New powers for regulators to inflict harsher punishments on the worst transgressors will be given only to watchdogs who stop "box ticking" and agree to police business on a risk-based approach, the head of a government-commissioned review of regulatory sanctions has said.

In his first interview since being appointed to chair the penalties review, Richard Macrory told the Financial Times there would be "nothing worse than giving an unreconstructed regulator, who just ticks boxes for their own sake, a new set of boxes to tick . . . I don't think one would give regulators a whole new range of compliance tools unless they demonstrated they were adopting a new approach - that's part of the deal."