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Have we done the slow moving disaster zone that is company director ID verification? It's not blown up in the government's face yet, but it has the potential.

The gov has decided that the era of just taking names and addresses of people who are running a company is over. They want to "verify" everyone's identity. Therefore every company director has to get their ID verified, at which point Companies House doles out a magic 11 digit string of random letters and numbers. You can't become a company director without entering this magic string of letters into Companies House's website, nor can you file a company annual confirmation statement without having doing this for all existing directors.

The system went live in November, with the intention of getting every single director verified by November next year as confirmation statements fall due.

If you have a biometric passport, and a modernish smartphone, it's a doddle. 15 mins of you life wasted, and boom there's a code. Save it somewhere, and you're done for life.

If you've no photo driving licence or passport, it's virtually impossible - you just end up in an endless cycle of "system says no" and calling helplines full of sympathetic people with no actual solutions. There is no published guidance on what to do without these two documents, other than ring the helpline, where they suck their teeth and say "that's tricky, isn't it".

I've the misfortune to be Finance director and secretary of a charity that's structured as a limited company - and worse still our confirmation statement is due in two weeks, so I'm effectively one of the guinea pigs for this stupid process. I'm going round in circles because one of our elected directors/trustees (who is 79) has no photo ID. At the current rate of progress we're going to end up fined for not filling.

Repeat the saga literally millions of times over the next year - there are about 5.5 million companies with about 8 million directors to go through this process - and it's going to be carnage. Small charities, flats where the freehold is held in a jointly owned and managed company by the leaseholders, sports clubs etc are all gong to be banging their heads against brick walls trying to make it work.

MPs will probably have a pile of caseworke off it. Hundreds of thousands of companies are going to end up filing late, and thousands will probably end up with substantial fines or struck off.

As I say, it's not yet publicly exploded in the government's face - but it's quite likely to at some point in the next 12 months.

I'm stuck on this myself and need to call the helpless line in the morning. On an unrelated note I see Betfred has just been fined for not having procedures to check FOBT players are not money laundering. No-one is money laundering at £2 a spin. When it was £100 a spin, yes. Likewise I'm on the list because I own a flat. I'm not importing, exporting or laundering. The government lacks any sense of scale and proportion.

That's exactly what someone who was laundering money would say.

Have we done the slow moving disaster zone that is company director ID verification? It's not blown up in the government's face yet, but it has the potential.

The gov has decided that the era of just taking names and addresses of people who are running a company is over. They want to "verify" everyone's identity. Therefore every company director has to get their ID verified, at which point Companies House doles out a magic 11 digit string of random letters and numbers. You can't become a company director without entering this magic string of letters into Companies House's website, nor can you file a company annual confirmation statement without having doing this for all existing directors.

The system went live in November, with the intention of getting every single director verified by November next year as confirmation statements fall due.

If you have a biometric passport, and a modernish smartphone, it's a doddle. 15 mins of you life wasted, and boom there's a code. Save it somewhere, and you're done for life.

If you've no photo driving licence or passport, it's virtually impossible - you just end up in an endless cycle of "system says no" and calling helplines full of sympathetic people with no actual solutions. There is no published guidance on what to do without these two documents, other than ring the helpline, where they suck their teeth and say "that's tricky, isn't it".

I've the misfortune to be Finance director and secretary of a charity that's structured as a limited company - and worse still our confirmation statement is due in two weeks, so I'm effectively one of the guinea pigs for this stupid process. I'm going round in circles because one of our elected directors/trustees (who is 79) has no photo ID. At the current rate of progress we're going to end up fined for not filling.

Repeat the saga literally millions of times over the next year - there are about 5.5 million companies with about 8 million directors to go through this process - and it's going to be carnage. Small charities, flats where the freehold is held in a jointly owned and managed company by the leaseholders, sports clubs etc are all gong to be banging their heads against brick walls trying to make it work.

MPs will probably have a pile of caseworke off it. Hundreds of thousands of companies are going to end up filing late, and thousands will probably end up with substantial fines or struck off.

As I say, it's not yet publicly exploded in the government's face - but it's quite likely to at some point in the next 12 months.

I'm stuck on this myself and need to call the helpless line in the morning. On an unrelated note I see Betfred has just been fined for not having procedures to check FOBT players are not money laundering. No-one is money laundering at £2 a spin. When it was £100 a spin, yes. Likewise I'm on the list because I own a flat. I'm not importing, exporting or laundering. The government lacks any sense of scale and proportion.

You always used to be able to walk into any bank and, say, change a £20 note into two tens, etc, but if you try doing it now, they won't, unless you stick your bank card into the machine and effectively do it through your bank account, so it has to be your bank, not just any bank.

And I assume the reason for this is something to do with money laundering. As if a money launderer would waste time walking into a bank with a few banknotes and change them into different denominations. Ridiculous.

Have we done the slow moving disaster zone that is company director ID verification? It's not blown up in the government's face yet, but it has the potential.

The gov has decided that the era of just taking names and addresses of people who are running a company is over. They want to "verify" everyone's identity. Therefore every company director has to get their ID verified, at which point Companies House doles out a magic 11 digit string of random letters and numbers. You can't become a company director without entering this magic string of letters into Companies House's website, nor can you file a company annual confirmation statement without having doing this for all existing directors.

The system went live in November, with the intention of getting every single director verified by November next year as confirmation statements fall due.

If you have a biometric passport, and a modernish smartphone, it's a doddle. 15 mins of you life wasted, and boom there's a code. Save it somewhere, and you're done for life.

