View from City Road: The buck must stop with the SIB

We should not give up all hope that sensible legislative changes are made to reinforce much-needed reform of the Financial Services Act 1986. At least Andrew Large, the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board, keeps mentioning the possibility in his speeches, even though he drew back from recommending new laws in his report on regulation earlier this year.

Yesterday he appeared to be backing the Stock Exchange's campaign for a single enforcement body for the City, when he pointed out that there was no single body 'but a multitude of different people in different bodies with nobody feeling responsible'. There was, he said, a danger of passing the buck.

In the management jargon we are becoming used to from the SIB - all about interfaces, inputs, outputs and delivery - Mr Large put enforcement of rules against market manipulation and other abuses high on his agenda.

But what we really need is acceptance that there should be legal changes to make the SIB the single enforcement body, the place where the buck stops.