The Financial Services Authority has backtracked on plans announced a year ago to cut 300 staff as part of its drive towards more principles-based regulation, instead choosing to reassign 90 of the employees to new initiatives.

The UK financial markets regulator, which revealed the move to trim staff numbers by 2010 in its annual business plan last year, said in this year’s plan, published today, that the initiative is on track but added it has had a rethink on numbers.