Consumer Duty Board Report Diagnostic
Assess your firm's Consumer Duty readiness across all seven outcome areas. Generate a board-ready gap analysis with evidence checklists and a prioritised action plan.
Your annual Consumer Duty board report is due 31 July 2026 - 0 days remaining
Tell us about your firm
We tailor the diagnostic questions and guidance to your sector and firm size.
About This Diagnostic
The Consumer Duty requires a firm's governing body to review and approve an assessment, at least annually, of whether the firm is delivering good outcomes for retail customers. The first of those was expected by 31 July 2024; after that firms may align the report with their own governance cycle rather than a fixed date. This diagnostic helps you prepare by assessing your firm across the seven areas:
- Governance & Oversight: Board MI quality, SMF accountability, challenge culture
- Products & Services: Target market definitions, distribution monitoring, product reviews
- Fair Value: Product-level assessments, total cost analysis, remediation processes
- Consumer Understanding: Communications testing, alternative formats, plain language
- Consumer Support: Switching friction, channel consistency, complaints root-cause analysis
- Vulnerable Customers: Disaggregated outcomes, identification processes, differentiated support
- MI & Monitoring: Outcome metrics, data quality, tolerances and triggers
How It Works
Start with 12 core questions covering the most critical topic in each category. This gives you a useful summary with category scores, top evidence gaps, and priority actions in about 4 minutes.
If you want more depth, unlock 16 additional questions for a comprehensive diagnostic with a full radar chart, complete evidence checklist, and detailed action plan - the kind of analysis you need for a board-level report.
Why This Tool Exists
The Consumer Duty requires a firm's governing body to review and approve an assessment of whether the firm is delivering good outcomes for retail customers, at least annually. Most board reports fail in the same way: they describe activity rather than outcomes, lean on complaint volumes as a proxy for harm, and cannot show what the firm changed as a result. This diagnostic works through governance, products and services, price and value, consumer understanding, consumer support, vulnerability and MI, and tells you which areas have evidence behind them and which do not.
How to Use This Tool
Set your firm size and sector
The Duty applies proportionately, so the questions and the depth expected of your answers adjust to the size and business model of the firm.
Work through the outcome areas
Twelve core questions cover the governing body's role and each of the four outcomes; a deeper set covers vulnerability, distribution and the management information behind your conclusions.
Review the gaps before the board does
You get a rated view of which areas are evidenced and which rest on assertion, with the actions needed to close each gap ahead of the annual review.
Common Mistakes This Tool Prevents
Reporting activity — training delivered, policies updated — instead of customer outcomes
How this tool helps: Separates what the firm did from what customers experienced, and asks for evidence of the second
Using complaint volumes as the main measure of harm
How this tool helps: Prompts for the outcome measures that show harm the complaints data will never surface
Treating the annual report as a compliance document the board signs rather than reviews
How this tool helps: Frames each area as a question the governing body has to be able to answer, not a paragraph to approve
Assessing customers in vulnerable circumstances as a separate section rather than across every outcome
How this tool helps: Carries vulnerability through each outcome area instead of isolating it
Concluding good outcomes are being delivered without recording what the firm changed as a result
How this tool helps: Asks what action followed the assessment, which is the part supervisors probe first
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the Consumer Duty require an annual board report?
Yes. Under the Consumer Duty a firm's governing body must review and approve an assessment, at least annually, of whether the firm is delivering good outcomes for retail customers consistent with the Duty. The board is expected to agree the action needed to address any poor outcomes identified, and to confirm the firm's future strategy remains consistent with the Duty.
What should a Consumer Duty board report contain?
It should evidence outcomes rather than describe activity: the management information relied on, what it shows about the outcomes customers actually received across the four outcome areas, where harm was identified, what the firm changed as a result, and how customers in vulnerable circumstances fared. A report that lists policies updated and training delivered, without saying what customers experienced, is the most common weakness.
Who is responsible for the Consumer Duty board report?
The governing body owns the assessment and must review and approve it. Many firms also appoint a Consumer Duty champion at board level, typically an independent non-executive director where the firm has one, to support challenge. Preparation usually sits with compliance, but responsibility for the conclusions does not transfer to whoever drafts it.
How proportionate can a smaller firm's assessment be?
The Duty applies proportionately to the size and complexity of the firm and the nature of its business. A small firm is not expected to produce the management information of a large one, but it is still expected to evidence the outcomes its customers received rather than assert that they were good.
Need help with your Consumer Duty board report?
We prepare and challenge annual Consumer Duty assessments: designing the outcome MI, drafting the board paper, and stress-testing the conclusions before they are approved. Our team includes ex-regulators who have read these reports from the other side.