Company Secretary Snapshot - May 2025

Written by Sarah Monaghan, Rose Klemperer and Renee Tombs

Introduction

Welcome to May’s edition of the monthly snapshot. There is plenty in the housing sector to keep us busy this month! This edition focuses on the latest reforms being implemented under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and some consumer credit reporting changes for some activities regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We also look at the Regulator of Social Housing’s (RSH) latest round of regulatory gradings, key learning for RPs from the Housing Ombudsman’s Latest Severe Maladministration Decisions and the Government’s recent consultation on supported housing. 

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) 2023 – is your organisation ready?

We’ve previously discussed the ECCTA, in our November and February snapshots. However, with some key provisions fast approaching implementation – are you ready?

By way of brief reminder, the ECCTA introduces a number of changes to company law, aimed at preventing abuse of UK corporate structures and tackling economic crime. These changes are continuing to be implemented on a rolling basis, two years on.

An important change under the ECCTA is that Companies House has expanded powers in relation to improving corporate transparency, in particular to audit and verify information, query inaccuracies, and strike off companies formed on false premises.

Some of the changes to Companies House’s powers have already been implemented, but others are being phased in throughout 2025/26. A key change being phased in this year relates to new identity verification requirements (IDV) for new/existing directors (and equivalent for LLPs), persons with significant control (PSCs) and anyone submitting filings to Companies House (among others).

From 8 April 2025, individuals have been able to voluntarily verify their identity with Companies House via the One Login service. Individuals have also been able to engage an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP), such as a solicitor, accountant or other professional service provider to do this for them since March 2025. 

According to the Companies House outline transition plan, by autumn 2025, IDV will become compulsory on incorporations for new directors and PSCs. For existing directors and PSCs, a transition period of 12 months will kick in and they will have until the company’s next confirmation statement to complete the IDV process. By spring 2026, Companies House expects that all individuals (whether or not they are a director or PSC) filing documents on behalf of a company or other corporate entity at Companies House will need to have completed IDV. 

Individuals who fail to complete IDV will commit a criminal offence, as will companies with an unverified director (and every officer of the company). Similar measures will apply to LLPs.

Therefore, it is really important for any Groups with companies or LLPs in their group structures to prepare for these changes well in advance of them becoming mandatory. We suggest that Boards are made aware of the changes and organisations consider an implementation plan to manage the IDV process at an early stage (i.e. will individuals verify directly or will an ACSP be engaged?). 

Another key upcoming change to be aware of is the new failure to prevent fraud offence. From September 2025, large organisations (which can include large CBSs and incorporated public bodies) can face prosecution if associated individuals commit fraud and the organisation lacks “reasonable prevention procedures.” To start preparing for compliance, organisations should consider scheduling Board training, check compliance policies are up to date generally and develop a robust fraud prevention policy to address the new offence. 

If you would like further information, please contact Rose Klemperer. 

FCA consumer credit reporting changes for some regulated activities

The FCA has required consumer credit firms to periodically provide regulatory returns since 2014, that supply them with aggregated data for consumer credit activities. However, the data received is inconsistent and does not reflect the typical data quality necessary in the sector, which requires additional ad hoc data requests from the FCA. In light of this, the FCA initiated its multi-year review into the replacement of the consumer credit reporting (CCR) returns for regulated activities. 

Following the FCA’s consultation paper (CP24/19), with effect from 7 May 2025, the FCA has introduced a new regulatory return which will collect data from consumer credit firms with permission to carry out any of the following regulated activities: 

• Credit broking;
• Debt adjusting;
• Debt counselling;
• Providing credit information services. 

The aim of the new regulatory return is to make the FCA expectations of firms clearer, using common industry terminology to help firms understanding when completing the forms, which should result in less ad hoc information requests.

There are five mandatory sections for firms to complete, followed by tailored questions specific to their
permissions which include:

1. Permissions – the regulated activities firms have undertaken in the last 12 months;
2. Business Model – the financial products, goods, and/or services firms are providing;
3. Marketing – the channels firms use to acquire customers;
4. Revenue – total revenue from credit-related activities and non-credit related activities; and
5. Staff – the number of employees, and incentive and renumeration arrangements. 

