Does the UK's FCA listen to its various private-sector advisors? That is the question.

Three new private-sector chairpeople for the British Financial Conduct Authority’s 'practitioner panels' have been appointed, effective on April Fool's Day, one of them a wealth management specialist. Each appointment is for a term of two years. These are:

• For the 'general' practitioner panel – Alison Brittain, the group director of retail matters at Lloyds Banking Group
• For the 'markets' practitioner panel – Robert Mass, the head of international compliance and the global head of 'securities division compliance' at Goldman Sachs
• For the 'smaller business' practitioner panel – Clinton Askew, a director at Citywide Financial Partners

Brittain, Mass and Askew will succeed Graham Beale, Paul Swann and Andrew Turberville Smith respectively. Clinton Askew's firm, Citywide, is a financial advice and wealth management business founded in Surrey in 2004. It gives financial advice to high-net-worth individuals and their families. Askew went into financial services after graduating from Bristol in 1981. He has worked in the independent sector since 1986. He has been a member of the panel he will soon be chairing since 2009, representing independent financial advisors.

Mark Chidley and Kitty Ussher have recently begun their three-year terms as new members of the Financial Services Consumer Panel, another statutory body set up under the Financial Services Act 2012. The old Financial Services Authority originally set it up in December 1998. It now advises the FCA about the interests and concerns of consumers. It is especially keen on products and services that ‘do what they say on the tin’.