It cost £1 Om to produce, including £7.7m paid to Big Four firm PwC, it was delayed by several months while lawyers picked over its conclusions and it was only published at all after MPs insisted it was made available. But the Financial Services Authority's report on how the once-proud Scottish bank RBS came to the brink of collapse in 2008 nevertheless provides a vital insight into the causes of the financial crisis. When the UK's financial regulator released its report into the spectacular, and costly, failure of RBS at the end of 2011, the headlines focused on three areas: poor management decisions, deficient regulation and a flawed supervisory approach. But within the FSA's 450-page public report on how the Scottish bank came to be bailed out by the taxpayer, there are a number of other strands, many of which are very pertinent to the worlds of accountancy and audit.
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