FOS defends hiring process as 25yo law grad becomes adjudicator

Unsurprising

This is not a surprise. In the very few times I have acted on behalf of a client in relation to an FOS complaint you can see from the response it has just been through an audit type of tick box exercise with no real regard for the circumstances. Cold is the word I'd use. There is no amount of training that can replace experience in these matters.

Posted by: Not Surprised

seen it all now

So she couldn't be an adviser but she is seen as qualified to judge advice that has been given. FOS is out of control, and erratic in the findings they make. I wouldn’t let new graduates advise clients for 3 or 4 years or without diploma qualifications.

Posted by: witheld

Another Quango

It is time this organisation was seriously looked at at the same way as government Quango's which FOS is now not far off, the over use of Recruitment Agencies mean any Tom Dick Or Harry is sent along for interview and often accepted, this has led to other Management Roles (Cough Cough) being created as a result to police the very inefficiencies of the recruitment process in the first place. What this organisation needs is to pay Financialy Qualified (Cert Pfs as a minimum) Caseworkers a decent living London salary in the first place and then they could half the number of staff required in the organisation overnight - Ok a bit extreme but you get the jist

Posted by: Anon

No difference

I can't see the difference. None of the other adjudicators I have dealt with over the years had any idea what they were talking about!

Posted by: Brian

Disgrace

Its a disgrace. Everyone in the FOS should be subject to the same level of qualifications as advisers. For the higher level people they should also have a minimum level of experience working in an advisory or compliance role within a financial services firm. Having seen some of the decisions the FOS has made this comes as no real suprise, its clear from the correspondence in some cases that you are dealing with someone who doesn't actually understand what they are looking at and are merely ticking boxes.

Posted by: Kev S

INEXPERIENCE ADJUDICATORS

As I regularly help my clients with all sorts of issues involving adjudicators (as I'm sure most of us in this industry do the same); once I helped a client of mind who was ripped off, badly let down, financially and legally exposed by an unscrupulous solicitor, we took the case the then Law Society (LS). The adjudicator was just as bad. We submitted our rebuttal and evidence by personally taking the documents to the LS. This was on a Friday at around 2:30. We then received a letter from the adjudicator on the following Monday which was dated previous Friday telling us that we had failed to submit our evidence. As I had the evidence of the hand delivery, I gave the adjudicator a call. I asked him whether he'd looked our evidence he said know. I then found out that he actually left 3pm on that Friday but had the nerve to write a letter to us saying we were late even though we had already delivered it and were not late. He was undeterred and unashamed he said "all right then I'll have look" not single apology from him. It gets worse, later we found out from the documents that the other party was actually late submitting theirs. I challenged the adjudicator he then said "well, they faxed it before" Yes you've guessed, he dismissed our case and had to nerve to send us a questionnaire to complete about his service.

Posted by: A

More info please.

Commentators seem to have missed what may be relevant and important points. The person concerned is 25 and a law graduate. What was she doing before? One usually graduates at (say) 21. A couple of years at Law College to get a practicing certificate takes you to 23. So what job did she do before? Was she in a law practice? I can’t envisage that the FOS pays better than a Law firm. So one must conclude that the lady in question wasn’t employed by a law firm, or didn’t pass through Law College or perhaps was even unemployed after graduating. Furthermore we don’t know if she graduated with a first or a third or whether she attended a Russell University or a Mickey Mouse establishment. If any of these are the case then the upshot is that the FOS (notwithstanding their rigorous HR approach) takes on rejects. Can we therefore have more information? Otherwise we may jump to conclusions!

Posted by: Harry Katz

Could be worse

They could be hiring nothing but former employees of the National Archives!

Posted by: Exasperated Me

A glass half full

As a law student she should fully understand why she is going to get lynched with the rest of the f-pack for denying us the right to call upon the 15 year longstop. If she publicly waives her own right to a longstop, all well and good, otherwise she can join the rest of the hypocrites

Posted by: Phil castle

Children

We have children making gigantic financial decisions and judgments against better qualified and highly experienced people. No wonder the country is in a mess!

Posted by: Incompetent Regulators Award Team

Hmm

As Harry said we do not have enough information, but given there must be loads of experienced IFA's going to leave the industry in the next few years you would have though they could look at people with some qualified experience and experience of life and business. Either way it does not look good and further undermines the serious nature of their work if they have little or no Financial Services experience. Equally those who are going to be made redunant on the Free Money Advice Service might be another area to look for recruits as they would I assume have some FS experience at least.

Posted by: Michael Fallas

counter view

On the positive side it's a good thing that we have the younger generation in these organsiations with newer ideas and attitudes which may after all reflect those going to the FOS. How impartial would it be if the FOS was dominated by battle hardened over 40 former advisers? Agree with Harry here, sensational storyline but like court cases we are never going to be in a postion to judge if this person is competent or not.

Posted by: andy newman

Top Down Approach

When you have the head of the FOS with no qualifications you will see a top down approach. Her 'boss' Mark Hoban also has no qualifications. W S Gilbert's Ruler of the Queen's Navy might be worth another look.

Posted by: Godfrey Bloom

alternatives

The issue once again is finance. Staff turnover is high as people get better pay elsewhere and people with the qualifications proposed would not work for the money offered. The service has an inordinate amount of complaints to deal with, a complaint about wait times and a budget to balance. The service is free to consumers, and businesses are already concerned about the cost of case fees (hundreds of pounds regardless of whether the complaint is upheld or utterly frivalous). Any attempt to pay more to get better qualified adjudicators would mean a need for an increased budget (which would necessarily include increased fees and levys which businesses would argue is unfair) or charging consumers to bring the complaint which undermines the nature of the service. The alternative is fewer staff that are paid better to attract people with the qualifications and expertise that people want. This would however result in much longer wait times that are already pushing a year in most areas. People want a service and that is to be expected, but a certain standard comes for the price currently being paid. Agree a better way to raise funds for the service or accept that the service will always only be able to hire graduates and provide in house training which may not be adequate. In addition everybody has the right to request an ombudsman decision if they prefer who are all qualified in a variety of areas. If people do not like the service provided by the alternative dispute resolution offered, pay more towards it or seek recourse in court.

Posted by: anon

We all have standards

One might also express surprise at an article, written by a journalist (no, that's no tautological, it really bears pointing out), referring to a 25 year old "girl" and headed in txt spk: "25yo law grad" [sic. sic. sic.]

Posted by: Back At You

No Surprises there

No surprise there. Have only had 1 case go to FOS and the resposes emphasised a complete lack of understanding and experience from the Adjudicator and the Ombudsman. Laughable if it wasn't do serious.

Posted by: Tony

What do you expect?

What do you expect? The title sounds impressive, but adjudicators are basically caseworkers. Their nearest analogue in the world of financial services are complaints handlers in large banks and insurance companies, not independent financial advisors. It may be a flawed system, but these flaws are, in my view, inherent to the rules under which the service operates rather than the qualifications of its entry level caseworkers.

Posted by: Furious Fox

Perspective please

I think a little perspective is in order here as I know this is IFAonline but what most of the previous comments seem to ignore is that the FOS doesn't only deal with complaints against IFAs. As part of the organisations remit it covers everything from disputed ATM withdrawals to pet insurance, so the benefit of an adjudicator being Cert PFS in either of those instances would be fairly limited. The likelihood of the individual being let loose on a pension drawdown case, or any other IFA related product, within a month is pretty far fetched. As I understand it the number of complaints against IFAs is relatively low, certainly compared to those made against the banks, and I imagine that most of the new recruits the organisation is taking on are being sent in the direction of the PPI teams to help with their ever increasing workloads.

Posted by: Tim