The Financial Ombudsman Service has denied that the restructuring of the organisation has been a failure.
Chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman, and Sir Nicholas Montagu, chairman of the Fos, appeared before the Treasury select committee following the publication of a report into the way the service operates.
Richard Lloyd's review was launched after allegations made in the Channel 4 programme Dispatches that some decisions made by ombudsmen may have not been fair to consumers.
While Mr Lloyd largely exonerated the ombudsman service, and dismissed concerns about institutional bias in favour of financial institutions, he raised concerns about the restructure which took place in 2016.
When asked whether the restructure had been a failure, Sir Nicholas said: "From where I sit I certainly don't think the restructuring has failed. It is noticeable, I think, that the report at no stage says that the restructuring was wrong.
"What is undoubtedly true is that it hasn't all gone smoothly. I think it is still the right design and the right approach. We couldn't continue with the old, very bureaucratic, model that we had been operating with ever since our inception."
The Fos' reorganisation had the aim of making it more responsive, and consisted of a new structure where the person who first receives the complaint will consider the complaint - regardless of whether it is about a type of product they have specialist knowledge of or not.
Under the previous structure complaints were assigned to an adjudicator with specialist knowledge about the type of product the consumer was recommended.
Mr Lloyd said one of the problems with the reorganisation was that it had been "quite top-down," which had affected morale.
He also warned the service's strive for efficiency had begun to be seen by staff at the service as the "overriding priority" and he recommended that management shift the focus onto quality.
Another concern raised by Dispatches was that investigators did not have the knowledge to handle complaints, and Mr Lloyd found this could be the case for people new to the role - particularly given the Fos' move to a new model without specialisms.
Ms Wayman said: "Fundamentally this is about providing a better service for customers and, absolutely, I think that is what we are doing and we can do even more.
"Have we realised all of the benefits yet? No, but this is a complex restructure and actually I do see some very strong evidence in relation to the individual complaints I see, to consumers who tell me about the difference we have made in their lives and I think that absolutely we are heading in the right direction."
Ms Wayman added that since the reorganisation the Fos was "reaching more people", which had affected waiting times for ombudsman decisions.
She said that in the first year of the restructure, the Fos anticipated 106,000 cases, excluding payment protection insurance, but it ended up getting 130,000.
Ms Wayman said: "Part of what we wanted to achieve was about making sure that when people call us it is not about processing a complaint. This is about when someone phones us up having someone at the end of the phone who can listen, understand the issue and be able to get to the bottom of it.
"What we are trying to achieve is, wherever possible, when somebody phones up we have someone skilled at the end of the phone who can try and resolve things not in months or years, but in hours and days, and we are seeing those benefits, there is absolutely no doubt.
"It is also true that we are seeing ever more complex cases. I think it is also true that we see more litigious parties on all sides of the debate so it is important to recognise there is a lot going on and there are a lot of demands on our service."
Speaking earlier to the Treasury select committee, Mr Lloyd said the ombudsman had been "completely distorted" by the huge number of payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints it has had to handle in recent years and the FCA should have forced firms to solve their clients' problems.
damian.fantato@ft.com
