Consultation on an enforcement statutory regulator

The Government wishes to protect vulnerable people, enhance customer protection, strengthen accountability and improve standards within enforcement. As part of this, they think that there should be an independent statutory regulator put in place.

This body would be responsible for having oversight of those in the enforcement sector who use the Taking Control of Goods (TCoG) procedure.

Consultation

The Government’s consultation on this matter runs until 21st July 2025. It asks whether there should be a regulator and what responsibilities and powers that regulator should be given.

What would statutory regulation entail?

This would mean that any enforcement company operating under the TCoG regulations would have to be authorised by the regulator, comply with their professional standards and procedures, as well as pay the levy that funds them.

We would expect that all local authorities with an in-house team would be required to be authorised by the statutory regulator, along with other Government departments enforcing judgments and orders, including HMRC.

The consultation also proposes that the regulator take over the certification of enforcement agents (EA) and the authorisation of High Court Enforcement Officers (HCEO) from the courts, to free up court time.

Enforcement Conduct Board

One candidate to take on the role of statutory regulator is the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB), which was set up in 2022 as a voluntary, independent oversight body for enforcement. From the outset it has included representatives from both the enforcement and debt advice sectors.

One of its first tasks was to set up accreditation criteria and invite enforcement companies to become accredited. The take up of accreditation by approximately 40 enforcement companies. companies across civil and High Court represents 96% of the market.

Since then, the ECB has consulted on and published new enforcement professional standards and complaints procedures, which all accredited companies are complying with.

All of the companies in our group –Excel Civil Enforcement, High Court Enforcement Group and The Sheriffs Office - were accredited at the outset and remain so. We also adhere to their standards and complaints procedures.

The ECB has also recently launched accreditation for local authorities that manage enforcement via their in-house enforcement agents. Nine local authorities have signed up so far.

Consultation

The consultation, which closed on 21st July 2025, included the following questions:

• Should there be a statutory regulator?
• Should the Government legislate that all organisations that enforce debts using the TCoG process be accredited or licensed by an independent statutory regulator?
• Should the certification of EAs and the authorisation of HCEOa be moved from the courts to the statutory regulator?
• Should the statutory regulator be given powers to monitor the work of enforcement firms and, if so, what should those powers be?
• Should the regulator be given powers to gather data from the enforcement sector?
• Should the regulator be able to share data with other bodies, and if so, which?

We will send details of the findings once the report is published.