UK Listing Authority Objectives 2003-4

Set out below are the objectives that have been agreed between the Treasury and the UK Listing Authority for the financial year 2003-4.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES

The regulatory objectives of the Financial Services Authority in its capacity as the UK Listing Authority (UKLA) are to formulate and enforce Listing Rules that:

1. 
   Provide an appropriate level of protection for investors in listed securities;
2. Facilitate access to listed markets for a broad range of enterprises;
3. Seek to maintain the integrity and competitiveness of UK markets for listed securities.

In pursuing these objectives the UKLA will at all times have regard to the general duty set out in section 73(1) FSMA.

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SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES FOR 2003/2004

1.  We will use a risk-based approach to identify, assess and mitigate risks to our objectives, so that:

• 
  we will focus resources on firms, sectors and themes which we consider present the greatest risk to our objectives
• there is improved risk disclosure in Listing documents, resulting in greater protection for consumers
• listed companies and their sponsors have a greater awareness of their continuing obligations under the Listing Rules 
• there is a quicker turnaround for low-risk documents as a result of the establishment of a Central Debt Team
• we will improve our information sharing within FSA, resulting in more effective risk assessment and supervision

2.  We will involve market participants in our work to improve and develop the regulatory regime, through the Listing review and the relevant European Directives, including the Prospectus Directive, the Transparency Directive and the Market Abuse Directive.  Specifically, we will:

• publish a Consultation Paper containing our policy proposals on the review of the Listing regime by October 2003
• issue feedback on our consultation papers to amend the Listing Rules in relation to: split capital investment companies by October 2003; and Treasury shares by November 2003
• continue to work to shape the development of the Prospectus, Transparency and Market Abuse Directives
• ensure that our stakeholders are well informed aboutchanges to the Listing regime, and have the opportunity to feed in their views

3.  We will liaise with overseas exchanges and regulators to promote international development of the markets.

4.  We will implement an HR strategy aimed at achieving results through our people. We will encourage our managers to build and lead successful teams and to identify and develop talent.

Service Standards

The FSA published its first set of service standards in its Plan and Budget in January 2003, and reported on progress in the Annual Report, published in June 2003. The UKLA met its agreed operational targets of 95% for six out of seven of the targets (the exception being response targets to complaint letters where we achieved a 92.8% response rate). In five out of seven targets, we met the higher voluntary FSA target of 100%.  For 2003-04, we will report against the following four service standards:

Service Standards

Target

95%

95%

95%

95%

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