Ein Gwaith
Operational oversight
Operational oversight model
Sanction rules
Trosolwg
A key part of ensuring the we deliver on our mission to ensure everyone subject to enforcement action is treated fairly is ensuring enforcement firms and agents are meeting our standards and that those who fall short are held to account.
This page sets out our approach to oversight of the enforcement industry, our Sanctions and Non-Compliance Rules and how we intend to develop our approach to oversight in the coming year.
Risk-based oversight
The ECB takes a risk-based approach to oversight, which is focussed on gathering evidence from a wide range of sources in order to provide ongoing, dynamic and reliable assessments of the risk profile of each accredited firm.
This assessment then informs our ongoing approach to oversight and allow us to identify specific areas of non-compliance with our standards that require a targeted response, either through the ECB’s monitoring and oversight or enforcement tools.
Our Operational Oversight Framework can be found yma This sets out more detail about our approach to oversight.
The table below sets out the types of oversight activities we will undertake and what this will mean in practice:
| Method | What this means in practice |
|---|---|
|
Supervision visits |
These visits will assess a firm’s compliance with ECB standards, either through broad evaluations or focused reviews of specific areas. We will run a pilot of initial supervision visits to help us to refine the process and ensure that it is fair and impartial. These visits will provide important insights, allowing us to assess and reassess a firm’s risk profile. |
|
Cwynion |
We will begin accepting complaints about enforcement agents and firms from January 2025. We will be using data from the complaints we receive to inform our supervision and monitoring. |
|
Data returns |
We receive periodic data returns from ECB accredited firms. These will help us to identify trends, changes and potential outliers. |
|
Debt advice case studies and referrals |
National debt advice charities regularly send the ECB anonymised case studies where the debt adviser considers that there may have been bad practice. We will also accept referrals on a case-by-case basis from debt advisers where there is a specific concern, which may include some supporting information or evidence. |
|
Whistleblowers |
We will develop a whistleblower policy so that we can safely receive intelligence from those within industry about practices that they are concerned about.
|
|
Media and Social media |
We will take account of any intelligence that arises from press investigations or other media activity. |
|
Referrals from other regulators |
We will welcome referrals from any other regulators or bodies (such as ombudsman) with intelligence about potential breaches of the ECB’s standards or poor enforcement practice. |
Non-compliance
If we identify any instances of a breach of our standards during our monitoring and supervision visits we will seek to verify the information and ensure that appropriate actions are being taken to resolve any concerns.
We address non-compliance in two key ways:
Supervision Tools
We encourage firms to take ownership of issues and implement meaningful improvements to prevent them from recurring. This may involve creating an action plan, which we will assess and, if approved, oversee its completion while monitoring the impact of changes.
If, at any stage, we are unsatisfied with the firm’s response we may escalate to sanctions.
Sanctions
We have a range of sanctions for persistent non-compliance. Sanctions are reserved for serious or recurring issues, in line with good regulatory practices and proportionality. Wherever possible, we aim to resolve issues through supervision tools first.
All enforcement action taken by the ECB would be taken within the Non-Compliance and Sanctions Rules.
As set out in these rules, the ECB’s enforcement tools include the ability to impose one or more of the following sanctions:
- Note of Concern –issuing a formal note of the identified non-compliance to the firm
- Directions – specifying specific action that the ECB directs a firm to take to address identified non-compliance
- Decision to publish a Note of Concern or Direction
- Suspension of accreditation
- Removal of accreditation
The ECB could pursue more than one of these sanctions in tandem. It may also pursue one sanction initially and then escalate to an additional sanction as a result of ongoing failure to address the underlying issue.