Impact assessment

Business impact target: non-qualifying regulatory provisions or measures, December 2021 to December 2022

Updated 20 December 2022

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/companies-house-business-impact-targets/business-impact-target-non-qualifying-regulatory-provisions-or-measures-december-2021-to-december-2022--2

Business impact target reporting period covered: 17 December 2021 and 16 December 2022

Excluded category

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

Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an EANDCB below +/- £5 million)

The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 received Royal Assent on 15 March 2022, with the Register of Overseas Entities going live on 1 August 2022. In this period, Companies House worked at pace to introduce this new product, enabling the beneficial owners of UK land to register with Companies House according to their duties under the new Act.

Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an EANDCB below +/- £5 million)

Auto-accepting digital incorporations for limited companies

Auto-acceptance of digital incorporations for limited companies was extended in January 2022 to applications filed through third-party software. Like that introduced for web applications in 2021, the 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 as little as 3 minutes of the application being received.

We currently auto-accept around 35-40% (approximately 1,000 digital applications) each day. Auto-accept for digital incorporations is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Measures certified as being below de minimis (measures with an EANDCB below +/- £5 million)

Digital Insolvency Service

The first digital method for the delivery of insolvency forms was introduced in 2022. The API was developed and put into production in March 2022.

Companies House received its first digital filing of an insolvency transaction in July 2022, which was made by a third-party provider of Insolvency Practitioner software.

Work continues on increasing the number of insolvency transactions that can be filed digitally through the new API.

Fines and Penalties

We take compliance action against company directors who do not file their annual accounts and confirmation statement (annual return) on time. In 2021 to 2022:

  • 97.2% of companies were up to date with filing the confirmation statement
  • 98.4% of companies filed their annual accounts
  • 97.4% of LLPs were up to date with filing their confirmation statement
  • 97.6% of LLPs filed their annual accounts up to date
  • 378,787 civil penalties were issued to private companies for the late filing of accounts and 621 were cancelled
  • 6323 civil penalties were issued to public companies and LLPs for the late filing of accounts and 31 were cancelled

Casework

We take enforcement action against directors who do not meet their legal obligations. In 2021 to 2022:

  • 1381 charges were laid in court for failure to deliver accounts
  • 732 convictions were made
  • 499 charges were withdrawn
  • 631 charges were brought for failure to deliver a confirmation statement
  • 382 convictions were made
  • 227 charges were withdrawn
  • 1487 directors were summoned to court
  • 763 were convicted
  • 1188 companies were involved in proceedings
  • 695 companies had directors who were convicted

Education, communications and promotion

We sent regular newsletters to over 500,000 subscribers regarding on directors’ responsibilities, legislative and service updates, and BEIS priorities.

We communicated with relevant stakeholder groups about the new Register of Overseas Entities.

We wrote to all entities who currently own land or property in England, Wales and Scotland and fall within the scope of the Act.

We delivered 2 phases of the Directors’ Responsibilities campaign.

Companies House engaged in policy development activity in relation to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which is currently before the Houses of Parliament.

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