FRC Chair-in-waiting grilled over holding seven other board roles
MPs have raised concerns over whether the former chief executive of Virgin Money can realistically juggle her role as Chair of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) alongside seven other board and chair positions.
Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia was named by the government on Monday as the next Chair of the accounting watchdog, set to take over in September.
During a pre‑appointment grilling by the Business and Trade Committee, Gadhia was questioned on the nine directorial and Chair roles she had after agreeing to take up the post, despite the FRC role being advertised as a 10‑days‑a‑month commitment.
Her current portfolio includes Chairing Ovo Energy, Shakespeare’s Globe, Ozone and Moneyfarm, the Tate audit committee and the Economy and Honours Committee, serving as lead non‑executive director at HMRC, as well as holding directorships at “several other organisations”.
She told the committee she will step down from Tate when her term ends in November and is leaving Ovo following its sale to E.ON, but refused to name other posts she will relinquish, saying she had not yet informed those boards.
Chair Liam Byrne MP said: “Still seven directorial chair roles that you would hold in addition to being the Chair of the FRC… There are only 24 hours in a day… We are pretty concerned about the overload here.”
Gadhia argued that many of her roles demand only limited time. She also stressed that remote working via Zoom and Teams would allow her to respond to FRC emergencies “at last‑minute occasions”.
Statutory reform of the regulator is ‘high priority’
When questioned on her views, Gadhia said she backed stronger statutory powers, but declined to spell out which audit reforms she’d fight for.
The Audit Reform and Corporate Governance (ARGA) Bill, which was added to Labour’s first King’s Speech, was scrapped in January to “avoid significant new costs to firms”. The primary goal was to replace the FRC with ARGA, a body with significantly enhanced statutory powers to oversee the audit profession and corporate reporting.
Instead, the government confirmed that it will grant the FRC a proper statutory footing as soon as parliamentary time allows, replacing its current hybrid voluntary structure.
She backed long‑delayed plans to put the watchdog on “statutory footing”, arguing it needs guaranteed funding and legal powers to demand information from firms it oversees. The incoming Chair told MPs that giving the FRC a statutory basis was “high on the priority list”, saying it would ensure mandatory funding and statutory access to data, in contrast to the current largely voluntary arrangements.
When pushed on whether the FRC is under‑powered today, she admitted that the accountancy regulator currently “doesn’t have powers to require information” in all cases and agreed that bolstering those powers should be a priority change once the “statutory footing” is in place.
The committee went on to question how she plans to tackle the “lack of competition” in the UK audit market, with one MP highlighting that the Big Four – Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC – still hold around 40 per cent of public interest entity (PIE) audits. When she was pressed on whether Big Four market share is still climbing, she said she did not know and promised to “write to the committee” with the figures later.