Chief Executive’s Report – September 2026

Introduction

1. Since the Board last met, the ECB team have been consulting with firms and other stakeholders on a range of topics. We have hosted four workshops: two on vulnerability; and two on fees and charging. We have also carried out a number of deep dive visits to firms to share learning on complaints handling, with more planned for the coming weeks.

2. Work has also progressed on our plans for the rest of the year, including the launch of our oversight pilot visit programme and further complaints workshops in the autumn as well as looking ahead to the return of Parliament, and our engagement with the new government.

Board matters

3. For 2027, the Director of Corporate Services is looking into a reciprocal arrangement with the Head of Legal and Governance at the Internet Watch Foundation to introduce an external element to the review. This would involve the respective governance leads reviewing each other’s organisations, including observing a Board meeting.

Financial management update

4. The total expenditure at the four-month point in financial year i.e. to the end of July was £556,178 (May: £270,236) against the forecast budget of £586,517 (May: £289,855) giving an underspend against the forecast budget of £30,339 (May: £19,619). The variances largely arise from phasing of certain budget lines and there are no material differences to draw to the Board’s attention at this point in the financial year.

5. In terms of the balance sheet, the cash position as at the end of July was £786,199 (May: £210,194). Accounting for current liabilities, our net current asset position was £766,869 (May: £1,206k).

6. We are currently showing income of £977,838 which represents a shortfall of £652,669 given four firms requested quarterly payment plans. The most recent quarterly instalment invoices were issued on 31 July.

7. We will be undertaking the annual reforecast exercise during September, once the September figures are available and a reforecast budget for 2026/27 will be presented to Board at its October meeting.

Annual report and accounts

8. The final annual report and accounts 2025/26 are expected to be signed before the end of August and filed with Companies House ahead of the deadline of 31 December 2026.

Staffing update

9. Our new Complaints Assessor joined the ECB on 17 August. They are now working through their onboarding and have already begun to take on cases.

10. We held a team day in Birmingham on 22 July where we had team building sessions in the morning followed by a team social in the afternoon, and we also held a leadership team day in London 12 August, where we considered the work plan and other live matters. 

11. The complaints team held an away day at the end of July to work through the initial proposals for changes to the complaints process as part of the process and efficiency review. The oversight team also had an away day in august to develop their workplan for the rest of the financial year.

Data Protection and IT update

12. Our Managed IT Services providers, Elysian continue to provide a very good level of service, with calls to the helpdesk in the last 6 weeks remaining consistent, and response times very speedy. Over the summer, Elysian has been providing advice and guidance to us on the deployment of AI within the organisation.

13. We have added some wording to the end of our privacy notice to explain that we are making use of AI tools to assist us in carrying out our functions, including handling complaints, correspondence and other business processes.

Oversight

14. Following the fees and charging thematic review, the Director of Risk and Government has held a number of workshops with industry to discuss the development of new ECB standards and guidance on fees. He is now drafting the new fees standards for the ECB to consult on as one of his final tasks before he departs on 30 September.

15. The Risk and Compliance team have begun the planning phase for the series of Pilot reviews which are due to start in the Autumn.

Policy and standards

16. Following our sharing of the draft vulnerability guidance with stakeholders, we have now held two successful workshops to explore how the new standards and guidance might work in practice. All firms were invited to attend, and we had 16 attendees across the two workshops. The conversation focused on using a set of realistic but challenging scenarios, drawing on what we have seen through complaints and other sources, to test how the standards and guidance will work. Participants responded positively and constructively to the scenarios and we have a final online ‘wash-up’ session scheduled for early September as well as a session planned with the Taking Control coalition to gather feedback from debt advice stakeholders.

17. We will then consider all the feedback received to inform development of the final outputs for publication in October which we will share with Board for information.

Complaints process and efficiency review

18. We have made good progress on our process and efficiency review of the complaints service. In consultation with the team we have developed our initial proposals for amendments to the complaints process to ensure we are balancing quality, speed and resourcing when delivering the service. We are now in the process of testing these proposals and interrogating our data to understand the impact these changes will have on our handling times. We are grateful to the Board lead for complaints who has been a helpful source of challenge and support as we work through the review.

