Reference Case Number: FOI2026/01969
Freedom of Information: Right to know request:
Please provide information concerning our Enforcement operating metrics data between 2021 – 2026 from our annual reports. The full text of your request can be found in the below Annex A for reference.
Before responding to your request, we would like to explain that there have been a number of changes to the enforcement data we have collected and published since 2021.
From financial year 2023/24 onwards, we have reported on Enforcement ‘operations’ rather than individual cases. To clarify, an operation may comprise several discrete investigations into specific subjects (firms and/or individuals). As a result, the terminology used in more recent reports is not directly comparable with that used in the 2020/21 tables you refer to. In those tables, the term ‘case’ was used to describe what we would now define as an ‘investigation’, while the term ‘investigation’ was used to describe what we would now describe as an ‘operation’.
Furthermore, starting from the 2023/24 financial year, we started reporting operations against our ‘strategic priorities’ rather than issues. The primary issue category is in the process of being phased out, however, we do have data recorded against some of the categories we can provide including ‘market manipulation’. Please note that this may not be representative of all the investigations that could potentially be classified as market manipulation. This is because the primary issues are recorded on an interpretive basis and, therefore, may concern multiple elements of financial misconduct that are not reflected with the same level of granularity through this specific reporting.
Finally, please also note, from financial year 2022/23 onwards, we calculated the duration of operations differently. In 2022/23, we recorded the duration of the operation starting from the date of the case was created on our internal system. From 2023/24, the starting date of the investigation was determined and reported from the day that a formal decision to investigate was approved.
Turning now to the specific points of your request, these have been considered in line with the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), and our response to each point in turn is set out below.