UKEB, Economics Team Leader

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 FRC is helping to support the setup of the United Kingdom Endorsement Board (UKEB), the body that will be responsible for adoption of international accounting standards for use in the UK after EU Exit. International financial reporting standards (IFRS), issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), are required for use by UK listed companies when producing their group accounts for the purposes of reporting to the listed market. The standards are used in 125 global jurisdictions, including in 15 of the G20 nations. Preparing their accounts in accordance with these standards helps ensures that UK companies do not have to incur additional costs when raising capital on other international markets as well as making them more attractive to global investors.
 
The UKEB will serve the UK public good in the field of IFRS, to be adopted for use by UK companies. 
 
This role provides an exciting opportunity to be part of the team being set up to support the work of the UK Endorsement Board to assess IFRS for application by UK entities, influence the development of IFRS and undertake thought-leadership activities to contribute to the international development of financial reporting.  This Board recruitment is currently underway and is likely to include an economist. Delegation of statutory functions to the Board will commence soon after the announcement of the Board.
 
The Role:
The role will be part of the UKEB’s secretariat. The postholder will work with other UKEB colleagues, mainly accounting professionals, to help develop the approach and processes to support evidence-based adoption and influencing of standards and lead any supporting research projects. It involves:

• Leading and developing the UKEB’s approach to understanding the “UK public good”, including an understanding of the potential misalignment of priorities between companies and their shareholders – “the principal-agent problem”.
• Developing new systems to understand the impact on the UK economy and businesses of adopting the standards.
• Developing regulatory impact assessments for the endorsement and adoption of new IFRS, for example, IFRS 17 Insurance Contracts. This will involve working closely with the Senior Project Directors to develop a project plan; determining the nature and scope of the work required to complete the impact assessment; providing the interface with BEIS analyst teams to ensure the work complies with government guidelines.
• Presenting regulatory impact assessment work to the UKEB Board as required, communicating complex technical information clearly and accurately.
• Liaising with the BEIS Analyst Teams, and the Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC), as necessary, to ensure they are aware of the upcoming regulatory impact assessments and are content with the proposed work.
• Supporting the influencing work by performing or commissioning research related to the development of new IFRS. This will involve working closely with the Project Directors to identify the population of entities applying IFRS and the impacts for them; identifying relevant existing studies, reports and academic research; and conducting further economic research.  The outcome of this work will help support the development of the UKEB’s view and responses to the IASB.
• Developing a standardised cost model to assist with impact assessments for the endorsement and adoption of future narrow-scope amendments. This model will be used to help estimate costs in a consistent manner and will include development of a framework of typical compliance costs. 
• Assessing the sufficiency of existing data sources to support the UKEB Secretariat’s work, and where none are available, find new ones or apply tools and techniques in order to draw conclusions in the absence of sufficient data.
• Developing and keeping up to date a comprehensive database of the population of UK entities that apply IFRS. Specifically, the size of the entity (by market capitalisation, FTSE sector and total assets), industry sector, etc.
• Building the capability of UKEB colleagues to enhance their understanding of the requirements of an impact assessment and how the timing of this work impacts on their IFRS influencing, endorsement and adoption, and other research work.

The Person:
Educated to degree level in a relevant field of study, preferably with a post-graduate or professional qualification, with five years, post-graduate work experience. Good knowledge of the Government’s regulatory impact assessment framework and its requirements is also important. A desire to make a contribution to setting up the UKEB processes to help ensure it can serve the UK public good in its area of statutory responsibility. Experience of regulation, company reporting, and analysing financial statements is desirable but not essential.   
The ideal candidate will have:

• Experience in writing and getting clearance of impact assessments from the RPC.
• Experience of commissioning and managing research projects or programmes, using specialist research methods, including both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
• A track record of influencing policy development based on evidence.
• Strong strategic thinking, analytical and problem-solving skills including the ability to interpret and present data, including to non-economists.
• Able to analyse complex issues and identify priority issues and propose solutions.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including report writing.

The role is based in Central London. The post holder should be able to work flexibly to support the team’s activities, to take on new objectives or projects as and when needed. 

The functions and criteria are set out in the Statutory Instrument, “The International Accounting Standards and European Public Limited-Liability Company (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019” 

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.

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FRC has a commitment to building relationships directly with candidates and only engages with agencies who are on our preferred supplier list to support us in sourcing quality candidates. We do not accept speculative CV’s from agencies that are not on our preferred supplier list. Any speculative or unsolicited CVs which are submitted without FRC instruction will be deleted and will not considered as an introduction.