our customers and stakeholders

A significant proportion of complaints we receive relates to policies and accounts held jointly. With joint accounts, the first-named holder of the account is frequently male – and this is the name that our system records. This may result in some bias in the data we record about the gender of people who complain to us.

East Anglia = 5%
Wales = 4%
Northern Ireland = 2%
South East = 18%
North West = 12%
Greater London = 11%
South West = 10%
Scotland = 9%
West Midlands = 8%
Yorkshire/Humberside = 8%
East Midlands = 7%
North East = 6%

We do not have reliable external data to help us compare the levels of ownership of financial products across the different regions of the UK with the levels of complaints we receive from people living in those regions. However, we regularly compare regional population figures for the UK with our figures that show where consumers who complain to us come from. This helps us target where we may need to focus outreach work in raising awareness of our services.

Our research shows that the regional location of those using our service broadly reflects the spread of the population across the UK as a whole. The proportion of regional consumers who complained to the ombudsman during the year differed by more than one percentage point from the regional population figures in just four regions. People from East Anglia comprise 9% of the population but 5% of our customers (4% of our customers in the previous year). Conversely, people from the South West comprise 8% of the population but 10% of our customers (11% in the previous year). 6% of our customers came from the North East, where 4% of the UK population lives. And 18% (22% in the previous year) of people who used our service came from the South East (home to 14% of the UK population).

Compared with the figures for last year, there was an increase in the proportion of consumers bringing complaints to the ombudsman service from Northern Ireland, Scotland, the North East and North West, the East Midlands and East Anglia. Complaints from London and the South East and the South West fell slightly. These figures may to some extent reflect the different regional focus of our external liaison activities during the year.

consumer diversity

15% of consumers using our service describe themselves as having some form of disability (12% in the previous year) – predominantly hearing impairment and mobility difficulties. There is strong demand for our publications in Braille, large print and on audiotape – and we use Typetalk and sign-language on request. This is part of our commitment to be flexible and accommodate consumers’ needs wherever we can.

Our consumer surveys indicate that around 4% of people who use our service define themselves as ‘minority ethnic’. During the year, we have carried out research to try to find out how this figure compares with the general levels of ownership of financial and investment products among people from minority ethnic communities. Unfortunately, however, there appears to be little data available in this area.

For people who are not comfortable using English, we provide information and handle phone calls in other languages – and have done so during the year in 23 languages, ranging from Arabic to Welsh. During the year, we also distributed language packs to Members of Parliament – for use when advising constituents – as well as to consumer advice centres across the UK. These packs contain factsheets about the ombudsman service in the UK’s ten most widely-used ethnic languages.

what type of financial firm do consumers complain about to the ombudsman service?

This chart shows how the complaints we have dealt with during the year are spread across the different sectors of the financial services industry. We are aware that the complaints patterns we identify do not necessarily reflect the current marketplace in financial services. This is because many of the complaints we receive relate to advice, sales and marketing that took place some time in the past – especially complaints involving investments, where problems may only start to emerge a number of years later.

In fact, the spread of the complaints we have received this year across the different industry sectors probably gives a truer picture of how the marketing and distribution of retail financial services – especially in relation to products such as endowment mortgages – operated between five and 15 years ago.

how feedback we receive influences our policy and procedures

We have a range of mechanisms in place – from roadshows to our website – to help us get our messages across to our different stakeholders. And we also need processes in place to help us tune into, and respond to, the views and concerns of our stakeholders. These processes involve our executive team keeping under constant review the way we engage with, and report back to, all those with an interest in our work – at events ranging from our industry liaison forums (regular formal meetings with practitioners and trade body representatives) to workshops with groups of consumer advisers. A special committee of board members also meets quarterly to review our ‘stakeholder dialogue’ processes and our communications strategy.

Some of the issues which we identify as being of concern to stakeholders involve sensitive regulatory policy matters. We take these forward on what is necessarily a confidential basis with the FSA and other regulators, as well as with individual firms. The handling of these types of issues – and the way we can (or cannot) ‘report back’ to the parties concerned and to the wider world – form what has become known as the ‘wider implications’ process.

Here are just a few examples of where feedback from stakeholders during the year has led to our reviewing and changing our policy and procedures.