Introduction to our service standards portfolio
Service standards are specified levels of performance that we have agreed to meet in performing our regulatory functions. Most are voluntary commitments; however, some relate to provisions in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA).
The service standards portfolio gives you information about the areas of our service that we measure, how we are performing against these measures and our monitoring of customer satisfaction. Standards apply to a range of our services, including how we deal with telephone enquiries, correspondence and applications. We will introduce more standards where they will help us meet your needs.
It is vital to the interests of our stakeholders that we make the right regulatory decisions and sometimes this will mean that some transactions take longer than normal. Given a choice between meeting a standard and taking more time to make the right decision, we will take more time.
View our latest results for performance against our service standards.
Key changes to our service standards
Tightening our standards
We are constantly seeking to improve our performance and have tightened the following four of our existing service standards with effect from 1 October 2007:
Authorisation:
- Mutual standard (A8.1) - Target of 80% increased to 90% due to continuing record of achievement.
Communications:
- IS systems' availability (CM11.1, CM11.2 & CM11.3) - Targets of 95% (CM11.1 & CM11.3) and 96% (CM11.2) have all been increased to 98.5% as part of our ongoing IS transformation programme.
Firms Online
Firms will be aware that, since 27 October, there has been severely reduced functionality of this system (service standard CM11.1) following the withdrawal of a number of forms. This had been made necessary by the process changes required by MiFID and it was decided that efforts should be made to ensure the successful rollout of a new online forms system in 2008 rather than making retrospective changes to the current system.
Alternative arrangements for receiving transactions have been introduced and we remain committed to continue to meet our published service standards for applications we receive, regardless of how they are submitted. In fact, most applications at present are completed and submitted manually.
Further information can be found at Changes to Firms Online Regulatory Transactions Forms, effective from 27 October 2007.
Therefore, readers should note that the tightening of this standard has been made possible as a result of contractual service measures and that this standard relates to the availability rather than the functionality of the system.
We have also reduced the number of standards within the portfolio by removing the following:
Authorisation:
- Small e-money issuers (A9.1 & A9.2) - Due to very low volumes, these standards will be removed. Although we will no longer be reporting results on these, our aim is that the target timescales will still be met in all cases.
Communications:
- Individual Guidance (CM9.1) - This standard has been removed as it has been superseded by our correspondence standard (CM1.1).
Customer satisfaction
We are committed to improving customer service, operating fair and efficient processes, and making the right regulatory decisions. To enable us to measure this we have developed customer satisfaction monitoring processes, which we aim to continually review and expand to cover more of our key transactions. The customer satisfaction results are used to measure the quality of service we provide and we also use the feedback directly to improve our systems and processes to make ourselves easier to do business with.
Comments
If you have any comments on our service standards, or suggestions on how we might further improve the usefulness of the performance account, then please contact us at: performance.account@fsa.gov.uk. We welcome your feedback.
