Question 1
Your firm merged with another, smaller, regulated firm at the end of 2019. The two staff from the other firm who had handled its compliance investigations both left when the merger happened. Your firm’s senior management believes that the three staff already employed by your firm would be able to deal effectively with the compliance investigations for the new, merged, organization for years to come. You believe, however, that the staff are working at full capacity and are, if anything, under-resourced and need an increase in their numbers to avoid serious adverse outcomes.
a) What type of analysis will you implement and why?
b) What method(s) of analysis will you use and why?
c) After your research you record the following factors.
- There are three full-time staff dedicated to compliance investigations and that
the number has remained unchanged since 2018. - Each member of the team is contracted to work for 240 days throughout the year.
* In 2018 there were 93 compliance investigations during the year, taking an
average of seven working days to resolve from the first beginning of the investigation.
* In 2019 the number of investigations rose to 108. Although the types of
the investigation remained similar, the average duration increased by half a day to 7.5 days and there was a backlog of investigations not yet started.
* In 2020, owing partly to the merger, the number of investigations rose sharply to 127 and the average duration increased to eight days, even though the nature of the investigations remained broadly similar. The backlog of
investigations not yet started increased.
* In 2021, there were 136 investigations. The duration remained at eight days,
but the backlog of investigations not yet started increased further.