Consultation paper: Consumer codes review

Our approach to assessing responses and developing recommendations will focus on four key themes:

• Strategic value: How strongly does the change align with the strategic priorities of the consumer landscape in Scotland, coupled with those of the consumer service’s objectives and priorities?
• Partner impact: What is the likely beneficial impact of the changes, across multiple user groups and beneficiaries? Where change may have lower levels of benefit to certain organisations or functions, is there clear and objective evidence this is significantly outweighed by the greater good for the landscape?
• Technical viability: What is the likely effort and complexity of development and implementation, at both an adviser and partner level?
• Consensus level: How strongly aligned are opinions across the responses received against the proposed change?

This will create a matrix that will evidence the case for change for each area, as outlined below, along with supporting evidence and narrative to provide fully transparent decision making.

It should be noted that whilst energy and post codes are in scope for the review, the nature of data sharing arrangements means these have been able to be reviewed periodically. As such it may not be necessary to make changes on the same scale as for consumer issues.

Further, we recognise the consumer protection landscape, in the intelligence-led environment that its constituent parts operate in, may advocate for filling wider gaps in the types of data the respective advice services are able to collect and share. Whilst it will not be possible to meet all these requirements, the consultation will seek to draw out these needs and suggestions and apply them alongside the above list.

The coding structures used in Scotland for consumer, energy and post services have developed to reflect the distinct legislative, policy and operational environment in Scotland and support Scottish specific reporting and service delivery requirements. This means that the coding structures in Scotland are different from those used in England and Wales.

There is value in enabling appropriate comparison of data across the UK. We recognise, however, that there competing approaches to achieve this, with pros and cons for each. Comparison could be achieved through the creation of a single shared coding structure across the UK, or through taking a more nation specific approach that allows each service to retain a unique and more flexible structure, but with an agreed mapping that supports interoperability and comparability.

The consultation therefore seeks to gather evidence on the extent to which partners value comparability between nations, and how partners believe this should be achieved. CitA and ADS structures are currently different in relation to fields and code lists. In order to help partners assess what best meets their needs, current differences between the two structures are detailed below. Where there are no significant differences, fields are not listed in the below tables. Partners should also note that these tables reflect current data structures only. They do not purport to represent future structures as these may change in response to consultation feedback.

Current structural differences between nations

Consumer Data Structure Overarching Consultation Questions

Question 1 - How well does the current Scottish code structure enable you to fulfil your responsibilities and obligations within the consumer protection landscape?

Question 2 - Are there any elements of the current Scottish code structure that are essential to your work, and in your view should not be altered? In your response please consider any differences between the Scottish and English/Welsh structures.

Question 3 - Which of your organisation’s strategic or operational priorities could this review project positively impact or contribute towards?

Question 4 - Balancing the needs of the consumer landscape against the needs of operational requirements for a coding structure, would you agree the current breadth and depth of Scottish coding is broadly correct. If not, how might changes provide more value to your work?  

Question 5 – How valuable is it for your organisation to be able to conduct cross-border analysis to compare Scottish issues against GB? If this is valuable, what level of comparability is needed to facilitate this, e.g. identical structure, agreed mapping, or another solution?

Question 6 – to what extent does your organisation make use of the qualitative data shared by ADS in free text advisor case notes? Do you experience any challenges or barriers in conducting analysis using these notes?

Within this, there are a number of tier 3 codes that receive significant levels of use, for example:

• Over 3,800 cases for Used Cars – around 15% of all cases
• Over 1,000 cases for clothing and accessories – around 4% of all cases

Equally, there are a significant number of codes (58 - or around 23% of the total number of codes in this sub-set) where their individual total use within a 12 month period is below 10 cases. Cumulatively, these codes account for around 1% of all advice cases and include Children - Food and Drink - Baby Food and Milk (Flare Code CL10), Money and Banking – Banking and Credit - Pawnbrokers and Buy Back Services (DB10), Professional Services – Other household goods and services - Chimney Sweep (BP08) and Retail – Toys and Games – Hoverboard (FM99).

