Impact assessment

Business impact target: non-qualifying regulatory proposals: December 2020 to December 2021

Updated 20 December 2022

Excluded category	Summary of measure(s), including any impact data where available
Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an EANDCB below +/- £5 million)	Statement of capital when reducing capital in a company: This document is of high importance when a company is restructuring and must be filed in a timely manner. Filing of this document was previously offered as a same day counter service in Companies House offices, but this was suspended during lockdown and remains so. Due to the high importance, and that many companies have had to do this urgently over the past 18 months, this has now been added to the upload service, making it easier for this document to be filed.
Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an EANDCB below +/- £5 million)	Auto-accepting web-filed incorporations: Auto-acceptance of web-filed incorporations has been enabled and has dramatically increased the speed in which companies can be incorporated. System checks are applied to the applications and if there are no queries, the application is accepted and the incorporation registered without any human intervention. An application that requires a human check can take up to 2 working days to be registered after receiving the application. Auto-accepted applications can be registered and the company incorporated within 3 minutes of the application being received. We currently auto-accept around 40 to 45% (600-800 applications) each day. Auto-accept for web-filed incorporations is available 24/7.
EU Regulations, Decisions and Directives and other international obligations, including the implementation of the EU Withdrawal Bill and EU Withdrawal Agreement	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Measures certified as concerning EU Withdrawal Bill operability measures	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Pro-competition	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Systemic financial risk	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Civil emergencies	In response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, from 25 March 2020 Companies House introduced a non-legislative easement, in the form of an automatic 3-month extension to the accounts filing deadline, for companies requesting an extension and citing COVID-19 as the reason. This was superseded by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act in June 2020, which granted most companies automatic extensions to their accounts filing deadline, if the deadline fell between 27 June 2020 and 5 April 2021. When the legislation ended, the non-legislative easements were put back in place and remain in place.
Fines and penalties	We take compliance action against company directors who do not file their annual accounts and confirmation statement (annual return) on time. We have a target to make sure that 97% of companies have an up to date confirmation statement. In 2020 to 2021: - 97.6% of companies were up to date with filing their confirmation statement - 98.08% of companies filed their annual accounts up to date - 97.8% of LLPs were up to date with filing their confirmation statement - 95.2% of LLPs filed their annual accounts up to date - 177,507 civil penalties were issued to private companies for the late filing of accounts and 642 were cancelled - 2727 civil penalties were issued to public companies and LLPs for the late filing of accounts and 47 were cancelled
Misuse of drugs	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Measures certified as relating to the safety of tenants, residents and occupants in response to the Grenfell tragedy	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Casework	We take enforcement action against directors who do not meet their legal obligations. In 2020 to 2021: - 436 charges were laid in court for failure to deliver accounts - 203 convictions were made - 180 charges were withdrawn - 284 charges were brought for failure to deliver a confirmation statement - 157 convictions were made - 104 charges were withdrawn - 523 directors were summoned to court - 260 were convicted - 435 companies were involved in proceedings - 215 companies had directors who were convicted
Education, communications and promotion	We sent fortnightly newsletters to our subscriber list (more than 500,000 subscribers). These newsletters contained information about directors’ responsibilities, relevant service updates, BEIS priorities, and COVID-19 updates. We ran 2 campaigns focusing on directors’ responsibilities, targeted at new and existing directors. Both campaigns included a webinar series, new blog posts, promotion of our revamped directors’ toolkit on GOV.UK, and promotion of our how-to videos and case study videos. The main aim was to increase awareness about the responsibilities of a director, to encourage online filing behaviour, and to improve compliance. The first phase achieved a 20% increase to the toolkit on GOV.UK, an 80% satisfaction score for our webinar series, and advocacy from 26 partners including the Institute of Directors. The second phase has not yet been evaluated.
Activity related to policy development	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.
Changes to management of regulator	Following consideration of the exclusion category there are no measures for the reporting period that qualify for the exclusion.

For detailed guidance on the exclusion categories, see Better regulation framework.