Non-financial misconduct: the importance of building a culture of trust and transparency  

Organisations must now align compliance hiring and leadership practices with the recognition that non-financial misconduct (NFM) is a core regulatory risk. With the FCA confirming that serious bullying, harassment and violence will amount to Conduct Rule breaches across c.37,000 nonbank firms from 1 September 2026 and that substantiated personal misconduct should appear in regulatory references – clarity that aligns expectations and enables decisive action.  

Against this backdrop, our breakfast roundtable led by Suneeta Padda surfaced a single, defining theme: trust. With many staff still favouring external anonymous channels – a pattern consistent with FCA evidence of rising whistleblowing reports – how can organisations earn the confidence that makes internal routes the first choice? 

Build a culture dashboard 

To move beyond opinion and tick box surveys, create a one-page, outcomes-led dashboard that shows where trust is strengthening or fraying. 

• Speak-up health: Track internal vs external reporting ratio, anonymity rate, time-to-first contact and time-to-closure, plus % of reporters receiving final feedback letters. Benchmark volumes/channels to FCA data 

• People risk signals: Layer attrition hotspots, exit interview themes and sick leave spikes to spot trust fractures. Use small, independent focus groups (6–12 colleagues, mixed levels) to “sniff test” any area showing green in surveys 

• Conduct governance: Count/grade NFM COCON breach notifications, repeat offender flags, case ageing and ensure substantiated personal misconduct feeds regulatory references from go-live 

• Thresholds & triggers: Set auto-triggers (e.g., ≥3 NFM allegations in a team over two quarters) for deep dives and escalation to SMF roles; log decisions and remediation timelines 

• Reporting cadence: Publish a onepage executive view monthly; provide a Boardlevel quarterly trend report (volumes, hotspots, outcomes, retaliation indicators) through the whistleblowing champion 
   

Strengthen whistleblowing governance 

Firms should make it easier to raise concerns and harder to ignore them. FCA quarterly data shows hundreds of new reports per quarter, with online submissions the dominant channel; annual data reports 1,131 new whistleblowing disclosures (2024/25) and 908 instances of direct action. The signal is clear: systems must capture themes, escalate patterns and close the loop with reporters.  

Connect policy to practice 

Under SMCR, accountability bites when managers fail to intervene. Recent legal analysis highlights that bullying or harassment can breach integrity (IC1) and due skill, care and diligence (IC2), and that managers carry responsibilities too. Roundtable voices challenged leaders to “intervene early, not when it’s too late” and to document decisions consistently. As Suneeta says “You’ve got to start to challenge senior management… It cannot be subjective.” 

Looking ahead 

Trust is earned through evidence, not intent. With NFM explicitly a conduct risk and FCA expectations crystallising by 1 September 2026, organisations that move now – building an outcomes-led culture dashboard, strengthening whistleblowing governance to surface and escalate patterns, and converting policy into early, documented intervention under SMCR – will set the standard.