Certification Officer Annual Report 2025-2026

The Certification Officer’s Annual Report to Parliament: Press Announcement

The Annual Report of the Certification Officer, Stephen Hardy, was laid before Parliament on 2 July 2026. This report describes the work of the Certification Officer in 2025/26 and includes statistical information relating to trade unions and employers’ associations for 2024-2025.

Lists of trade unions and employers’ associations

The Certification Officer maintains lists of trade unions and employers’ associations. Three organisations were added to the list of trade unions, taking the total number of listed trade unions to 131. The number of employers’ associations remained stable at 36 with no changes.

Trade union membership and finances

Reported trade union membership decreased by 19.4% – from 6.7 million in 2023-2024 to 5.4 million in 2024-2025. However, this was mainly reflective of the fact that Unite the Union provided membership figures for 2023-2024 whilst the union’s annual return of membership and financial information was not provided for 2024-2025.

Reported total assets of trade unions saw a decrease of 1.3% from £2.30 billion to £2.27 billion.

Total funds reported by trade unions were £1.98 billion compared to £1.89 billion in the previous year - a 4.76% increase.

Political funds

Out of the 21 trade unions with political funds, 19 provided their annual returns with financial information. The total amount held in those political funds was £29.4 million, a decrease of 17.88% compared to the previous year when 20 trade unions provided information.

Complaints from trade union members

The Certification Officer dealt with 46 complaints from members against their trade unions. This compared to 13 in the previous year. Of these, 2 complaints were withdrawn by the applicants and 4 were struck out. Of the 40 complaints that proceeded to a hearing, 7 were upheld (with 2 enforcement orders made by the Certification Officer) and 33 were dismissed.

The Certification Officer made one financial penalty order in relation to a member’s complaint that his trade union had not provided him with access to the union’s accounting records.

The Employment Rights Act 2025

The amendments to the legislation brought by the Employment Rights Act 2025 came into effect during the reporting year, restoring the Certification Officer’s powers to those existing prior to the Trade Union Act 2016.

This meant removal of:

• the requirement for trade unions to provide information on industrial action and more detailed information about their political spending in their annual returns;
• the Certification Officer’s additional powers allowing him to determine breaches of certain statutory provision and to investigate issues of trade unions’ non-compliance without having first received a member’s complaint;
• the power for the Certification Officer to a raise an annual levy from trade unions and employers’ associations on his list to cover costs related to the discharge of his duties.

For those trade unions with political funds, the Employment Rights Act 2025 restores the position prior to the 2016 Act in that new members can be treated as having opted-in to contributing to the political fund unless and until that member submits an opt-out notice.

Notes to editors:

• The Certification Officer is the independent regulator for trade unions, appointed by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Stephen Hardy is the current holder, having been appointed on 1 October 2025. He succeeded Sarah Bedwell, who had held the post since 2017 until her retirement on 31 May 2025 (Michael Kidd having been appointed interim Certification Officer between 1 June 2025 and 30 September 2025).
• All figures are taken from the Annual Returns received from organisations during the reporting year.

Please direct any press enquiries to info@certoffice.org