Background

Members of the Forum are the Bank of England (including the PRA), the FCA, the Payment Systems Regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, the Financial Reporting Council, The Pensions Regulator and the Information Commissioner’s Office. HM Treasury attends as an observer member. The Forum was launched to strengthen coordination between members, and the Grid (first published in April 2020) sets out the regulatory pipeline so that the financial services industry and other stakeholders can understand – and plan for – the timing of the initiatives that may have a significant operational impact on them.

The Forum publishes the Grid twice a year, providing detail on the timing of initiatives over a 24-month horizon.

Latest edition of the Grid – November 2021

This fourth edition of the Grid contains 134 initiatives, which is a small increase on the 128 in the third edition published in May 2021. According to the Grid’s Executive Summary, this increase is driven by:

• Initiatives being launched in response to Government strategic reviews and to emerging themes/issues in Financial Services (e.g. climate, diversity and inclusion);
• Additional entries as plans for legislative changes to deliver the Chancellor’s vision for Financial Services solidify; and
• Initiatives being delayed or postponed in response to COVID-19 in order to reduce the burden being placed on industry. As a result, these initiatives have not been completed and remain on the Grid.

Next steps

Now that the Grid has become a regular feature of the regulatory landscape, the Forum members are keen to embed it further into each of their planning processes and identify opportunities to collaborate earlier. This includes using it to inform decisions about when to launch or restart work as well as where work should be delayed or postponed (as was done in response to the COVID-19 pandemic). The Forum is looking to develop more detailed measures and metrics over time to support its members in considering the appropriate timings for new initiatives and better ways to monitor the quality of their projections of initiatives’ timing.

The Forum continues to welcome feedback on the Grid. They would particularly welcome examples of ways in which stakeholders find the Grid useful in their planning for regulatory initiatives and where it could be improved. Feedback can be sent to the Forum Secretariat at [email protected]. The Forum Secretariat may share any responses with Forum members.

Authored by Virginia Montgomery.