Our Work
Complaints
Overview
A key aspect of delivering on our mission to ensure everyone who experiences enforcement action is treated fairly is ensuring that anyone who believes they have been treated unfairly is able to complain easily and have their complaint dealt with quickly and equitably. This includes improving how firms operate their own complaints functions and setting up an independent second stage complaints system run by the Enforcement Conduct Board.
This page explains: why we are doing this; what we intend to do; and the timelines for this work.
Background
The existing process for complaining about an enforcement agent can be complex and hard to navigate. This is further complicated by the fact that different types of debt and creditors have different complaints processes and appeals routes.
That’s why we are prioritising reviewing current complaints procedures, with the aim of creating a simple, consistent and accessible way for people to have their complaint resolved in the first instance and considered by an independent body if they still feel it hasn’t been dealt with fairly.
Our Role
Over the course of 2024 we will be working to deliver an improved complaints system for people who have experienced enforcement action.
To do this, we will set new standards (you can read more here) for the enforcement industry which will come into force in autumn 2024. Our standards will set clear expectations for enforcement firms on how they work, including standards relating to their complaints procedures. These standards will include:
- defining what we mean by fair complaints handling
- ensuring that people are made aware of their right to complain;
- accessibility of firms’ complaints handling processes;
- acceptable timeframes for resolving complaints; and
- learning and improvement from complaints.
Our complaints function
In addition to improving both how firms handle complaints and creating consistency across the sector, we will also establish our own complaints handling service. Our complaints function will accept any new complaint about the conduct of an enforcement agent or firm where a person feels their initial complaint to the firm in question hasn’t been dealt with fairly or in a timely way. This service will launch in January 2025. Further guidance on how to complain will be published closer to the time.
We won’t be able to determine complaints about the debt itself (e.g. the validity of a warrant or writ), the fees charged on a debt or if a case has entered legal proceedings.
We will make decisions about the outcome of complaints based on whether the agent or firm has acted in line with our standards. Where we find that agents and/or firms have breached our standards we will recommend appropriate redress for the person complaining. Implementing our recommendations on redress will be a mandatory requirement of accreditation for enforcement businesses.
This will be a new system and approach to handling complaints and we want to ensure all our decisions are evidence based. For this reason, we don’t believe it will be possible for us to reliably assess historic complaints (that arise prior to our new scheme becoming operational) where we are unlikely to be able to access evidence like body worn video footage or relevant documents. We recognise that this will be disappointing for some but are focused on ensuring that from the advent of our scheme, everyone with a complaint will have access to an independent complaints scheme.
Timelines
Following our scoping of this work, we are able to provide further clarity on the timelines for this work which are set out below:
| Phase of work | Key actions/milestones | Dates |
|---|---|---|
|
Scoping |
Initial mapping of current complaints system and internal scoping of project |
Early 2024 |
|
Design |
Early consultation with stakeholders on approach and drafting of standards on complaints |
Spring 2024 |
|
Drafting |
Drafting complaints policy and continued sector engagement |
Spring/summer 2024 |
|
Consultation |
Proposed complaints policy published and consultation launched |
Summer/autumn 24 |
|
Pre-implementation |
Final complaints procedure published |
Late autumn 2024 |
|
Launch |
The ECB begins accepting complaints |
January 2025 |