As a result of its consultation and feedback received, the Fos said it will report cases as “proactively settled” where certain criteria are met.
The initiative only applies to complaints where the Fos:
- Requests the business file on or after April 1, 2023 (and on/before 31 March 2024); or requested the business file less than 14 days before April 1, 2023
- Within 21 days of requesting the respondent’s business file, the business may offer to settle the complaint, but Fos must be clearly informed within 14 days that an offer is coming. This is a change from the 14 days to make an offer
- If it receives an offer from a financial business within the 21 days, the Fos will review the offer to determine if it is fair and reasonable. If it believes it is, it will share the offer with the complainant. If it is not fair and/or reasonable, the Fos will inform the parties this is the case and that it intends to investigate the complaint as normal.
The Fos said it will continue to engage with financial businesses as to its expectations around this initiative, as well as general obligations under the complaints handling rules.
This follows a consultation last month where the Fos proposed extending a change in how it reports cases to help speed up and encourage the earlier resolution of complaints.
It published a consultation on how it reports business-specific complaints data, and was seeking feedback from stakeholders on introducing a “proactively settled” category of complaints on a permanent basis.
The suggestion followed a temporary change in how the ombudsman reported cases between November 2021 and March 2022 in response to increased demand brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The change meant that instead of reporting on just a “change” and “no change” in outcome in its half-year business-specific complaints, the Fos introduced a third category to record the outcome of complaints - “proactively settled”.
The rationale behind the change was also partly to maintain business engagement with the Fos as businesses had previously told the service they were reluctant to settle complaints due to potential negative public connotations of a higher uphold rate.
In a feedback statement today (April 3), the Fos said as a result of the responses it received, it will report cases as “proactively settled” where certain criteria is met.
This will be a trial for the 2023/24 financial year.
Feedback received
The Fos said it received 56 responses where it said a majority were supportive of the proposals.
Although most respondents were supportive, there were some concerns raised, the Fos said.
