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This article interests me because, although retired for many years and never experienced in litigation, I have been acting for my daughter in a complaint to the FOS against her insurers. The complaint was upheld and the insurers were required to follow a procedure in order to determine the compensation payable. Five months later, they haven't begun to do so.

As Tobias Haynes says, the FSMA does provide the complainant with a statutory means of enforcing an Ombudsman's decision, and I am appalled by his experience of the practical difficulties of doing this.

But things are even worse than he implies, because most complaints to the FOS never get to an Ombudsman: they are dealt with (as in our case) by an adjudicator whose findings are accepted by both sides. And here the statutory remedy does not apply at all. I myself see no reason why mutual acceptance of an adjudicator's findings cannot be enforced simply as a matter of contract, but the FOS does not confirm this view. (Has it ever been put to the test?)

Surely the FOS should have enforcement powers? Whether the matter is dealt with by an Ombudsman or an adjudicator, the FOS itself can do nothing to prevent deliberate delay, to ensure that a prescribed procedure is followed, or indeed to ensure that its findings are complied with at all.

I have tried to interest the consumer sections of three newspapers in this situation, without receiving even an acknowledgement. As the previous Price of Wales said in another context, Something must be done.