FOS freezes levy and cuts budget by 20%

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) plans to freeze the levy it collects from firms and cut its budget by 20% over the coming year.

The service has proposed to stick to its current levy of £23.3m, it said in its annual plan and budget consultation out today, and plans to reduce its budget from £313.7m spent in 2013/14 down to £251.9m. It will also freeze the £550 fee for complaints cases - which is only payable after the 25th case - and scrap its supplementary £350 fee for mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) claims after "gearing up resources sufficiently to tackle the PPI workload". Interim chief executive and chief ombudsman Tony Boorman said: "For the last few years our focus has been on building up our...