Standard Mark Assessment

What is the Standard Mark?

The purpose of the Community Shares Standard Mark is to create and maintain public confidence in community share offers, by ensuring a consistent approach to standards by all participating societies and practitioners. The Mark is awarded to share offers that comply with the guidance in the Community Shares Handbook and satisfy the assessment criteria for the Mark. These criteria address the offer document, application forms, rules and business plan of a society, where relevant.

From a consumer protection perspective, the aim of the Standard Mark is to ensure that community share offers meet the following standard:

The offer document and application form are easy to understand
Consumers are provided with all the facts they need to make an informed decision
The facts are supported by the annual accounts and/or business plan for the society
Nothing in these documents is purposefully incorrect, confusing or misleading
Societies are asked to sign a Code of Practice as part of the Standard Mark award.

Standard Mark assessments

We can support you by:

Assessing documents which you have drafted and submitted for assessment
Assessing documents which have been developed for you and submitted for assessment.

Our Community Shares Product Area Team Leader is Hilary Sudbury: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..