The JEP reports and comments on the JFSC 2024 annual report

JFSC: Rising discontent and soaring wage bill

JFSC respond to data breaches in annual report

By Orlando Crowcroft ocrowcroft@jerseyeveningpost.com

THE Jersey Financial Services Commission faced rising discontent from stakeholders, mounting issues with staff retention and a soaring wage bill of more than £22 million, with significant pay hikes for executives including director general Jill Britton, the organisation’s annual report for 2024 has revealed.

Ms Britton took home a total of £370,450 last year, £31,000 more than in 2023, while JFSC chair Jane Platt, who took over the role on 19 April 2024, banked £104,615. A total of 77 other senior employees at the regulator were on average salaries of £105,000.

The report also included – for the first time – information on how many complaints were received by the regulator, data that was due to be released in 2024 and has been repeatedly delayed. It disclosed that of 14 complaints about the JFSC, ten were upheld.

Of the 14 complaints, 12 related to the way that the JFSC operated the Island’s financial registry, with two relating to the enforcement division and people and culture respectively, neither of which were upheld. The JFSC says it has apologised to the ten complainants.

Elsewhere, the report revealed that sentiment within the industry towards the regulator had fallen, with survey scores relating to the JFSC as “an effective communicator” at 5.6 out of ten compared to 6.2 a year earlier.

It said that 68% of company incorporations were completed on time, up 24% in 2023, while 84% of phone calls to the registry were answered, up 21%.

The report also gave a nod to the JFSC’s new regulatory chat bot, “Reggie”, and committed to adding intellectual property and trademark registers to the services it offers.

In their opening statements to the report, both Ms Britton and Ms Platt acknowledged that the regulator had faced “increased scrutiny” in 2024 off the back

of two major data breaches.

In January, a vulnerability in the public register made available the names and addresses of 66,806 individuals. Then in June, a second breach exposed information relating to 261 people.

Commenting on the breaches, the report said that they “drew a level of scrutiny and challenged our reputation”. It said that the JFSC has since appointed a data protection officer and “refined and updated” data protection policies and procedures. It has also “enhanced our training programme to raise awareness of data protection”.

Data included in the report showed that full-time permanent staff at the JFSC grew by 7% in 2024, and that of the regulator’s £32.4 million total operating costs – up £2.3 million in 2023 – £22.6 million was spent on staff in 2024.

It also revealed that the regulator was continuing to struggle to retain staff. Employee turnover was at 19% in 2024, up from 14% in 2023, and the average employee spends just 4.5 years in their job.

The JFSC also published gender pay gap data for the first time, revealing that it is 10.7%. It pointed out that unlike in other corporate entities, this was not due to a lack of women in senior positions: the executive team at the regulator is 57% to 43% female to male, while commissioners have a 75% to 25% female-to-male ratio.

Meanwhile, 92% of female employees received a bonus in 2024, compared to 85% of men, it claimed.

In September 2024, the JEP published the results of a months-long investigation into the regulator, which raised concerns about a lack of accountability and transparency at the regulator and damning allegations about the conduct of its enforcement division.

The JEP series focused on a number of complaints from those within the finance industry, including the use of public statements to name and shame those accused of financial misconduct or professional malfeasance.

It included interviews with individuals whose lives and careers were ruined by the regulator’s enforcement arm.

In response, the government said it would explore the setting up of a third-party appeals process for those threatened with sanctions by the regulator. “You have brought [forward] the need to revisit the enforcement processes,” said External Relations Minister Ian Gorst.

The government is yet to announce any substantive changes to the way the JFSC operates.

Opinion piece

Has the JFSC listened?

PERHAPS it is little surprise that finance industry professionals were not lining up yesterday to give their views on the annual report by the Jersey Financial Services Commission.

Not only because most of the Island’s financial services industry – along with everybody else – is terrified of the JFSC, but also because annual reports are rarely a place to go for candid insights. Rather, they are an opportunity to fly the flag and rally the troops for the year ahead.

Occasionally, magnanimously, a chairperson might allude to some challenges and how his or her organisation overcame them, but, at its most basic, an annual report is a soapbox PR exercise. That’s why executives usually love them, and journalists tend to hate them.

Seven months ago, this newspaper published damning accusations about the JFSC’s enforcement division, accusations about behaviour that none other than External Affairs Minister Ian Gorst classified as “bullying”, and promised that they would be addressed.

In these very pages, he committed to exploring whether the Island needed an external appeals’ process so that individuals who were sanctioned by the regulator could appeal against its decision outside of the prohibitively expensive Royal Court.

Deputy Gorst also said that he was not opposed to the JFSC being added to the list of organisations that were subject to the Freedom of Information Law, giving Islanders the right to find out what an opaque and unaccountable organisation was doing for the first time.

Seven months on, and on both counts: nothing.

Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of the issues raised by this newspaper in the JFSC’s annual report, although there was an acknowledgement of two major data breaches that the regulator experienced in 2024 and a rather box-ticking commitment not to repeat them.

In her opening remarks, JFSC chair Jane Platt – who, in her response to the JEP investigation last year said ‘nothing to see here’ – said that in the face of “increased scrutiny”: “We welcome feedback.”

Those of you in the industry can decide yourselves whether you agree with that statement or not.

In mysteriously similar language, director general Jill Britton (remuneration in 2024: £370,450) said that the JFSC had faced “increased scrutiny” in 2024.

“We have listened and learned,” Ms Britton said in her opening remarks the report.

Have they?

Sources

https://app.jerseyeveningpost.com/full_page_image/jersey-evening-post-2025-04-29-page-2/content.html