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Fos appoints McDermott as interim operations director
Ombudsman states that new interim director’s appointment is limited to one year as the service continues to hunt for a replacement for Simon Rouse.
The Financial Ombudsman Service has appointed Chris McDermott as interim operations director to replace Simon Rouse while it continues to look for a permanent replacement.
Mr Rouse was appointed as Santander’s bancassurance director after quitting his role as operations director for the Fos in November.
Mr McDermott, who started his new role earlier this month, will keep the position for a year. He has previously worked as chief executive at IT and business service company LogicaCMG.
A spokesperson for Fos pointed to the Fos’s recently published budgets and plans for the next financial year as to why the appointment was only for a year.
The service confirmed in the paper that it will increase its staffing levels by close to half by March 2013, rising from its top-end budget estimate for March of this year of 1,760 to 2,545.
Fos claims the increase was largely due to the handling of payment protection insurance cases, cases of which are set to rocket to 165,000 by March 2013.
However, Fos highlighted that it was likely to have to increase or decrease the predicted numbers in response to changes in levels of demand throughout the year.
A spokesperson for Fos told FTAdviser: “This is a one-year appointment to allow us to the time to find an appropriate operations manager. As highlighted in our corporate plan and budget, our stakeholders have indicated that the upcoming year is likely to involve a range of challenges and as such, it’s important that we have an interim manager in place to ensure these are met.”