There is a significant use of “other”, which is the second highest code used at over 1,600 individual cases, 6.6% of the total.

There are a number of potentially useful missing codes, for example electric vehicles and vapes which have different consumer issues from the more traditional products in their respective categories. We also anticipate responses to this consultation may highlight other emerging products or services that would also need to be incorporated into the code sets where the benefit of inclusion is clear.

Consideration might also need to be given to smart devices, and whether each needs an individual code (i.e. Smart fridge/freezer), or a smart tick-box or similar that defines the goods as connected to the internet and/or voice activated as a modifier to an existing code.

Product and Service Type Consultation Questions

Question 7 - Based on the existing Scottish code sub-set, are there specific Product and Service codes that are no longer useful or provide little to no value for your work (which could be merged or removed)?

Question 8 - Are there any Product or Service codes that are missing and should be added to capture emerging issues or existing consumer behaviours more accurately?

Question 9 - Do the tier 1 and tier 2 code headings still reflect modern consumer behaviour. Is there a need for these to be redefined or reorganised to support your work more effectively?

Criminal Concern Type

Criminal Concern Type is a field shared with partners in Scotland that is not replicated in the data shared by Citizens Advice. The field allows advisors to select a criminal concern from a list of options which flags to Trading Standards partners the criminality that is believed linked to an advice case.

A second field titled Breach of Legislation offers a binary choice of Yes / No where advisers record if they believe that a breach of legislation has occurred. Given that a breach of legislation is not necessarily criminal, use of the Breach of Legislation and Criminal Concern Type fields do not consistently match.

Between June 2025 and May 2026, the code structure was added to around 3% of all advice cases.

The code structure is a single tier list, from which advisors can select a single option.

The breakdown of the categories is as below:

Trading Standards partners enforce a significant amount of legislation that goes beyond the criminal offences included in this field.

While it will not be proportionate to include a code for every potential criminal concern enforced by Trading Standards, partners may feel that they would benefit from more granularity to this list. For example, they may consider the list should be expanded to include more of the specific banned practices under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, or to include practices considered to be unfair if they are likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision they would not have otherwise taken, such as aggressive practices.

Alternatively, partners may feel that an accurate assessment of whether an issue is a contravention of law can only be made following a thorough analysis of information contained within the case notes, or even only possible once follow up enquiries have been made, and therefore that expanding the coding structure, particularly significantly, would not be appropriate. Partners should also consider the potential for confusion to arise if this field is coded incorrectly, which may be more likely to occur if the code list is expanded significantly. 

Criminal Concern Type Consultation Question

Question 10 – Are the Scottish Criminal Concern Type codes effective for your organisation’s needs? Are there any that should be added, removed or amended to accurately capture unfair or otherwise problematic practices that are covered by consumer rights legislation?

Secondary Coding (Complaint Type)

Secondary coding was introduced by Advice Direct Scotland in July 2025 to replace previous fields that captured up to two Complaint Types.

Secondary coding is a single tier sub-set that primarily captures the nature of the issue the consumer is reporting or seeking advice on. It reflects the information that the consumer provides and is not a judgement by the adviser of the merits or otherwise of any offence or problem.

There is a list of 21 secondary codes in the Scottish structure, with advisors selecting which to add from a sub-set of options. The specific sub-set available to advisors depends on the option chosen for Product or Service.

Advisors are not limited in the number of secondary codes they can add to a case, and selecting a secondary code is not mandatory. Since August 2025, secondary codes have been applied to around 60% of all advice cases. Of the cases where secondary codes are used, under 2% have three or more applied, and around 11% have at least two applied. The maximum number of secondary codes applied during the period of analysis is six.

As secondary codes are not limited to complaint categories, they can be used to flag issues for monitoring, for example third party intermediary / broker or subscription. This flexibility to add bespoke secondary codes when justified is considered a significant benefit of the Scottish approach.

