FRC plans to leave City of London

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) is considering moving its headquarters out of the City of London to Canary Wharf or Stratford, according to the Financial Times.

The news comes as plans to relocate staff from London to a second office in Birmingham office face delays.

People familiar with the matter told the FT that the FRC is set to leave its office in the City by the end of the year with new locations in the Docklands and Stratford near the Olympic Park under consideration.

This leaves the Prudential Regulation Authority at the Bank of England as the only major City regulator in the centre of the historic financial district of the UK.

It is thought that the FRC and the Government Property Agency, which is in charge of overseeing government buildings, are still in talks and that a final, mutually agreed-upon decision for its new headquarters will be reached in the coming months.

However, the scheme to replace the FRC with a new, “more powerful” Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority has stalled.

One source said that the FRC still plans to open its own premises in Birmingham.
According to the FRC’s 2024-25 budget, published in December, about 5% of current staff were due to relocate to a new Birmingham office by the end of the financial year in March.

It also said it had started to recruit personnel in Birmingham. However it said that “given the slowdown in our planned headcount growth compared to the original business case assumption, the pace of expansion into the Birmingham office may be slower as a result”.

Some staff since January have also been temporarily moved to the West Midlands headquarters of the Office for Product Safety and Standards, the national product regulator, one person said.

By making this change, the Financial Conduct Authority in Stratford and the Competition and Markets Authority in Canary Wharf would be closer to the FRC.