The new return replaces elements of CCR002 – Consumer credit data: Volumes and CCR007 – Consumer credit data: Key data for credit firms with limited permission.

Some of the new return’s data element will initially overlap with the FCA’s other CCR returns, which is an interim stage whilst the FCA completes its review of the remaining credit related returns. The FCA’s decision to slow down the pace of change to ease the impact of firms in the scope means that the overlap will take longer than the FCA previously anticipated. To reduce the impact of the overlap, the FCA will be consulting separately on changes to the scheduling of existing returns to bring firms in line with the calendar year reporting. This is likely to result in most firms having a shorter window in which they are expected to submit data on these activities, reducing the time required to collate and provide the information to the FCA. 

If your firm is affected by the changes, it is important to make sure that you meet the requirement of the new rules so that your reporting is in line with the changes set out in the Policy Statement PS25/3: Consumer Credit Regulatory Returns.

Key Learning from the Housing Ombudsman’s Latest Severe Maladministration Decisions

On 20 May 2025, the Housing Ombudsman released its latest Learning from Severe Maladministration Report, focusing on emergency repairs. The Report details issues with triaging, delays in emergency repairs, and prioritising repairs as a result of household circumstances.

The report seeks to identify issues which have led to service failures and sets out key learning from the cases referred to. Our article explores the key learning from the report in more detail. 

If you are a registered provider of social housing and would like further help and guidance, please contact Neil Brand.

Regulator of Social Housing: five new regulatory judgements 

Continuing with our review of regulatory upgrades/regrades, the RSH investigated Swindon Borough Council following a self-referral over health and safety issues and its repairs service. The RSH issued the Council with a C3 grading and its inspection found that at the Council, there was:

• An inability to report accurately on the presence of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
• An inability to track or monitor faults from electrical safety checks 
• Over 800 overdue fire safety actions 
• No active tracking, monitoring or reporting of open damp and mould cases 
• An inability to demonstrate how tenants’ views have been considered in its decision making 

The RSH said that the Council demonstrated an understanding of the issues and is taking action towards the failures identified. The RSH will continue to engage with the landlord to ensure improvements are made. 

Other key themes from recent judgements include:

• an emphasis on the importance of health and safety and there is an expectation on landlords to make sure tenants are not and do not feel at risk in their homes; 
• for many providers, data management requires improvement; and
• when an RP identifies an issue that impacts its delivery of the outcomes of the regulatory standards, the RSH expects RPs to be open and transparent by making a self-referral at the earliest opportunity. 

Supported Housing regulation: consultation update 

The Government consultation on the implementation of the Supported Housing Regulatory Oversight Act 2023 (the 2023 Act) closed on 15 May. 

The 2023 Act seeks to address a lack of regulation within the supported housing sector – particularly following some high-profile issues over the last few years with certain providers of specialised supported housing. The consultation focused on four key areas:

• Proposed National Supported Housing Standards and Principles, which will provide minimum standards for both the property and the care or support provided in supported homes;
• Proposed Supported Housing Licensing Regime, which will require English local authorities to create supported accommodation licensing schemes. The Government has proposed a number of core conditions for licences, which are aimed at driving compliance with the National Supported Housing Standards; 
• Defining ‘care, support and supervision’ for the purposes of specified accommodation in Housing Benefit Regulations;
• Linking Housing Benefit eligibility to the proposed licensing regime – so that where a provider fails to obtain a licence, the accommodation would no longer be eligible for housing benefit. 

The proposed changes are likely to have a very significant impact on the supported housing sector and have generated much comment and debate. The National Housing Federation has recently published an article which sets out its concerns that there may be unintended consequences on the delivery of supported housing if the proposals go ahead in their current form, without adequate Government funding to support them. Given this sector-wide impact, a new regulatory framework is unlikely to materialise before Autumn 2025.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of the consultation or how the proposed changes may impact your organisation, please contact Sarah Orchard. 

AOB 

We will be attending the following industry events, reach out if you’ll be there too.  

• NHF Housing Governance Conference – 19th June
• Housing 2025 – 24th – 26th June 

Other articles you might be interested in:

UKDEA: What do you need to know about the Procurement Act 2023? 

Employment Eye – May 2025