The Board welcomed 2024 in with an action-packed Board meeting, across 10 and 11 January, in frosty Bradford.
We were kindly hosted by Christians Against Poverty (CAP), who have been an important partner of the ECB over the years and are a key member of our stakeholder engagement forum. It was great to meet their wider team and new CEO Stewart McCulloch. Much of our discussion focused on vulnerability and the cumulative and disproportionate effect this has on certain sections of society. The Board was also able to discuss the importance of ongoing collaboration and evidence sharing with CAP and the wider debt advice sector, as we develop and implement our oversight model.
The Board meeting itself started with a paper on the project to develop our own ECB standards for enforcement action. We discussed and agreed the public articulation of the scope of this work, which has since been published on our website. It is very exciting that the substantive work on this key project is now underway.
We then moved on to discuss the development of our 2024/25 business plan. We agreed that the immediate focus for 2024/25 should be on building and implementing our core oversight model for enforcement action under the Taking Control of Goods Regulations. This means an ongoing focus on standards, creating meaningful accountability and ensuring the long-term sustainability of independent oversight. We also discussed how important influencing positive creditor behaviour was to delivery of our mission and agreed that this should also be introduced as a key priority in 2024/25. We will consult on the draft business plan in February. We will also continue to develop our thinking on wider strategic considerations throughout the year.
The Board also discussed and approved the principles that will inform the ECB reserves policy. We recognised the importance of adequate reserves to ensure the long-term sustainability of the ECB, especially given our small size and the potential volatility of our funding model. We agreed that we should aim to build reserves to target levels over a three-year period, to spread out the costs.
Finally, we discussed a draft budget for 2024/25, which set out the resources that would be required to deliver our draft business plan. The Board scrutinised the budget, challenging the assumptions made and ensuring that the budget was both proportionate and adequate to deliver the business plan. As expected and as previously trailed, our budget will increase now that we are preparing to undertake operational oversight. We forecast that the draft budget will translate into a limited increase in the levy, of between 0.02% and 0.05% (meaning a total levy between 0.42% to 0.45%). The exact level will depend upon 2023 turnover figures from accredited firms, which we are currently seeking.
The next step is to share our draft business plan, along with our draft budget and proposed levy, with our stakeholder engagement forum, ahead of a public consultation in February.