Insights
Executive insights for data and AI decisions with consequence.
These pieces are written for senior leaders who need sharper language for data trust, platform maturity, AI governance, and board-level confidence.
2026-10-12 / 7 min
Critical data elements stop at the model
On 30 September 2026 the PRA reported what it found when it finally looked at the governance of the data behind expected credit loss provisions. Critical data element frameworks and lineage records cover core model execution and stop there.
2026-10-09 / 8 min
Management information now needs an audit trail
On 27 July 2026 the FCA published its review of Consumer Duty outcomes monitoring, drawn from a survey of 56 firms. Its finding is that holding management information is not evidence of good outcomes, and thresholds nobody can justify prove nothing.
2026-10-05 / 7 min
Bank disclosure becomes a comparable dataset
At its meeting on 28 and 29 September 2026 the Basel Committee approved the final standard for machine-readable Pillar 3 disclosures, with publication due around the end of the year. The EU has run the experiment since January, and UK firms have one reporting cycle left.
2026-09-28 / 7 min
Incident reporting is now a data quality test
On 16 September 2026 the European Supervisory Authorities published fourteen operational instructions on DORA major incident reporting, every one of them a correction to something firms filled in wrongly. The UK equivalent applies from 18 March 2027.
2026-09-26 / 8 min
The data regulator becomes a board on 30 September
On 30 September 2026 the office of the Information Commissioner is abolished and its functions pass to the Information Commission, a board of seven non-executives and an interim chief executive holding the enforcement powers the Data (Use and Access) Act enlarged in February.
2026-09-21 / 7 min
Your suppliers are getting their own regulator
The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill reached Lords committee on 1 September 2026. It turns managed service providers and data centres into regulated entities with a 24 hour reporting clock and turnover-linked fines. Boards should establish which of their suppliers are in scope.
2026-09-14 / 7 min
Smart data stops being voluntary
On 8 July 2026 the Department for Business and Trade opened a call for evidence on smart data schemes in five more sectors, closing on 1 October. The underlying power lets ministers compel firms to share customer and commercial data.
2026-09-07 / 7 min
Secondary data use now has a statutory test
The Data (Use and Access) Act rewrote the rules on reusing personal data in February 2026, and in August the ICO opened consultation on the anonymisation standard that route depends on. What a board should establish before approving the next analytics or AI programme.
2026-09-03 / 7 min
Know your agent is now a board question
In July 2026 the FCA and HM Treasury both concluded that AI agents will soon transact on customers' behalf, and that nobody has settled who is accountable when one goes wrong. Here is what a board should be able to evidence before that happens.
2026-09-03 / 5 min
The 2026 data and AI regulatory reset: a board agenda
Five regulatory changes landed between February and July 2026 that alter what a UK board should expect from its data and AI functions. This is what changed, what it means, and the questions to ask before year end.
2026-09-02 / 5 min
Data lineage is now a resilience control
Lineage used to be a governance nicety. In 2026 it is the evidence three separate regimes ask for: BCBS 239, the UK operational resilience framework, and the EU and UK third-party reporting rules. Here is how to capture it once and answer all three.
2026-08-31 / 6 min
Decision-grade data is built around consequences
Why executive reporting fails when it is organised around systems instead of decisions, accountability, and commercial consequence, and the seven tests a metric has to pass before a board should act on it.
2026-08-28 / 4 min
Board trust in data is earned, not declared
Why governance theatre fails boards, what the Basel Committee still finds missing at the largest banks in 2026, and the five questions a director can ask to tell inspectable governance from the performed kind.
2026-08-25 / 5 min
Regulated AI governance that enables delivery
How to run AI governance as an intake and decision system rather than a permission committee, what the EU AI Act timetable looks like after the July 2026 Digital Omnibus, and what UK regulators actually expect.
2026-08-21 / 4 min
Commercial data platforms are operating infrastructure
How data platform decisions should connect to growth, margin, customer insight, risk, and executive confidence, and why the 2026 third-party resilience rules make the platform a supervisory concern as well as a commercial one.
2026-06-09 / 7 min
AI at the Speed of Light
How AI capability is compounding on a months-long clock while institutions and enterprises move in years - and what boards should actually do about the gap.