the role will transition from policy development to delivery of the new competition objective and monitoring and reporting against that.

The Person:
 
A relevant degree and/or professional qualifications (ideally related to competition eg competition economics or law), as well as relevant experience from a professional services, business analysis, policy development and/or regulatory environment.
 
The ideal candidates will have knowledge and expertise in some or all of the following areas:

• Developing and delivering competition policy and analysis, including for example in regulatory projects such as market studies, investigations, actions and appeals or similar.
• Understanding of the wider UK competition and regulatory landscape, including concurrency regulation and the legal framework.
• Understanding of the audit market and enablers of quality and competition in audit/ professional services.
• Ability to assimilate complex information and identify themes and to learn quickly about new topics and develop expertise.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills including experience of drafting high quality, complex policy proposals and analysis.
• Skills in staff management, supervision and development, including proven ability to manage staff and work well with others at all levels, within and across teams, to achieve results.
• Strong project and time management skills.
• Excellent IT skills (particularly Excel and Word).

The role is based in our Central London Office. The post holder should be able to work flexibly to support the team’s activities and also provide cover within the FRC as necessary.

Rewards and benefits

• The FRC offers competitive remuneration packages, including 30 days annual leave plus ability to buy extra leave.
• Generous employer pension contribution of 10%.
• Staff Employee Assistance Programme including confidential counselling and work life services.
• Values in Practice Scheme, rewarding performance against our values and behaviours.
• The FRC offers staff the opportunity to save at least 25% on the purchase of a new bike through the Cycle to work scheme.
• The FRC has a strong work/life balance ethos.

The FRC believes that equality of opportunity and diversity is important in the work that we do and we are strongly committed to being an inclusive employer. Our values of being fair and independent supports this commitment. We're a signatory to the Government's Disability Confident scheme, which means that we guarantee an interview to any disabled candidates entering under the scheme, should they meet the minimum criteria for a role.

Equal opportunities monitoring is an important means of demonstrating and implementing our commitment to promoting equality of opportunity and diversity. Completing our diversity form will assist the FRC to identify any barriers that prevent access to employment and career development for certain groups of people, and to develop solutions, such as action plans, new policies and practices. The form is completed on a voluntary basis and we strongly encourage all job applicants to complete it.

Complete the Diversity Form here

Please apply by emailing a copy of your CV and covering letter to the FRC Recruitment team at recruitment@frc.org.uk. In the covering letter, please set out, by reference to the person specification above, how you meet the required skillset

• confirm that you have the right to work in the UK
• tell us where you heard about this job

Please note that we can only accept applicants who have the right to work in the UK.