The breakdown of the secondary codes is as below.

It is essential that the complaint types reflect the challenges consumers face accurately, to allow for reliable trend analysis and identification of significant risks or detriment to individuals or groups. Potential additions of issues that could be worthy of flagging include Phoenixing (closing a company to abandon debts, while immediately starting a new company with the same or similar business, assets, and management) and Data Harvesting (complaints organisations are collecting large amounts of data, potentially in misleading ways).

The Scottish approach is different to that used in England and Wales where coding is focused on complaint type only, but with a significantly more granular code sub-set. The Citizens Advice structure contains 17 tier 1 categories, and 89 tier 2 codes, with some more commonly used examples highlighted below:

• Defective Goods – Defective Goods (24%)
• Substandard Services – Substandard Services (23%)
• Defective Goods – Breach of Contract (9%)
• Substandard Services – Customer Service (7%)
• Delivery / Collection – Failure / delay in delivery (3%)

Secondary Codes Consultation Questions

Question 11 - Based on the existing secondary code set, are there codes that are no longer useful or provide little to no value for your work (which could be merged or removed)?

Question 12 - Are there any secondary codes that are missing and should be added to capture emerging issues or existing consumer behaviours more accurately?

Question 13 - Is the functionality of adding multiple secondary codes on an individual case of value or is there a maximum number that is helpful for your work? Multiple secondary codes may be used either where multiple issues are identified by an adviser, and / or to add a “flag” to enable monitoring.

Question 14 – is the current structure where the secondary coding field is used for a number of different types of information beneficial for your intelligence gathering or would your work be better supported by their inclusion in information specific fields, e.g. Digital Marketplace / Third Party Intermediary / Online Order as purchase method options, and “subscription” as a payment method option.

Purchase Method

The breakdown of the categories used within the consumeradvice.scot service for Purchase Method is as below. This field captures trends in terms of how contracts were formed or agreements reached between consumer and trader and was applied to just under 60% of all advice cases.

As with other coding fields, a streamlined approach has been taken in Scotland, with the code subset comprising around half the number of codes used in England and Wales. In addition, some payment method codes are also included as options in the secondary coding field discussed above, for example “online order”, “digital marketplace” and “third party intermediary / broker”.

While some of the most used codes in purchase method are reflective of the types of day-to-day engagement consumers have with traders, there may be a lack of granularity reflecting these in full.

Consumers increasingly enter into contracts digitally – as reflected by the 35% of cases with a recorded purchase method flagged as “trader website” (20% of all cases). Despite this, the current structure for purchase method does not differentiate between websites, social media or social commerce where the entire transaction falls within the social media app. Furthermore, sales driven by influencer marketing can create challenges because the consumer's contract is with a trader, but the "sales pitch" is delivered by the influencer, leading to potential issues with misleading claims and accountability.

Responding to this behaviour change, the consumeradvice.scot data structure includes “digital marketplace” as a potential secondary code, which is used in 0.29% of cases where a secondary code is applied. As the secondary codes available are different for different product or service categories, this code option is not available for all cases, only being included for around half of the product / service categories.

The consumeradvice.scot data structure also includes a mandatory field where advisors record details of the specific website if trader website has been selected as the purchase method which offers another option for advisors to capture detail on online transactions.

There may be advantages to using other fields to capture granularity around the type of online transaction, and partners are invited to consider whether taken together, the current structures offer sufficient granularity to analyse and monitor trends in online transactions.

Although underpinned by more traditional payment methods, another area partners may be interested in exploring is the increasing use of AI assistants and smart products to make semi-autonomous orders for products based on overarching instruction or programming. The method of sale becomes an automated interface. This could create questions and issues about unintentional purchases and business practices.

