Listening, seeing and acting
The summer has arrived and with it, the publication of the ECB’s second full business plan, which is available on our website. We are grateful to everyone who contributed to development of this plan, including taking the time to respond to the public consultation.
It is a pivotal year ahead for the ECB.
This is the year in which we will be launching our new standards for enforcement work. It is also the year in which we will be launching our own independent complaints handling scheme and starting to proactively monitor enforcement agents and enforcement firms’ compliance with our standards.
And as we embark on this important work, it feels equally as important to reiterate our commitment to listening, learning and transparency – to foster the open discussion and debate that will be crucial to tackling some knotty issues and building an impactful and enduring oversight regime.
That’s why we recently conducted a series of workshops with Enforcement Agents and Debt Advisors, across England and Wales, to seek views on what we should be focussing in on in the development of our standards and oversight. We have gained excellent insights from these workshops that have helped us to start drafting our standards.
Our next step will be to host another series of workshops, this time with accredited enforcement firms, creditors and the debt advice sector, to seek views on some specific proposals for our new standards.
If you would like to feed into the development of the standards at this stage, you can find the document outlining the key issues that we are seeking feedback on in the workshops here. Any feedback can be sent to contact@enforcementconductboard.org.
We will use the input from this targeted engagement to further develop the standards, ahead of a full public consultation opening in July.
We plan for Version 1 of the new standards to come into force by November 2024.
There are plenty of opportunities coming up to feed into our work, both before and during the public consultation period. And we really do want to hear from as many people as possible, because your input will be crucial in helping us to develop the best possible standards.
Vulnerability and ability to pay
The first version of the ECB’s standards will apply to Enforcement Agents and, for the first time, also to accredited enforcement firms. It will cover areas such as communication, the enforcement process and peaceful entry, complaints handling and use and monitoring of body worn video.
This first version will not contain substantive new requirements on ‘vulnerability’ or ‘ability to pay’. We will be carrying out a more focussed engagement and consultation on these areas once Version 1 of the standards are in place. Our aim is for the standards which deal with those issues to be finalised by Spring 2025 before coming into force in Autumn 2025.
Listening and learning
Since we came into existence, we have placed significant stock in making sure that we understand, as best we can, the experiences of ALL those at the frontline of debt enforcement – from enforcement agents, to those on the receiving end of enforcement action and debt advisers.
Our recent workshops with enforcement agents have been incredibly valuable and we’ll soon be publishing a summary of their findings and how these insights will be factored into our future work. I am also extremely grateful to the individual enforcement agents who have given up their time to talk directly with me about their hopes and fears about the future of enforcement and its oversight.
Shadowing has also been an important part of our work and all our Board members and all the staff team have spent time shadowing enforcement agents and observing or listening to debt advice being given. In fact, our Board members have all just completed a second round of shadowing with Enforcement Agents – eighteen months on from their first visits and observations.
I’ve also been out across England and Wales seeing council tax, parking and high court enforcement in action, as well as phone based and in-person debt advice and case work. There are more visits planned for the coming months and I will continue to make this ongoing engagement a key part of my role.
We have all found this first-hand experience of seeing, hearing and feeling enforcement work being delivered to be extremely informative and useful. And this, alongside our wider engagement work is informing both our standards and our future oversight, as we continue with our mission of ensuring that everyone who experiences enforcement action is treated fairly.
We are always keen to take the opportunity to hear from as many people as possible – if you would like to host a member of the ECB team as you go about your work or to speak to us by phone or in person, then we’d love to hear from you.
Please do get in touch with us via contact@enforcementconductboard.org
Until next time!
Chris