The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is consulting on its proposed plan and budget for 2013/2014. The plans would make the FOS larger in terms of staff numbers than the third largest Building Society in the UK (Coventry Building Society).
It anticipates an unprecedented workload, including 245,000 cases relating to mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) which will take up nearly two-thirds of its expected workload.
It plans to take on 1,000 more (currently a staggering 2,500) case workers to tackle this and also to take on more ombudsmen to respond to the continuing shift towards complex and harder-fought cases.
It also plans to increase the number of free cases to 25 and raise the individual case fee by £50 to £550, and charge the supplementary case fee for PPI mis-selling cases only after 25 cases.
Finally, the levy will rise by nearly £6 million to £23 million.
(Source: FOS Consults on Plans for Dealing With Unprecedented Complaint Numbers)