FOS in focus – the Lloyd Report

After a Channel 4 Despatches programme in March 2018 made damning allegations about the performance of the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Treasury Select Committee demanded an external review to assess these charges – with just a two-month completion deadline. Adam Samuel examines the result.

Adam SamuelBA LLM DipPFS MCISI FCIArb Certs CII (MP&ER) Barrister and Attorney may be contacted atadamsamuel@aol.com.For links to where you can buy the second edition of ‘Consumer Financial Services Complaints and Compensation’, see www.adamsamuel.com/book.

The last few months have not been great for the Financial Ombudsman Service. It all started with the Channel 4 Despatches programme, which raised some grown-up concerns about how the FOS operates. The Treasury Select Committee responded by insisting on the Ombudsman adjusting the terms of reference of one of its regular external reviews to address the issues raised by the programme. On top of this, the Financial Conduct Authority had consulted in the early part of the year in CP18/3 on extending the range of eligible complainants to cover small businesses, typically about five times the size of commercial customers able to refer cases to the Ombudsman. Despatches effectively raised questions about whether the FOS would be a good place to handle such cases.