The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) improved its service levels performance last year but is still lagging behind targets for dealing with firm authorisations and approved persons.
The regulator said it achieved or exceeded the targets set for 68.5% of the 54 standards it measured in the 2022/23 financial year – up from 51% the previous year.
And it reduced the number of areas where performance was not meeting the minimum target to 13% compared to 30% in 2021/22 – including handling correspondence from firms and consumers.
Responding to letters, email and webchats, and unanswered calls from firms and consumers all improved and were above respective targets during the year.
However, while the percentage of telephone calls from firms answered within 20 seconds rose to 73.3% it remained below the 80% target and the same metric for consumers fell below target to 76.3%.
Application authorisations dip
However, the percentage of complete applications for Part 4A permissions processed within target fell to 94.5% from 97.8%.
The FCA aims to complete 100% of applications within six months of a complete application being received or within 12 months of receipt of an incomplete application.
The FCA said it was committed to achieving these targets where possible, but it was expected that over the course of a year, “a small number of cases may need additional time for greater scrutiny or engagement for good reasons, for example where required to meet our objectives”.
Of 2,130 cases received in 2022/23, 117 missed the target.
“These applications were legally or technically complex and required significant engagement with the firms,” the FCA noted.
The regulator acknowledged that performance had declined in 2021/22 and further declined in the first half of 2022/23, noting there were a range of factors including increased scrutiny at the gateway to ensure firms and individuals meet the high standards, incomplete or poor quality applications and an increased volume of applications.
“To address the delays, we recruited additional case officers, made changes to streamline our processes and issued more detailed guidance to applicants in several sectors,” the FCA continued.
“Performance improved in the second half of 2022/23 although this is not fully reflected in the full year numbers reported.”
Approved persons and FOIs
Processing approved person status applications within three months remained below the 98% target although it did improve slightly to 87.5% completed within the timeframe.
“We remain committed to improving our performance around processing times in our authorisations division,” the FCA said.
“As set out in our published authorisations updates in October 2022 and March 2023, we have a programme of strategic transformation activity in progress. This will improve the application process and drive efficiencies in our internal processes.”
Two thirds of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were responded to within the statutory timeframe of 20 working days which was largely unchanged against the target of 90%.
The regulator added it was delivering a programme to improve this, for example through a more flexible resourcing model, technology enhancements and process simplification.