Regulatory authorities may soon be forced to move beyond self-certification in order to pinpoint inappropriate conduct.
The Rev Paul Flowers, disgraced former chairman of the Co-op Bank, was a man of many parts. He slipped seamlessly from one role to another, exiting just in time to avoid exposure — until, that is, his apparent encounter with a drug dealer.
His career illustrates how an individual can remain under the radar to a range of authorities and regulatory bodies. It also highlights the difficulty, in the absence of a criminal conviction, of pinpointing inappropriate conduct. What may be unforgivable, however, is that the one set of regulations that could have stopped him failed to do so.
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