How many marks out of 10 would you award the FSA after its first year as a super regulator?

Five out of 10. It has not been a complete failure, but it has a lot more to do before it reaches A grade.

Where do you think the FSA has failed?

One major area is its handling of the mortgage endowment mis-selling scandal.

Nobody understands the rate of return or exit penalties associated with with-profit funds...They are big, bloated and cost too much.

Sheila McKechnie

I do not think the FSA has tackled this effectively.

I think it has been trying to hide behind the stockmarket falls, but the issue of mis-selling of endowments was alive and kicking before then.

At the heart of the matter is whether people were told when buying an endowment that it would pay off their mortgage loan.

In reality, people did not want to gamble their house on the stockmarket, and very few understood the risks.

The FSA should be cracking down hard on firms and not just taking a wait and see attitude.

The ongoing endowment mis-selling scandal aside, what else most concerns Consumers' Association about the FSA?

There are two very big issues.

Firstly, the dominance in the UK of big with-profit life funds - they are incomprehensible even to the experts.

Nobody understands the rate of return or exit penalties associated with with-profit funds.

In short, life companies that operate with-profit funds are saying to consumers give us your money and we will tell you what you get back.

They are big, bloated and cost too much.

In short, the FSA is not a dynamic regulator, particularly when compared to the regulatory regimes in other countries such as Australia

Secondly, where on earth do ordinary people obtain unbiased, safe financial advice?

The commission-driven selling which dominates the advice marketplace seems designed as a means to pay for the distribution of a product rather than genuinely helping the consumer.

In both these cases, the FSA has failed to understand the size of the problem.

We have warned about with-profit funds for years and the chickens are finally coming home to roost.

As for advice, their current proposals will make matters worse, not better.

How well do you think the FSA is meeting its duty to inform and educate the public on financial matters?

A lot of its education material is very good, but it is a long term agenda.

As a nation, we are quite financially illiterate in terms of understanding products, and I am worried about existing consumers.

The FSA priority should be to make the consumer the focus of all its activities, and at present it is not doing that.

Does the FSA have any teeth?

It has lots of teeth but does not use them.

It takes a far too softly-softly approach to the industry, and conducts a lot of its business behind closed doors which is a bad thing.

Sir Howard Davies head of the FSA

In short, the FSA is not a dynamic regulator, particularly when compared to the regulatory regimes in other countries such as Australia.

Over there the regulator acts to pre-empt problems and does not just react to events.

Does there need to be a change at the top of the FSA or is a radical change of culture needed?

I am not sure the problem is at the top. Sir Howard Davies is a man of integrity.

However, the consumers' interests have got lost - the FSA is too likely to ask itself how the industry will react to a measure, and quite frankly the FSA job is to protect consumers.

That is not to say that the industry's views are not important - of course there is no point to regulation without implementation.

However, in the final analysis the FSA needs to check everything it does against a simple benchmark: How does it benefit the consumer?