Scottish partners may also wish to consider the benefits of being able to record product specific purchase methods. Consumer Scotland’s Used Car Investigation recommended strengthening use of consumer advice case data to identify recurring issues and patterns in used-car complaints. The coding structure in England and Wales has specific options in the purchase method field that allow advisors to record if a transaction took place at a franchise or independent dealer. This is not without challenges, however, as locating it as a purchase method means that it is not possible for an adviser to record both the type of vehicle purchase that was made (e.g. online or in person) and whether it took place at a franchise or an independent dealership, as only one code can currently be applied by the adviser.

Given that different statutory cancellation rights and information requirements apply to purchases made entirely at a distance, it may also be of significant benefit to record specifically whether some or all of a transaction took place remotely. Adding these options to Purchase Method may not, however, be the most appropriate solution given previous challenges experienced in England and Wales in relation to moving codes between fields, and which are described below.

In England and Wales, Doorstep was moved into Method of Sale from the Complaint Type code sub-set following a consultation that took place in 2015. Feedback in that consultation varied, however the driver for this decision was it better reflected the nature of the issue (namely the sale was being conducted on the doorstep, either on an invited or uninvited basis). Since this change was made, anecdotal feedback from some partners has reflected that this change was not beneficial to their intelligence gathering.

Scotland is similar to England and Wales in that Doorstep is also included as a Payment Method, albeit Pressure Selling is also available as a secondary code option. It therefore may be that Scotland’s approach is more beneficial to intelligence gathering.

Purchase Method Consultation Questions

Question 15 - Do you agree that greater granularity for Purchase Method, particularly around e-commerce codes or flags to identify distance sales would be beneficial, and what specific additions would benefit your work?

Alternatively, would your work be better supported by a different solution, such as the inclusion of such options in the secondary coding field or through the sharing of an existing field that captures the specific website used in a transaction?

Question 16 - Is it beneficial to your organisation to include purchase methods such as Doorstep, Franchise Car Dealer and Independent Car Dealer in the purchase method field, or would your intelligence gathering be better supported by their inclusion in a different coding field such as the secondary coding option?

Payment Method

The breakdown of the categories used within the consumeradvice.scot service for Payment Method is as below. This field reflects trends in terms of how contracts were paid in agreements between consumer and trader - although can also include not yet being paid and was applied to around 80% of cases.

While benefitting from the ability to make more recent revisions that have streamlined from the more granular structure used in England and Wales, the Scottish payment method structure contains fewer differences than other fields with 16 options compared to 25 in England and Wales.

The additional codes in the England and Welsh structure do not feature prominently, but include: Other Credit not HP (3.43%); Not Disclosed (1.39%), Postal Order (0.01%), Escrow Accounts (0.1%), Text Message (0%), Charge Card (0.02%), CPA Continuous Payment Authority (0.04%), Banker’s draft and CHAPS payments – normally high value (0.04%), Green Deal Credit / ECO – energy company obligation (0.04%), Pre pay e.g. PayPoint and UKash (0.01%), and Premium Rate Calls (0.01%).

Conversely, options used in Scotland but not England and Wales include Linked Loan and PCP.

In this code sub-set in particular, there are a small number of leading payment types used the majority of the time.  Partners are therefore encouraged to consider the benefits of a granular structure that includes specific codes for payment methods that are going out of fashion, for example postal order.

In particular, partners may wish to consider whether the more important information to record is the consumer rights derived from different payment types. For example, payments made by credit card have joint liability protection under s. 75 of the Consumer Credit Act; payments made by debit card can be reversed by the bank, albeit there is no legal right to require this; while cash payments are entirely unprotected.

