Re: I am surprised
" I didn't expect it to be standard practice."
Why not?
Banking regulators knew bad **** was going down in the banks, and did nothing to avoid the 2007 crunch. In fact they'd got a previous for doing nothing until too late on pensions mis-selling, endowment mis-selling, split capital trust mis-selling, PPI mis-selling. In fact, they're still doing it, failing to respond to complaints of malpractice by the major banks, with the SFO and politicians playing a collective "not my problem" game.
The CQC have been found to be worse than useless in regulating the NHS.
OFCOM has been useless in regulating the telecoms companies, equally useless in stopping the consolidation of local radio, or preventing the Post Office from rolling out a range of anti-customer measures.
How do OFGEM protect you from prices rises on your energy bills?
Other famously ineffectual bodies include the Advertising Standards Authority, General Medical Council, Office of the Information Commissioner, the Pensions Regulator.
Given that every other regulatory and investigative body in the land appears to be secretive and useless, I see no reason why we should expect anything different. But given the dishonesty, secrecy and incompetence of politicians, the example is set at the top.