A 45-minute, CPD-assessed course on running the compliance function, for the person who holds or supports compliance oversight, often one of two or three people doing everything. The risk assessment, a monitoring plan that finds things, MI a board can use, breaches and the personal accountability that comes with it.
CPD assessed. Every pass issues a certificate carrying the CPD mark.Almost every compliance function that fails does it in one of these ways, and none of them is visible while it is happening.
Compliance is consulted the day before launch, when the decision is made and the money spent. The only answers left are yes, or being the person who stopped it.
Policies current, the register full, the plan on schedule, and nothing genuinely tested in two years.
The compliance officer becomes so much part of the business they can no longer see it. Usually the most competent people, and the hardest to notice from inside.
The function itself. AML, bribery, market abuse and the rest have their own courses in the catalogue, so this one does not summarise them.
What the firm owes and what you owe, the three ways compliance functions fail without looking like failure, where the regime is heading, and wearing several hats at once.
Assessing the firm you actually have, inherent, control and residual risk, the wall of medium, what should send you back to it, and what small firms leave out. Includes a filmed scenario.
Why tests that cannot fail are the commonest weakness, proportion for a firm with no second line, and why findings, with an owner and a date, are the product.
Why activity is not risk, what the FCA has said about board reporting, working with very little data, and the critical friend.
What reasonable steps look like in practice, delegation and outsourcing and what stays with you, what records are actually for, the compliance year as a calendar, and keeping up without a research department.
When something has gone wrong, the breach log, root cause and the fix that actually closes a breach, notification as a principle not a list, how supervision now reaches a firm like yours, the information request with an awkward answer, and skilled persons.
What to take away, three things worth doing this month, and what to do first if you have just taken the role on, followed by the test and the certificate.
A plan that never finds anything is almost always testing the wrong things. By the end, a learner can:
A short film, shot for Fundsure with the same cast across the catalogue, puts the learner in the compliance officer’s seat as a problem comes to light. The learner chooses what she should do first, and is told why the tempting answers are wrong: notifying the regulator before knowing the extent, taking the business head’s assurance that it was a one-off, or putting it on the next committee agenda.
The test at the end draws 10 questions from a bank of 30, with a pass mark of 80%, and a pass issues a named, CPD-marked certificate that anyone can check online.
Checked against the FCA's 2026 publications. Last checked Sept 2026.
Since 24-Feb-26 the FCA's sector Regulatory Priorities reports have replaced more than forty portfolio letters. Horizon scanning that waits for a portfolio letter is watching a dead channel.
PS26/6 (22-Apr-26) lets statements of responsibilities be notified periodically, allows prescribed responsibilities to be split, and changes the twelve-week rule. The compliance oversight function and the duty of responsibility are unchanged.
HM Treasury will legislate to remove the certification regime and streamline the rules. Less prescription means more of the judgement lands on the compliance officer, not less.
The FCA's good and poor practice on Consumer Duty board reports, updated 24-Feb-26 with material for smaller firms: data too weak for the conclusion drawn, reports written by compliance alone, and actions with no owner or date.
The FCA's 2026/27 work programme means fewer routine returns and more direct contact across more firms, the opposite of how most small firms plan for supervision.
A three-person firm needs a monitoring plan that tests real client outcomes, not a surveillance platform, and a compliance officer looks up a rule number when they need it.
Fundsure’s compliance officers hold SMF16 and SMF17 roles for regulated firms, and the course is written from that seat: a firm of a dozen people, no second line, and a board that needs to decide things rather than read about activity.
The Fundsure Portal runs the rest of the function alongside training: monitoring, attestations, registers, fit and proper, policies, a compliance calendar and a board report generated from live data.
See the Fundsure PortalCompliance Officers plus SMCR, Board of Directors, AML and CTF and the rest of the catalogue of 20, with no per-course fees.
The regime the compliance officer holds a senior management function under.
See the courseWhat the board is answerable for, and how a decision is examined afterwards.
See the courseFor the compliance officer who is also the MLRO.
See the courseThe induction: permissions, the Handbook and Regulatory Priorities reports.
See the courseWe will send you a link to take the whole course, filmed scenario and test included, or walk you through the portal with a demonstration firm.