Nonetheless, there are also potential gaps relating to different payment methods increasingly used by consumers that partners may seek greater granularity of reporting on. These might include:

• Buy Now Pay Later providers - whilst meeting the definition as currently applied for 09 Deferred Credit, this does not differentiate between more traditional delayed repayment options for larger purchases consumers (such as furniture), and more recent providers offering deferred payment for up to three months
• Cryptocurrency - There is currently no way for an adviser to record a purchase having been made in any form of cryptocurrency
• Digital payment and Mobile wallet functions - whilst these are often underpinned by one of the other payment methods (such as debit or credit card) it might still be beneficial for partners to know this also formed part of the transaction

To future proof this sub-set of codes, there are other inclusions to consider. For instance, there have been examples of pilots using palm scans or facial recognition, effectively moving towards an individual’s identity as a form of payment. Whilst in other categories such as goods and services and complaint type, future code requirements may be harder to accurately predict, here it may be prudent to include codes that reflect ongoing technical innovations in processing payments between parties.

Payment Method Consultation Question

Question 17 - Whilst a priority for all code sub-sets, do you agree that future proofing the payment method coding structure to the fullest extent possible is of particular importance? If so, please comment on and expand upon the suggested additions.

Value Spent, Value Paid to Date, Purchase Date

Being able to accurately define the financial cost of a purchase (whether already paid in full or not) and when it occurred are of significant importance to partners.

The date of purchase in particular is of direct relevance to a consumer’s rights given timelines for specific remedies as set out in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013

Whilst there may be amendments to how these fields are applied and interpreted by advisers when entering data, there is no usage or feedback from existing channels to suggest changes to these are necessary.

If there are any partner suggestions on how they might be improved or augmented through additional data, these can be submitted within responses to question 29, which focuses on wider opportunities for strategic additions across the coding structure.

Pre Contract Cancellation Rights

Although not a field made available to partners from the Scottish data structure, it is used in England and Wales as an internal prompt for advisers to confirm the consumer has been asked about the status of pre-contract cancellation information. It ensures accurate advice is offered on this subject, and also then reminds advisers to code the Complaint Type to reflect this activity from the trader, where relevant.

The Scottish structure captures this data through its Criminal Concern Type field which includes an option for failure to provide PCI / cancellation rights. Analysis shows it was only applied to around 10 cases during the period June 2025 to May 2026.

Given that cancellation rights are a legal requirement for distance sales, partners may see benefit in the Scottish code structure containing a similar prompted option that could then be made available to partners for their analysis.

Pre contract cancellation rights consultation question

Question 18 - Is data relating to the failure of providing pre-contract cancellation rights to consumers of significant importance to your work? What would be the most beneficial way for this to be provided to you? Options could involve this being an option in the criminal concern type field, or having a mandatory stand-alone field that specially assesses an advice case for pre contract cancellation rights.

Scam/Rogue Trader

Scam/Rogue Trader is a mandatory standalone field in the English and Welsh code structure that is not directly replicated in Scotland where this information is instead captured via secondary coding.

Citizens Advice added the overarching field following a consultation in 2015, with the aim of enabling straightforward identification of a scam for those using the data, leading to more consistent analysis of trends as it was a standalone field that could be used regardless of the product or complaint type. Prior to 2015, the information would have been reported in the case notes.

Neither the Scottish nor the English / Welsh solution allows an advisor to indicate why a case is flagged as a scam or rogue trader - this can only be added to the case notes. Feedback from partners is this presents an opportunity to augment the information recorded relating to scams and fraud.

Scam/Rogue Trader Consultation Question

Question 19 - Does the current scams coding option as a secondary code and/or a Product or Service code provide sufficient information, in conjunction with case notes and other coding, to enable your work most effectively? What additional information would ensure this was the case if not? Partners may wish to think about the potential value of capturing scam / rogue trader as a mandatory standalone field. 

Detriment Type and Value

Both the Scottish and English/Welsh code structures capture detriment value specifically, however England and Wales have gone a step further by also including a field that records detriment type.

The changes were made following a 2015 consultation which supported the intention to create detriment fields in principle, although views on how this could be achieved were varied, and there were a number of concerns.

The rationale for these codes was it would allow an adviser to differentiate between the contract value within the Purchase Amount field, and the actual impact to the consumer in both financial and non financial terms.