19. In addition to this internal work, we are in the process of conducting a series of meetings with other second tier complaint bodies to understand how we compare to similar schemes. We are also carrying out a series of deep dive visits to enforcement firms to understand how their complaints handling functions operate. The visits have been helpful in sharing learning and discussing some of the process changes we are considering making to test the impact they will have from a firm perspective.

Complaints handling

20. As of 18 August, we had 168 live cases. The cases are distributed as follows: 14 at Initial Consideration, 58 at Further Consideration and 96 at investigation stage.

21. Of those at investigation, 14 are at draft decision stage, 12 are under investigation with the remainder (70) pooled for allocation. 

22. Incoming work has been distributed as follows:  April 106, May 83, June 94, July 98 and so far in August 63.  Incoming numbers therefore continue to track in line with our estimate of receiving 80 to 100 complaints per month. 

23. From the period 1 April to 18 August, we had received 444 complaints and closed 446.  Those were closed as follows: 291 at Initial Consideration, 75 at Further Consideration and 80 at Investigation stage.  Our performance against our KPIs is as follows:

24. In 70% of cases, we issued the decision whether to launch an investigation in 15 working days or less (this is a combination of initial and further consideration cases).

25. Our performance against our initial consideration KPI remains lower than we were previously achieving.  As set out in my previous report, we have explored the reasons for this, and they largely relate to delays in receiving information from accredited firms.  We have met with some firms to discuss the delays we have experienced in their responses to us at Initial Consideration and emphasised the need for efficiencies to be made in this area. We hope to see the benefit of these discussions reflected in future reporting. This is also an area that we are considering further as part of our ongoing Process and Efficiency Review.

26. In my previous report, I set out that we expected to see a reduction in our performance against our Further Consideration KPI. This was due to imminent staff changes with the move of the Complaints Assessor to Investigator and recruitment to fill the role this left. As anticipated, we now have 58 Further Consideration cases on hand, an increase from the position at the time of my last report. Recruitment has now been concluded, and our new Complaints Assessor joined the team on 17 August 2026. A period of training is now underway, and we will be focussing on reducing the number of Further Consideration cases on hand and our performance against the 15-working day KPI.

27. We continue to allocate investigations outside of the 90-day KPI.  As matters stand, we are allocating cases for investigation that are just over four months from the date of the launch of the investigation. We continue to manage stakeholder expectations by providing updates. Despite the delay in allocations, once an investigator has been allocated to a case the majority of investigations are concluded within 14 days and the team remain focussed on continuing to achieve this. We will also shortly start to gain investigation capacity from the Investigator who has moved from Complaints Assessor. However, due to her taking the lead on the training of the new Complaints Assessor, these gains are likely to be seen in the Autumn.

28. We have closed 80 investigations so far this business year.  Two of those were closed without an investigation outcome being issued, due to the complaint being discontinued or withdrawn before a decision was reached. The outcome of the remaining 78 decisions are set out in the table below.

Investigation Outcome	Number
Not upheld	47
Partly upheld	27
Upheld	4

29. We have recommended a financial remedy in 21 cases, totalling £2,375.  Payments range from £50 to £300 and are awarded based on the impact of the issues identified on the individual. 

30. In addition, we have asked for an apology to be provided to complainants in 29 cases, made 25 recommendations for reminders to be issued about the relevant Standards. We have also asked firms to change their procedures in a further four cases. 

31. Since my last report, we have received four decision review requests, closed seven and have one remaining under consideration.  Of the seven decision review requests completed we have not found a basis to change our decision, although further explanation was provided in three cases.

32. We have received three service complaints, two are awaiting consideration and the other was not upheld.

Communications and Engagement

33. There were fewer engagement events over the summer months. The Director of External Affairs and Risk and Compliance Principal presented at the last Taking Control Coalition meeting, updating them on our oversight framework and encouraging their continued support for statutory underpinning. We held a Stakeholder and Engagement Forum meeting in late July, covering oversight activity, vulnerability guidance and body worn video.