Our Work
Standards
ECB Standards for Agents
ECB Standards for Firms
Consultation Response on ECB Standards for Enforcement Work and Oversight Model
Overview
As part of the ECB’s commitment to ensuring everyone subject to enforcement action is treated fairly, we have produced a new set of standards and guidance for ECB accredited enforcement firms and those who work for them.
The standards set a new benchmark for enforcement work, ensuring that all those in the enforcement sector and people subject to enforcement action know what fair enforcement means in practice.
This page explains why we have done this; what the new standards mean and what you can expect if the enforcement firm handling your debt is ECB accredited.
Background
The rules that explain what Enforcement Agents are allowed to do when enforcing a debt are set out in the Taking Control of Goods regulations. However, they do not dictate how enforcement agents should act when doing their job.
To address this, in 2014 the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) introduced non-binding National Standards that set some expectations about how enforcement agents should behave.
The National Standards cover some important areas but they have not been updated for ten years and have a number of gaps. The ECB’s standards build and improve on what is in the National Standards, so that they:
- reflect best practice in modern day enforcement e.g. the use of body worn video cameras;
- cover the actions of enforcement firms and frontline staff including call centre staff as well as individual agents
- will, in the near future, properly address important issues like vulnerability and ability to pay.
We worked with the enforcement industry, the debt advice sector and those with lived experience of enforcement to develop these standards to ensure they are comprehensive and ambitious.
It is our hope that in time, the Ministry of Justice will withdraw its existing National Standards for enforcement, so that the ECB’s standards will be the single source of standards for enforcement work.
In the meantime, we have aligned our standards with the National Standards, so that enforcement agents can have confidence that when meeting our standards, they will also be meeting the National Standards.
ECB standards
Our new standards launched on 29th October 2024.
They clearly set out our expectations for individual agents and firms in the enforcement sector.
Meeting these standards is a condition of our accreditation scheme.
The aim of our standards is to drive sustainable improvements in the enforcement sector by incorporating existing best practices and setting clear expectations to ensure consistently high performance, with the same standards being met every time enforcement action is taken by an ECB accredited firm.
We will be publishing additional guidance on areas of the standards in due course.
For agents our standards build upon the existing National Standards and give clear guidance on what is expected of individual enforcement agents.
For enforcement firms we have set clear expectations of the necessary outcomes and actions, while allowing room for innovation and adaptation.
For creditors We haven’t introduced any new standards for now. Given the important role creditors play in the enforcement process we will continue to engage with them over the coming months. In the meantime, the existing standards for creditors will continue to apply.
Over the coming months we will be developing new standards on vulnerability and ability to pay, and we will be consulting on these in due course.
Oversight
We recently consulted on our oversight model, which is the way we will monitor compliance with our standards. Taking on board the feedback we received, we will begin operational oversight from January 2025. We will take action where we find breaches of our standards, and for serious or persistent cases, this could include imposing sanctions.
We will publish more detail on what this means, how we will put this into practice and opportunities for stakeholders to help shape our approach in the coming months.
Implementation
We want to see our new standards implemented as quickly as possible. The new standards we have published for agents set out the rules we expect them to follow and from 1 January 2025, we expect to see these being observed by agents undertaking work for ECB accredited enforcement firms.
We also want to see our standards for firms being implemented as soon as possible. Firms can and should implement as many of these standards as possible from 1 January 2025. However, we recognise that the standards go beyond changing behaviours and require changes to business processes and systems as well as deeper, cultural shifts. We want our standards to generate sustainable improvements and achieving that may take some time.
Therefore, by 1 April 2025, we are asking firms to provide the ECB with a self-assessment against our new standards for firms (and the relevant, interdependent sections of the standards for agents). We expect this to show how the firm is compliant against the new standards. Where the firm is not yet compliant, we expect to see a clear plan for achieving compliance within a period of time to be agreed with the ECB.
We will be launching our complaints function in January 2025. Whilst firms are in the implementation period, we will not expect them to be fully compliant with our new complaints standards. However, from April 2025, we will be assessing our complaints against the new standards for firms, including the complaints standards.
We will also seek to align the ECB’s data return process with the new standards and will inform firms of any new requirements later in 2024.
If you are an enforcement firm or agent, you can read the full new standards here: Agents, Firms
Interaction with the existing National Standards
It is our intention that our standards will replace the current National Standards and we are working with the MoJ to ensure that enforcement agents and agencies have one clear set of standards to follow.