A field was added to capture the monetary impact of detriment in numerical form, which is replicated in the Scottish structure. This is often, but not necessarily, the same amount as the value spent and/or the value paid to date, however it can also be less or more than this amount.

In the Scottish data, this field is completed for around a third of all advice cases, with the amount input ranging from £0 to £1 million.

The detriment type field included in the English and Welsh structure captures both financial and other types of detriment, for example impact on time, wellbeing or health. It includes 7 codes:

• Not part of discussion / no detriment
• Out of pocket expenses / inconvenience
• Reduced value of goods
• Time off work required / loss of earnings
• Issue led to or increased financial difficulty
• Other financial detriment
• Issue led to / increased anxiety, stress or depression
• Issue required medical treatment

Feedback from partners in England and Wales is that in practice, the use of these fields has proved problematic across all case types. The fields are only completed using information volunteered by the consumer, and not through questioning. This reflected concerns in responses to the consultation that consumers would feel compelled to provide examples for the majority of cases which may not have actually represented true detriment.

Feedback has further highlighted that consumers both over and understate their experience when describing detriment. They are often unable to accurately or meaningfully quantify losses for many of the codes featured above, turning to advisers for guidance which they cannot and should not provide.

Whilst there is clear value in being able to ascertain the scale of any consequential losses, non-direct financial impacts or non-monetary detriment, the current structure of codes, and the process around their use, may not provide partners with reliable and significant data sets. There could be value in identifying the type(s) of detrimental impact without collecting amounts, or applying broad value ranges for financial losses (say, for example £0-100, £100-£250 etc.) 

Within Scotland, introducing a reassessed detriment type field might also lead to more meaningful application by advisers and consumers. Indeed, this could be simplified down to financial or non-financial.

Detriment Type Consultation Questions

Question 20 - Given the above challenges, is the addition of a Detriment Type and retention of a Detriment Value field important to the work of your organisation?

Question 21 - Would the collection of this information in a broader sense still provide value if the process for collection was simplified? For example if no Detriment Value was collected, a range of values was used as opposed to an amount specified by the consumer, or the Detriment Type codes were condensed?

The definitions of each of these can be referenced in the energy code table earlier in the consultation.

Energy Data Structure Overarching Consultation Question

Question 22 - Given the above energy data fields are used in many cases to drive adviser behaviours, do you have any views on whether additional fields should be created for sharing with partners, and if so, would the sub-sets benefit from additions?

Energy Code

This code is the equivalent of Complaint Type in consumer cases, describing the nature of the problem between consumer and supplier, or wider area of advice the consumer requires if not a dispute. It is a two tier structure, with the first tier as an overarching issue type of similar issues grouped together, and 89 second tier codes providing a detailed description. For example tier 1 code (BE) Billing Error contains a number of sub-codes that relate to this theme, such as (BE17) Direct debit issues, (BE18) Catch up bill received and (BE19) Bill format unclear.

An adviser can add a single energy code to an advice case.

A breakdown of the tier 1 categories at energyadvice.scot for Energy Code is as below - which reflects the trends services see in terms of the issues consumers seek advice on. The Scottish structure has small differences to that used in England and Wales with the inclusion of some additional tier 2 codes in the tier 1 categories. For a full list, please see Appendix B .

By far the greatest volume of cases featured tier 2 code AD2 – Customer Support Payment, or AD5 - Company Contact Details (non-complaint purposes), which collectively accounted for around 3,150 cases or around a quarter of the entire dataset.

Whilst there are a number of codes that are not frequently used, given these operate within a regulatory environment and there have been no proposals in the intervening informal reviews with energy partners, we do not propose any additions, deletions or merges, unless guided towards this by the sector.

Energy Codes Consultation Questions

Question 23 - For Energy cases, are there any changes required to the code set, from an addition, merge or deletion perspective?

Question 24 - Is the functionality of advisors adding a single explanatory code on an energy case helpful, or would the ability to add more for more complex cases be beneficial? What would be the correct maximum threshold for your work?

