The FCA's deputy chief executive told a City dinner that three quarters of firms trust the regulator, and the same share backs its five year strategy. Only one of those numbers is actually what its own survey asked.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
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In short. At the Investment Association's annual dinner on 20 October 2026, the FCA's deputy chief executive Sarah Pritchard said "our latest Practitioner Panel survey found that three quarters of firms have high trust in us, and the same proportion support our strategy" [1]. The survey she is citing does show 75% of firms rating their trust in the FCA highly [2]. But the "same proportion" figure for the strategy answers a different question: whether the FCA's 2025-2030 Strategy is clear to firms, not whether they support it [2]. One documented mistake: four stars.
Sarah Pritchard opened her speech at Guildhall by pointing at the building itself. It has stood for more than 600 years, survived the Great Fire and the Blitz, and endured "because when it had to be, it was rebuilt deliberately" [1]. That was the frame for a speech thick with numbers: assets under management of "£16.5tn", investment fraud losses "up 40% in 2025", nearly 2 million uses of the FCA's Firm Checker since January, and a rulebook overhaul that "could save firms £128m per year" [1]. Checked against their primary sources, most of those figures hold up: the 40% fraud rise matches UK Finance's own 2026 fraud report almost exactly [3], and the £128m figure is the FCA's own headline from the press release announcing the three consultation papers in July [4].
The report card
Midway through the speech, Pritchard turned to what she called the FCA's "report card" on the five-year strategy it launched last year. "Our latest Practitioner Panel survey found that three quarters of firms have high trust in us, and the same proportion support our strategy. More than 7 in 10 agree our work enhances the UK's reputation as a financial centre. And nearly 9 in 10 now understand the Consumer Duty's requirements - a big change from last year" [1]. No link or footnote accompanies the claim in the speech itself, but the survey is published: the FCA and Practitioner Panel 2026 survey, run by the research firm Verian, dated October 2026 [2].
Three of those four figures check out exactly. The survey's own chapter 2 overview states plainly that "three-quarters of FP firms have a 'high' level of trust in the FCA as a regulator (75% rating as 7-10/10 on trust)" [2]. It records agreement that FCA regulation is "enhancing the reputation of the UK as a financial centre" at 71%, comfortably "more than 7 in 10" [2]. And it states that "most FP firms (88%) understand FCA expectations for the Consumer Duty", close enough to "nearly 9 in 10" [2].
What the fourth figure actually measures
The fourth claim, "the same proportion support our strategy", is the odd one. Searched end to end, the survey asks firms about the FCA's Strategy 2025-2030 in two distinct ways, and neither is a straightforward support-or-oppose question. The first produces exactly 75%: asked "how clear, overall, is the FCA's Strategy to you", the survey finds "most FP firms (75%) think the FCA's 2025-2030 Strategy is clear, incl. all Fixed firms" [2]. That is a comprehension question, about whether firms understand what the strategy says, not whether they back it.
The second asks firms to rate, out of 10, how well the FCA is actually delivering on each of the strategy's four priorities. Those scores do not cluster at 75% at all: 76% of firms rate the FCA well on "supporting the sustained growth of the UK economy" when "moderately well" responses are folded in with "very well", but only 53-54% rate it highly (7-10/10) on that same priority, 53% on consumer outcomes, 54% on being "a smarter, more efficient and effective regulator", and 64% on fighting financial crime [2]. None of those four figures is 75%, and none of them asks firms whether they support the strategy's direction either; both the clarity question and the delivery questions are about communication and execution, not endorsement.
The 75% that exists in the data is a measure of clarity, not support, and it is the only 75% in the survey's strategy section. Pritchard's sentence pairs it with the trust figure as if both measure the same thing: firms backing the regulator. One does. The other measures whether they understood what the regulator told them it was doing.
Credit where due
This is a narrow finding inside a speech whose other headline numbers survive contact with their sources. The fraud figure, the Consumer Duty figure, the reputation figure and the £128m savings estimate are all either sourced correctly or traceable to an FCA document that states them in the same terms. The speech was also right that one of the three consultation papers behind that £128m estimate, the Fund Reporting for Asset Management Entities paper, had its deadline extended to "Thursday" (22 October 2026, the day this piece was checked) exactly as she told the room, confirmed directly on the FCA's own consultation page [5]. The mistake sits in one sentence of a "report card" built to reassure an audience that the regulator has its backing. On the evidence the FCA itself published, three quarters of firms understand the strategy. Whether three quarters support it is not a question this survey was asked to answer.
The claim, tested
| The claim | What the evidence shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "Three quarters of firms have high trust in us, and the same proportion support our strategy" [1] | The Practitioner Panel survey records 75% rating trust highly, from a direct trust question [2] | Accurate |
| Same claim, "the same proportion support our strategy" [1] | The only matching 75% in the survey's strategy section answers "is the Strategy clear", a comprehension question; the survey's own support-adjacent delivery scores range from 53% to 76% and none reads 75% [2] | Mistake: clarity figure presented as a support figure |
| "More than 7 in 10 agree our work enhances the UK's reputation as a financial centre" [1] | Survey records 71% agreement on that exact statement [2] | Accurate |
| "Nearly 9 in 10 now understand the Consumer Duty's requirements" [1] | Survey records 88% agreement that their firm understands what the FCA expects on the Consumer Duty [2] | Accurate |
| "Investment fraud losses alone rose 40% in 2025" [1] | UK Finance's 2026 fraud report records investment fraud losses of £221.5m, "up 40 per cent year-on-year" [3] | Accurate |
One documented mistake. Sarah Pritchard told the Investment Association's annual dinner that the FCA's Practitioner Panel survey found three quarters of firms have high trust in the regulator, "and the same proportion support our strategy". The survey's trust figure is correctly stated. But the only 75% figure in the survey's section on the FCA's 2025-2030 Strategy answers a different question: whether the strategy is clear to firms, not whether they support it. The survey's own measures of how well firms think the FCA is delivering on that strategy range from 53% to 76%, none of them 75%. Rated four stars out of five.
Sources
- Reshaping regulation, deliberately (speech by Sarah Pritchard, FCA deputy chief executive, Investment Association Annual Dinner, 20 October 2026)
- FCA and Practitioner Panel 2026 survey: complete survey results (Verian, October 2026)
- Fraud remains a national security threat as criminals steal almost £1.3 billion (UK Finance, 2026 annual fraud report press release)
- Streamlined rulebook to save asset managers £128m a year (FCA press release, 14 July 2026)
- CP26/26: Fund Reporting for Asset Management Entities (FRAME) (FCA consultation paper page)