companies house free vrs paid

Welcome toECRF | CRFCONFERENCECardiff UK | 2016

Aoife Martin / Robert McNeilRegistrar for Scotland / Head of IT Services

Companies HouseUnited Kingdom

The Deal

“Limited Liability for Corporate Transparency”

Evolution

• Reducing Costs.

• Paper -> Roll Film / Microfiche -> Digital

• ‘Office Hours’ -> 24x6x365 -> 24x7x365 from anywhere

• Physical Collection / Delivery -> Fax -> Online

• Improving efficiency

Revolution - Why Free?Because we should: • National Information Asset –

GVA £430 pa• Economic Value versus

maximising revenue• Increases transparency,

maximises benefit, encourage innovation and growth

• Increased scrutiny = improved quality

• Customer demand

Revolution – Why Free?Because we could: • Cross-subsidisation hurdle

overcome• New Platform / New Focus, data

maintenance• There was nothing to charge

Taking The Leap1

3

2

AFFORDABLECost to Companies House had to be reasonable – investment/ development cost and loss of future revenue stream

COMMERCIAL VIABILITYThere had to be a demand for it

LEGALPermitted under the Companies Act 2006, fit with our status as a Trading Fund and satisfy data protection requirements

The IT Solution

Companies House Service

(CHS)

Search Driven FilingData Maintenance

GDS DbDSS

Public RESTful APILeverages wider Development CommunityDeveloper Hub & Forum

Data RevolutionConsumption of data increased by order of magnitude

(900%)

12m search requests per day> £100m worth of ‘free’ searches in six months

150k web users per day

>4k 3rd party applications registered

BenefitsImproved Register Integrity

Increased visibility Greater scrutiny Improved quality Improved compliance

outcomes

Benefits (UK economy)• Used by individuals, small

business, big business and Other Government Departments

• Increased Corporate Transparency – UK global leader

• Innovative use of data

Consequences

• Workload increase – rectifying mistakes identified through increased scrutiny

• Availability of personal information

• Audit Trail

Good News Stories“The website www.divorceaid.co.uk is run with the public's interests' in mind. We aim to protect families from firms which appear to be lacking in many areas and one of these is in managing their accounts sensibly- particularly in charities. We have little funding and this service is excellent for our needs and also so much QUICKER/ Thank you. ”“Thank you for this service. I am a small businessman and looking at franchise opportunities. Being able to quickly research financial information is fantastic and whoever decided to make this information available as you have should be running the country. Well done PS can you do anything about the motorways?”“Employed in Credit Control for 30 years. Excellent service. Its about time this public information was free”

Good News Stories“Excellent, many thanks. Previously we used http://www.endole.co.uk/ and https://www.duedil.com/ but both have begun to charge quite heavily for what used to be public access information… It is business support services like this which helps small businesses grow making it easier for us to assess our suppliers and research for our clients. Good job. “

“Amazing!!! I am a Visa Analyst at the US Embassy and I am constantly on your site searching form information on UK companies looking to move the USA. Being able to open click and open the documents we need, without the extra hassle, will make my life so much easier. Cheers Companies House!”