Post Data Structure Overarching Consultation Question

Question 25 - Given the above post data fields are used in many cases to drive adviser behaviours, do you have any views on whether any should be implemented in Scotland for sharing with partners, and if so, would the sub-sets benefit from additions?

Post Codes

This code is the equivalent of Complaint Type in consumer cases, describing the nature of the problem between consumer and supplier, or wider area of advice the consumer requires if not a dispute. It is a two tier structure, with the first tier as an overarching issue type of similar issue grouped together, and 86 second tier codes providing a detailed description. For example tier 1 code (MD) Mail Delivery contains a number of sub-codes that relate to this theme, such as (MDA01) Lost mail, (MDA02) Damaged Mail and (MDA03) Misdelivery

An adviser can add a single Post Code to an advice case.

A breakdown of the tier 1 categories at postaladvice.scot for Issues is as below - which reflects the trends services see in terms of the most common issues consumers seek advice on. For a full list of codes, including tier 2 categories, please see Appendix B.

Tier 2 codes for Lost Mail and Delayed Mail were the most commonly used, each accounting for around three in ten of all requests for advice during the period, which was significantly higher than any other. The other more commonly used codes include:

• Misdelivery (12%)
• Mail collection – other (4%)
• Damaged mail (4%)
• MPS /Direct mail opt-out schemes (4%)

Post Codes Consultation Questions

Question 26 - For post cases, are there any changes required to the code set, from an addition, merge or deletion perspective?

Question 27 - Is the functionality of advisors adding a single explanatory code on a post case helpful, or would the ability to add more for more complex cases be beneficial? What would be the correct maximum threshold for your work?

Product Codes

Given there are a vast number of regulated postal products, partners may see benefit in collecting information on the type of service the consumer has purchased or had an issue with, as well as the nature of that issue. This forms part of the data structure in England and Wales but is not replicated in Scotland. The following section describes the English and Welsh structure to enable partners to consider if there would be value in replicating this for Scotland.

The English and Welsh structure is two tier with the first tier as an overarching issue type of similar issue grouped together, and 46 second tier codes providing a detailed description. For example tier 1 code (RMW) Royal Mail Special Delivery contains a number of sub-codes that relate to this theme, such as (RMWAU) Special delivery by 9am and (RMWBR) Special delivery by 1pm (business account - no).

A description of the tier 1 codes used in England and Wales, together with their relative frequency of use is provided below to allow partners to better assess the value to their work of including similar information in Scottish data structures. Should codes that accurately reflect regulated products be added to the Scottish data structures this may support partners to draw meaningful insights on consumer behaviour and the issues faced with product(s) they select in sending items by post:

Product Codes Consultation Question

Question 28 – Would it be valuable for your organisation to have access to post Product codes reflective of the range of regulated postal products available to consumers, both now and in the foreseeable future?

Additional requirements or views

The above questions have been designed to extract views from the consumer protection landscape on needs across the range of codes recorded as part of case logging. It is recognised however that, despite the scope of the review project not extending to a ‘blank page’ approach, there may be further additions or more structural changes that partners wish to include in their response. 

To that end, we would be keen to understand any further augmentations that could be made to the data shared with partners.

It is important to emphasise the need to balance landscape data requirements with both operational and technical viability. Coding needs to remain intuitive and reflect ADS role as an advice giving organisation that collects data as part of that function, not an intelligence gathering service. As such, responses should outline the needs and potential benefits of any wider data changes within this context. This will ensure they are able to meet the necessary thresholds for consideration when we begin to identify solutions and make decisions ahead of our consultation response.

Additional Requirements Consultation Question

Question 29 - Recognising technical and operational considerations, and the scope of the Consumer Codes review as outlined in this document, are there any further data needs your organisation would benefit from to optimise the outcomes it is achieving? Please be as specific as possible in terms of a) the data that would need to be collected and b) in what way it could be used to enhance consumer protection activities.