Breakfast at Natalie's

Mark Lisle, compliance manager at Rowanmoor Pensions, on the appointment of a new Chief Financial Ombudsman.

Breakfast is an emotional subject. While working at a previous firm, the business outsourced its HR, training and recruitment function and, as was the way, we found a job elsewhere in the business for one of the redundant HR managers; we’ll call him Jack.

A good chap with solid people services credentials, Jack was shoehorned in to a role that was seen as a bit of a poisoned chalice, managing a specialist, close-knit administration team mainly populated by staff older, cannier, and much more experienced than he was. This would have been a challenge for the most experienced of life and pensions practitioners, yet it was hoped with his people skills he would have the necessary coping tools to succeed.

Jack looked constantly frazzled in these shark-infested waters, his HR experience not preparing him for this challenge. At the Monday morning managers’ meetings (a bit like roll call in Hill Street Blues, only in Bournemouth in financial services, not Chicago with drive-by shootings), Jack looked increasingly troubled, but being a pro never bleated and kept his own counsel, which was wise.

One Monday, someone actually asked him the direct question: “How’s it all going Jack?” to which, after some consideration whether a problem shared was indeed a problem halved, he told the story of his experience in microcosm, using the medium of breakfast to illustrate the precipitousness of his learning curve.

“Did you realise you can identify the seniority and tenure of staff by their BREAKFAST? A new recruit daren’t even pull a banana out of their bag; you have to be there at least a year to eat at your desk at all, but their supervisor will probably be downing a yoghurt, while the senior team leader has a bowl of cereal in one hand, a muffin on a plate on her desk and a phone in the other hand! I never knew...”

Well, as this chap had never said more than a word before and this erstwhile soliloquy came blurting out with more than a modicum of disdain and incredulity, it was received in stunned silence. But then, every Monday meeting afterwards started with comments such as: “What have they got for breakfast today, Jack? Full English, with black pudding and a fried slice?!” Or if it were a notable holiday, “Independence Day, Jack. Stack of pancakes with maple syrup?!”; or “VE Day Jack – croissants, pains au chocolat, brioche with some confiture?!” You get the drift.

Now Jack was a success, won his team around, and made sound changes at the right moments, tinkering with the dynamics and getting the team working for him, as his project management skills were well honed and he was a consummate people person. That was why he was given the role, despite his lack of direct experience of the environment.

The stakes are greater, and the profile much higher but I was interested to read some of the responses to the appointment of a new chief financial ombudsman.

Much of the focus of the negative diatribe appears to have been directed at the chief ombudsman’s CV. Perhaps she doesn’t remember MIRAS or LAPR, can’t tell you the difference between ASP and USP, and won’t on day one appreciate the vagaries of a paid up Retirement Annuity Contract, but I am pretty sure she will have a phalanx of staff whose responsibility it is to filter that for her.

This age old prejudice that you need to have written a book to criticise someone else’s is way off beam, and entirely unfounded. Perhaps what the Financial Ombudsman Service needs is an entirely fresh pair of eyes, unsullied by the negative experiences and unburdened by the failures of the past to resolve matters of dispute, the big picture being analysed in the interests of process improvement, so that a more efficient service be provided for both consumer and adviser.

Someone from the real world to challenge some of the prejudices, and provide some perspective to an inefficient and failing initiative. Someone with developed project management skills; a good administrator; a consummate people person.

But if it were me, I would have breakfast before setting off for work on 22 March rather than risk committing an almighty gaffe on my first day...