Our publication scheme
Our publication scheme is a guide to the information we publish and where you can find it on our site.
We always aim to be as open and helpful as we can in sharing what we know. Through our website, publications, helplines and events, we answer questions about our work free of charge. And we consult publicly on the issues and decisions that matter to the people who use and fund us.
The information we’re asked about most is listed below. We’ve organised this information in seven categories – in line with the Information Commissioner's model publication scheme.
Who we are and what we do
Organisational information, locations and contacts, constitutional and legal governance.
- Information about how to contact us, our staff and key facts about the service we provide.
- Information about who we are
- Our aims and values
- Information about our governance and other organisations we work with
- Information about our board and the minutes of their meetings, our executive team and our ombudsmen
- The official documents that set out our powers and function and our legal constitution
What we spend and how we spend it
Financial information relating to projected and actual income and expenditure, tendering, procurement and contracts.
- How we are funded
- Our annual strategic plans and budget, which includes information on our staff numbers, productivity and workload
- Our annual directors' reports and accounts, which are presented to Parliament and filed each year with Companies House, and which set out information about our pay scales and details of executive remuneration and the fees paid to our non-executive directors
- Information about employee expenses
- Procurement (how we buy good and services)
What our priorities are and how we are doing
Strategy and performance information, plans, assessments, inspections and reviews.
- Our annual reviews and our annual strategic plans and budget
- Annual activity reports in relation to the Alternative Dispute Resolution directive
- Independent reviews of our service
- Our annual diversity, inclusion and wellbeing reports
- Information about the Independent Assessor
How we make decisions
Policy proposals and decisions, decision making processes, internal criteria and procedures, consultations.
- The rules setting out how the Financial Ombudsman Service (and businesses providing financial services) should handle complaints – published as part of the Financial Services Authority's Handbook in the section called Dispute resolution: complaints
- how our complaints-handling process works – both for consumers and for businesses we cover
- explanations of our general approach to particular types of complaint - for anyone interested in financial complaints and how to settle or prevent them - by searching previous editions of our regular newsletter, ombudsman news
- Information for consumers about the complaints we can help with and information for businesses about complaints we deal with involving the financial products and services that consumers complain to us about most frequently
- the minutes of the meetings of the non-executive directors who make up our board
Our policies and procedures
Current written protocols for delivering our functions and responsibilities.
- Our customer service and quality assurance principles
- Information about how we're governed and how we work with other organisations
- Minutes of our board meetings
- Information about who we can help and what to expect when you make a complaint
- Or statement in relation to the Modern Slavery Act
- Information about how we handle personal data and our privacy statement
- How to make a Freedom of Information request
- How to make a subject access request
- Corporate policies on conflicts of interest and employee expenses
- Our privacy policy
- Our unreasonable behaviour policy
- Our social responsibility and sustainability policy
Lists and registers
Information held in registers required by law and other lists and registers relating to the functions of the authority.
- Data we publish every six months about financial businesses
- Data we publish every quarter about financial products and services
- Search our database of ombudsman decisions
- Our board of directors, executive team and our panel of ombudsmen
- Our annual review and annual directors' reports and accounts and our annual strategic plans and budget
- Our gifts and hospitality register (PDF 176KB) – lists all offers of gifts and hospitality between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024, whether they were accepted or not.
The services we offer
Advice and guidance, booklets and leaflets, transactions and media releases.
- How to contact us
- How to complain, including making a complaint online
- Our business support and engagement work - including our Business Support Hub for businesses
- How to join our voluntary jurisdiction
- Our news headlines and the events we run
- Our consumer leaflet and how to subscribe to our regular newsletter, ombudsman news
- Join us - careers with the ombudsman service and current vacancies
- Accessibility information and services
