Toothless watchdog’s boss earned more than PM

THE boss of Britain’s ‘useless’ accounting regulator was paid almost three times as much as the prime minister last year.

Stephen Haddrill, chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), earned £423,691 in a year when his organisation was scrapped.

This was almost triple the £152,819 former Prime Minister Theresa May received in the year to May 31 2019.

The FRC, which oversees Britain’s tainted auditors, was slated by MPs for being ‘toothless’ and branded a ‘ramshackle house’ in a report by former civil servant Sir John Kingman.

It is being abolished after Kingman uncovered a litany of problems and widespread conflicts of interest in his study, commissioned by the Government.

Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, added: ‘Haddrill’s case highlights how pay practices for public servants have begun to follow the crazed levels that are commonplace in large companies.’ Criticism of the FRC has centred on its close ties to audit firms it is supposed to discipline and its perceived inaction when they have fallen short of the mark. MPs said the watchdog had been ‘useless’ in its handling of the Carillion crisis, after the construction firm collapsed following overly optimistic accounting.

And the FRC has since come under more scrutiny for its regulation of auditors as accounting errors have been discovered over the last 12 months at the likes of Patisserie Valerie and Goals Soccer Centres. The Competition and Markets Authority, and former London Stock Exchange chairman Sir Donald Brydon, are also conducting reviews into the audit market.

Haddrill, 63, has agreed to step down from his role at the FRC at the end of October. He will be replaced by Sir Jonathan Thompson, the boss of tax authority HMRC, who will oversee the FRC’s transition into the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) in 2021.