The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has been scrutinising more and more appointees to the most senior jobs in financial services.

The number of interviews that the FCA has held to vet people proposed for senior positions at financial firms jumped by 27% to 233 in 2018 - up from 183 in 2017, according to Fox & Partners, the employment law firm.

Quoting FCA figures, the firm says that the rise is the result of the FCA taking a tougher approach towards applications for senior positions such as chief executive officer, chief financial officer and chief risk officer. The number of interviews held by the FCA has risen 70% over the last five years, up from 137.

Anyone who fails to please the FCA during one of these interviews cannot do the job for which the firm in question has put him forward. The object of the interviews is to ensure that candidates have the necessary skills, experience and integrity to do these jobs.

Ivor Adair, a partner at Fox & Partners, told Compliance Matters: “If the candidate is failed by the FCA, the employers need to be careful not to mishandle that outcome as this could provoke an employment dispute.

"All employers have an implied term of trust and confidence in all their contracts. The employer must not do something to destroy trust and confidence between himself and his employee, neither must the employee do anything to destroy it either - it's a two-way duty. If the employee fails an FCA interview and cannot do the job, he might accuse the employer of not giving him enough training and support. That's an extreme scenario and is essentially far-fetched.

"Also, there's the possibility that the employee can argue that he's no longer able to do his job because the job now requires regulatory approval. He might say: 'because of a lack of training and support, I can no longer do my job, this is going to ruin my career.' He and the firm might have to part company. In that situation, what is he to do? So that could create discord too.

“Wealth management firms therefore ought to support and prepare candidates for these interviews properly and be careful not to put up candidates who stand a significant chance of being failed by the FCA.”

The FCA allows candidates to withdraw applications after interviews have exposed gaps in their skills. This protects them from the humiliation of rejection after their interviews.