Professional Oversight Board
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The Professional Oversight Board (POB), formerly known as the Professional Oversight Board for Accountancy, is a UK regulatory body specializing in the accounting, auditing and actuarial professions. It is a part of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the independent regulator of corporate governance and reporting in the U.K. The name change, as of May 5, 2006, reflects the recent assumption of oversight of the actuarial profession by the board. The current director of the board is Paul George.
The board's stated purpose is to support the FRC's goal of investor and public confidence in the financial governance of business organizations. The board assures that professional accountancy bodies are properly setting standards and enforcing discipline for their members, in accordance with the Companies Act and other statutory requirements. However, If a complaint raises concerns that a professional accountancy or actuarial body may have breached significantly its own standard procedures in the handling of a complaint about their member, POB will normally seek the comments of the relevant body and look at papers relating to the case as appropriate. POB will then normally write to the complainant to tell them the outcome of their consideration of the matter and whether the body proposes to take any action based on their comments. POB do not have the power either to overturn any decision which the body has made in a case or to direct how the body should handle a case. [1]. In common with many other public authorities, they have a policy of ignoring individual complaints. In other words, POB have no powers to ensure public confidence with respect to the complaint handling procedures of UK professional accountancy bodies and have no desire to improve this situation.
The board also operates an Independent Audit Unit (AIU) that oversees auditing organizations and makes recommendations for appropriate regulatory actions by governmental and professional authorities. As part of its recently assumed oversight of the actuarial profession, the board monitors the activities of actuarial organizations with regard to the education, discipline, ethical standards and continuing professional development of their members. The board also seeks to provide a framework for the evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of actuarial work.
The board is almost entirely composed of members of the accountancy profession that the board is supposed to regulate [2] rather than the range of skills and backgrounds favoured by Lord Nolan's rules on public appointments.
