The Financial Conduct Authority will, for the first time, hold itself accountable against published outcomes and performance metrics.

In its three-year strategy and 2022/23 business plan, launched today (7 April), the regulator laid out plans to become “more accountable” by creating a “clear thread” from the outcomes it wants.

It distinguishes between two levels of outcomes.

First, the consistent topline outcomes it expects financial services markets to deliver – these stay the same from year to year and enable the FCA to measure how it delivers its statutory objectives over time.

Second, its commitment outcomes, which it sets over a three-year period and reviews each year.

The FCA has 13 commitments which explain how it is joining up its actions to help create the conditions for financial services to deliver the outcomes it expects.

The regulator has included its proposed metrics related to its commitments and has linked these to its topline themes.

It has also identified metrics for each of its outcomes, and has three types:

• metrics based on research data that record the attitudes, perceptions or behaviours of consumers/firms – in particular, its Financial Lives survey (FLS) and the FCA and Practitioner Panel Survey
• metrics that best provide market data that measure or are indicative of the outcome
• metrics based on FCA data which record its activities that help us to achieve the outcome

The FCA said it intends to report on metrics regularly to monitor changes and over time.

As it better understands the metrics it has proposed and how they are affected by wider economic shocks, it expects to include targets it is aiming to reach.