The Ombudsman said in October 2004 that the FOS is upholding 45% of mortgage endowment complaints, but with some firms it is 80%. He says some firms routinely reject complaints that they know will be upheld if they are referred to the FOS.

In other areas of financial services, 2% - 5% of complaints are eventually handled by the FOS, but for endowments it is over 20%.

"One may have expected, after more than three years' experience, that the FOS caseload of mortgage endowment complaints might have been reduced, or be largely made up of unjustified complaints. The complete opposite is happening."

An endowments recovery company said that the worst firms to deal with are Abbey National, Halifax and Norwich Union. It says Abbey & Halifax reject most complaints with a standard letter.

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An IFA campaign group, the IFA Defence Union, is campaigning to overhaul the Financial Ombudsman Service. They also offer help to IFAs involved with the Ombudsman Service. The IFADU is approaching the European Parliament, and encouraging IFSa to contact their MPs.

There are two main areas.

• The lack of an appeal process. A House of Lords review of ombudsman generally has focussed on the possible need for appeals processes
   
• Accusations that the FOS becomes a quasi-regulator by judging similar cases - but it is not clear how else it is supposed to work.

We remain sceptical of the need for any major reform of the structure on these lines, though there is evidence that some individual case reviews are botched.