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One metric for that would be the number of human resources devoted to financial regulation. In the UK up until the late-1970s, bank supervision was performed by the Bank of England on an informal basis, with a team of around 30 employees. Even when the Bank was given statutory responsibility in 1979, fewer than 80 people were engaged in the supervision of financial firms. In the period since, the number of UK financial supervisors has increased dramatically, rising almost forty-fold (Chart 1). In response to the current crisis, regulatory numbers are set to rise further. Over the same period, the number of people employed in the UK financial services sector has risen fractionally. In 1980, there was one UK regulator for roughly every 11,000 people employed in the UK financial sector. By 2011, there was one regulator for every 300 people employed in finance. The pattern in the US, looked at over a longer historical sweep, is broadly similar. The FDIC and SEC were set up as part of the regulatory response to the Great Depression. In 1935, together with the OCC and supervisors housed in the Federal Reserve banks, they had combined regulatory resources of around 4,500 people. There was one regulator for every three banks in the US (Chart 2). Today, the combined regulatory resources of the FDIC, OCC, Federal Reserve banks and SEC is closer to 18,500 people. That is three regulators for every US bank. As numbers of regulators have risen, so too have regulatory reporting requirements.