In August, Julian Farrand resigned from his post as Insurance Ombudsman in a row that characterises the problems confronting those attempting to devise coherent systems of regulation and redress for consumers of financial services.He objected to the loss by the Insurance Ombudsman's Bureau of a scheme which gave the public the right to lodge complaints about life assurance and related products up to a value of £100,000.That jurisdiction was handed over to the new Personal Investment Authority and, in what some saw a victory for the life assurance industry, the ceiling was lowered to £50,000.

The authority's scheme was to be bound by a rule book - whereas under the IOB scheme, product providers' treatment of clients had to pass a much tougher 'fair and reasonable' test.At the time, Dr Farrand voiced fears that the IOB council was 'falling into bed' with the PIA - some of its members were in fact serving on both bodies.'The council just went along with this diminishing role,' Dr Farrand says.For some, it came as no surprise that Dr Farrand chose to quit rather than see his jurisdiction whittled away by at least a third.He had taken a firm line on insurers, refusing to flatter them for voluntarily funding the ombudsman scheme.Behind the PIA's genesis was a perception that the existing split in regulation between Lautro (which fielded complaints about product providers like insurers and units trust companies) and Fimbra (which heard complaints about Independent Financial Advisers) was creating confusion in the minds of the public.Worse still, Lautro complaints were dealt with by the IOB under the terms of an agreement between the two bodies, or by one of its sub-committees, while Fimbra was unable to strike a similar deal with the IOB, and set up its own complaints arbitration facility.This was seen as messy, and at the beginning of the 1990s a Securities and Investment Board report by former civil servant Sir Kenneth Clucas concluded that there should be one regulator for personal investments, and a unified complaints system to go with it.

A further report by the law lord Lord Ackner considered whether this should be an ombudsman or an arbitration-based scheme, but did not review the option of a tribunal.Lord Ackner came down in favour of an ombudsman, but one who would have to stick to a book of rules, rather than have regard to concepts of fairness and reasonableness.

This was considered less burdensome for the industry.The result was the PIA, essentially a self-regulatory body set up by the indu stry with the backing of SIB, with a brief to look at any complaints on the marketing of investments, including pensions and life assurance, while the IOB was left to handle just general insurance cases, for example, household and motor.Meanwhile, in his new post as Pensions Ombudsman, a position he was successfully able to tee up for himself the week he quit the IOB, Dr Farrand hears disputes or fact or law, or allegations of maladministration causing injustice, relating to the management of personal and occupational pensions.

It is amazing that this wordy brief trips off his tongue like the recipe for his favourite Victoria sponge.He is expecting more of a challenge as the Pensions Ombudsman than he would have had at the rump IOB.

'It is a big challenge - there are huge legal concepts involved.

There have also been the scandals of public concern, which also make this an interesting post.' The Maxwell saga was only remarkable for the scale of assets taken by the employer', Dr Farrand says, so he is expecting plenty of work in this field.He is also looking forward to the enhanced role for the Pensions Ombudsman prescribed in the report on occupational pensions by the Goode committee and taken up by the Department of Social Security (see [1994] Gazette 29 June, 8).

The new powers include the ability to hear disputes between employers and trustees and between trustees themselves.Another major proposal is for the establishment of a compensation scheme to provide help to victims of fraud in cases where the employers take money from the pensions fund or where the fund goes bust.Dr Farrand, 59, was born in Doncaster, educated in Portsmouth and London, and was admitted as a solicitor in 1960.

The first part of his career was spent as a legal academic, and he served as a Professor of Law at Manchester University for 20 years, specialising principally in property law and title (he is the editor of Emmet on Title).He became a law commissioner in 1984, and was chairman of the conveyancing committee, which paved the way for the breaking of the solicitors' monopoly with the setting up of the Council for Licensed Conveyancers by the Administration of Justice Act 1985.'The committee was set up by the Lord Chancellor as a means of escape from the mounting pressure for change from the consumer.'It was thought that the committee membership represented so many disparate interests that we actually would never come to an agreement - but we did.'Dr Farrand says he felt no qualms about breaking his fellow solicitors' monopoly on conveyancing - in fact the committee's brief was to look at the 'how' not the 'whether' of the reform.