Today, we’ve published a consultation on a proposal to help us move faster in reducing customer waiting times.
Following unprecedented demand for our help during the pandemic, the Financial Ombudsman Service is facing a significant operational challenge. Last financial year, the Financial Ombudsman received 90,000 more cases than expected, which businesses had been unable to resolve for their customers. We are on track to exceed the complaint resolution target set out in our plans for this financial year. However, this would still see us end 2021/22 with a significant queue.
We are exploring a range of initiatives to help us move faster and reduce customer waiting times, including a temporary proposed change to how we publish firm-specific complaints data. We are proposing that – for a limited period – complaints with our service that are proactively settled by businesses before the Financial Ombudsman Service has issued its opinion will not count towards the business’s uphold rate. We are now seeking stakeholders’ views on our proposal.
Read the full consultation and find out about how you can respond.
The consultation is open until Monday 18 October, and we welcome your thoughts and feedback. We will publish our next steps and implement our plans by 1 November.
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