If you've no photo driving licence or passport, it's virtually impossible - you just end up in an endless cycle of "system says no" and calling helplines full of sympathetic people with no actual solutions. There is no published guidance on what to do without these two documents, other than ring the helpline, where they suck their teeth and say "that's tricky, isn't it".

I've the misfortune to be Finance director and secretary of a charity that's structured as a limited company - and worse still our confirmation statement is due in two weeks, so I'm effectively one of the guinea pigs for this stupid process. I'm going round in circles because one of our elected directors/trustees (who is 79) has no photo ID. At the current rate of progress we're going to end up fined for not filling.

Repeat the saga literally millions of times over the next year - there are about 5.5 million companies with about 8 million directors to go through this process - and it's going to be carnage. Small charities, flats where the freehold is held in a jointly owned and managed company by the leaseholders, sports clubs etc are all gong to be banging their heads against brick walls trying to make it work.

MPs will probably have a pile of caseworke off it. Hundreds of thousands of companies are going to end up filing late, and thousands will probably end up with substantial fines or struck off.

As I say, it's not yet publicly exploded in the government's face - but it's quite likely to at some point in the next 12 months.

Have we done the slow moving disaster zone that is company director ID verification? It's not blown up in the government's face yet, but it has the potential.

The gov has decided that the era of just taking names and addresses of people who are running a company is over. They want to "verify" everyone's identity. Therefore every company director has to get their ID verified, at which point Companies House doles out a magic 11 digit string of random letters and numbers. You can't become a company director without entering this magic string of letters into Companies House's website, nor can you file a company annual confirmation statement without having doing this for all existing directors.

The system went live in November, with the intention of getting every single director verified by November next year as confirmation statements fall due.

If you have a biometric passport, and a modernish smartphone, it's a doddle. 15 mins of you life wasted, and boom there's a code. Save it somewhere, and you're done for life.

If you've no photo driving licence or passport, it's virtually impossible - you just end up in an endless cycle of "system says no" and calling helplines full of sympathetic people with no actual solutions. There is no published guidance on what to do without these two documents, other than ring the helpline, where they suck their teeth and say "that's tricky, isn't it".

I've the misfortune to be Finance director and secretary of a charity that's structured as a limited company - and worse still our confirmation statement is due in two weeks, so I'm effectively one of the guinea pigs for this stupid process. I'm going round in circles because one of our elected directors/trustees (who is 79) has no photo ID. At the current rate of progress we're going to end up fined for not filling.

Repeat the saga literally millions of times over the next year - there are about 5.5 million companies with about 8 million directors to go through this process - and it's going to be carnage. Small charities, flats where the freehold is held in a jointly owned and managed company by the leaseholders, sports clubs etc are all gong to be banging their heads against brick walls trying to make it work.

MPs will probably have a pile of caseworke off it. Hundreds of thousands of companies are going to end up filing late, and thousands will probably end up with substantial fines or struck off.

As I say, it's not yet publicly exploded in the government's face - but it's quite likely to at some point in the next 12 months.

Apart from the cynicism this is a very good point.

My cynicism is based on a lifetime in which government has yet to supprise on the upside on any occasion I've interacted with it, but quite frequently falls below the low bar my expectations have set for it.

In practical terms, they are insane trying to do this all at once. They should have had a substantial period (five years?) where verification was only required for new directors. That would give plenty of time to iron out the problems, get people used to dealing with the system, and would have verified a good chunk of directors. Then asking for companies to fill in the gaps as part of a confirmation statement filing would be fairly painless.

Trying to do it for every company, great and small, in 12 months, with a half finished system, is just nuts.

Have we done the slow moving disaster zone that is company director ID verification? It's not blown up in the government's face yet, but it has the potential.

The gov has decided that the era of just taking names and addresses of people who are running a company is over. They want to "verify" everyone's identity. Therefore every company director has to get their ID verified, at which point Companies House doles out a magic 11 digit string of random letters and numbers. You can't become a company director without entering this magic string of letters into Companies House's website, nor can you file a company annual confirmation statement without having doing this for all existing directors.

The system went live in November, with the intention of getting every single director verified by November next year as confirmation statements fall due.

If you have a biometric passport, and a modernish smartphone, it's a doddle. 15 mins of you life wasted, and boom there's a code. Save it somewhere, and you're done for life.

If you've no photo driving licence or passport, it's virtually impossible - you just end up in an endless cycle of "system says no" and calling helplines full of sympathetic people with no actual solutions. There is no published guidance on what to do without these two documents, other than ring the helpline, where they suck their teeth and say "that's tricky, isn't it".

I've the misfortune to be Finance director and secretary of a charity that's structured as a limited company - and worse still our confirmation statement is due in two weeks, so I'm effectively one of the guinea pigs for this stupid process. I'm going round in circles because one of our elected directors/trustees (who is 79) has no photo ID. At the current rate of progress we're going to end up fined for not filling.

Repeat the saga literally millions of times over the next year - there are about 5.5 million companies with about 8 million directors to go through this process - and it's going to be carnage. Small charities, flats where the freehold is held in a jointly owned and managed company by the leaseholders, sports clubs etc are all gong to be banging their heads against brick walls trying to make it work.

MPs will probably have a pile of caseworke off it. Hundreds of thousands of companies are going to end up filing late, and thousands will probably end up with substantial fines or struck off.

As I say, it's not yet publicly exploded in the government's face - but it's quite likely to at some point in the next 12 months.