As firms approach their 2026 Consumer Duty Board reports, the focus shifts from initial implementation to demonstrating mature, embedded evidence of customer outcomes.
On Thursday 21 May 2026, we will be joined by specialists from regulatory consultancy Square 4 – Sara Haworth (Principal Consultant) and Nicola Crimp (Advisory Director) – to discuss the evolving expectations for Year 3 reporting.
This free 60-minute webinar is designed to provide a practical “sense check” for firms preparing their next submission. You can register your interest using the sign-up form at the foot of this page.
Key Areas of Discussion
Drawing on Square 4’s reviews of previous reports and data from our Consumer Duty webinar sentiment tracker, the panel will explore:
- The FCA’s Current Position: Insights from the regulator’s recent publications and thematic reviews.
- Benchmarking Performance: Identifying what “good”, “weak”, and “risky” look like in practice.
- Effective Board Challenge: Strategies to ensure Board oversight stands up to external scrutiny.
- Evidence and Insight: How to move beyond data collection to meaningful outcome analysis.
What Defines a Strong Board Report?
The most effective reports are board-facing and outcomes-focused. Rather than simply listing activities, they provide a clear narrative on:
- Defining Success: What “good” outcomes look like for your specific customer base.
- Evidence in Practice: What the data and qualitative insights actually show.
- Addressing Gaps: Identifying where outcomes fall short and explaining the root causes.
- Accountability: Outlining specific actions, designated owners, and clear timelines for remediation.
Stronger reports also quantify material harm, segment outcomes by customer group (including vulnerability), and provide a definitive Board conclusion on compliance with Principle 12, the cross-cutting rules, and the four outcomes.
Common Weaknesses to Avoid
Based on recent reviews, we will examine the areas where firms often struggle and provide insights on how to strengthen these narratives:
- Descriptive Culture Sections: Moving away from activity-based descriptions toward demonstable evidence showcasing how staff competence drives customer outcomes and experience.
- Vague Executive Summaries: Ensuring summaries articulate clear conclusions, emerging risks, and the specific decisions required from the Board.
- Data Without Interpretation: Avoiding “MI-heavy” reports that lack analysis of what the data means for the end-to-end customer journey.
- Insufficient Quantification: Properly measuring the scale, severity, and materiality of both good and poor outcomes.
- Input vs. Experience: Reducing over-reliance on process metrics and focusing on what customers experienced in practice.
- Surface-Level Consumer Understanding: Moving beyond “communication activity” to test what customers actually understood and where friction remains.
- Weak Vulnerability Segmentation: Ensuring data is sufficiently segmented to show whether vulnerable customers receive different outcomes compared to the wider base.
- Third-Party Oversight: Addressing under-developed monitoring of distribution chains where firms retain full accountability for outcomes.
- Disconnected Remediation: Ensuring action plans are directly linked to evidenced outcomes so the Board can track progress and sustained impact year-on-year.