Following the Morris Review, the FRC commenced a new regime of oversight of the Actuarial Profession from 1st April 2006.
An essential part of the new regime was the creation of a new operating body of the FRC – the Board for Actuarial Standards (BAS) – to set high quality actuarial standards independently of the profession or other interests.
The recommendations of the Morris Review were that in future BAS should be responsible for UK technical actuarial standards and that the Actuarial Profession should remain responsible for ethical standards. Existing actuarial professional guidance has been reviewed based on these principles and agreement reached on those areas that are the future responsibility of BAS.
BAS has adopted the existing professional guidance that falls into its future area of responsibility and also agreed transitional arrangements to enable final revisions to be considered as they are completed. All adopted guidance is now available on the web site at http://www.frc.org.uk/bas/actuarial/index.cfm.
BAS also agreed that its initial priority is to establish a conceptual framework and principles for actuarial work and that it would return to review areas of current guidance once this initial process was completed.
Commenting on the adopted professional guidance, Paul Seymour, Chair of the BAS, said:
“The existing technical actuarial standards are extremely important in underpinning the financial operation of both pension schemes and insurance companies and we are fortunate to be able to inherit an extensive set of professional guidance which will give BAS a very helpful kick start. I would like to thank all those in the Actuarial Profession, and especially the volunteers who have given their time so generously, for the work done in the previous development of these standards.”
