Staley’s mistake on Barclays whistleblower deserved censure

Comment Martin Flanagan

It was never likely that Barclays boss Jes Staley would escape regulatory fallout for breached protocols in trying to identify an anonymous whistleblower in 2016. It doesn’t get more dodgy than that for the chief executive of one of the UK’S largest banks.

The Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority have now warned that Staley faces a fine over the issue of trying to identify the author of an anonymous letter.

The regulators say the chief executive’s action on the matter violated rules that require a senior manager “to act with due skill, care and diligence”.

It is difficult to argue with that. Much has been written of banks’ testosteronefuelled, sometimes bullying cultures both before and after the financial crash, where whistleblowers have faced significant internal pressures not to rock the boat on unethical behaviour.

Adding to those fears by trying to identify the whistleblower rather than sorting out the problem is clearly not right, and the FCA and PRA have a duty to emphasise it in the most tangible way. It wasn’t that Staley acted with a lack of integrity. But his judgement was seriously flawed. and not given to verbal fireworks, did a good job in addressing the commercial pressures on Royal Mail, including the advent of Amazon in the parcels arena.

She also never took her eye off the ball during Royal Mail’s privatisation in 2013, steadily increasing the organisation’s financial strength and investing more than £1.5 billion, much of it on new technology.

Greene also cut two significant deals with the unions, covering pay, pensions and working practices. Challenges remain in this new electronic world to delivered print communications and parcels.

But Greene’s legacy is that Royal Mail looks better prepared than for quite some time.