back to article Not only was the UK Financial Ombudsman Service's Workday system months late, 38 IT workers' jobs are at risk

The UK's Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has gone live on Workday finance and HR systems around three months later than planned, drawing questions over an interdependent data warehouse project. At the same time, the process has seen IT roles marked for redundancy and set to be transferred to a service supplier. The watchdog …

  1. trevorde Silver badge

    Rethinking your business the IBM way

    "Workday and our implementation partner IBM are helping us to rethink parts of our business and how it operates,"

    1) make all IT workers redundant

    2) offshore jobs to low wage country

    3) pay huge bonuses to managers

    1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: Rethinking your business the IBM way

      For when onshore workers are needed:

      1) make all IT workers redundant

      2) get service company to hire them as in-scope "contractors" (no need to bother with pesky employment law and unions)

      3) ensure that service company shares % of profits transferred offshore with a financial vehicle of your choice

  2. Alan J. Wylie

    The Financial Ombudsman clearly had a problem with their workflow, I sincerely hope that the new system solves it.

    A few weeks ago I contacted them through their web form with an issue I had with a bank seeming to have leaked the unique e-mail address I had given them. I received an automated reply to the different, unique address I had used for the FO. A few days later I saw a rejected connection in my mail log: a1 "1" had been mis-transcribed as an "l" in the address! Why on earth did they have a system that required an e-mail address to be re-typed? How many times previously has this caused an e-mail to either not be delivered or to be delivered to the wrong person?

    In: EHLO mailgate2.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

    In: MAIL FROM:<complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk> SIZE=25646

    In: RCPT TO:<.l.@wylie.me.uk>

    Out: 550 5.1.1 <.l..@wylie.me.uk>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table

    1. Robert Grant

      The only thing worse than technocrats is not-technocrats.

    2. the spectacularly refined chap

      I'm surprised you heard back from them at all yet, FOS sem to have a six month backlog at the moment. I also suspect they will deem it outside their remit - their scope is fairly narrowly defined and they'll probably tell you to take is up with ICO instead.

      1. Alan J. Wylie

        I only contacted the FCO because the bank said to do so, and I didn't want to run out of "statute of limitations" time if the ICO didn't help.

        So I contacted the ICO at the same time, via their web page. I attached several PDFs and PNGs of snail-mail letters, but they kept saying that "I never supplied supporting information". I finally attached them to an e-mail, but I haven't had any confirmation that they received them, despite a follow-up e-mail asking them to do so. I suppose I'll have to chase them, too, to find out why their workflow is broken.

        Bureaucrats!

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          ICO - broken by design

          "So I contacted the ICO at the same time, via their web page. I attached several PDFs and PNGs of snail-mail letters, but they kept saying that "I never supplied supporting information". I finally attached them to an e-mail, but I haven't had any confirmation that they received them, despite a follow-up e-mail asking them to do so."

          For ICO if you never placed your case reference number in the email subject then, yes, the case officer will never receive the supporting info you emailed.

          The ICO whole case handling system is broken since they upgraded/switched to a new system a few years ago (and was possibly differently broken before then).

          When you open a new case via the website you should get a automated email acknowledging the new case. However *no* reference number is allocated at this stage - someone manually looks at the email Inbox for new cases and forwards them to the "Inbox" of the relevant "business area" specific team.

          Once someone from that relevant "business area" team looks at the issue (which typically will not happen for 1+ months) then they will allocate a reference number. Note: you will not receive any notification when the reference number is allocated!

          In many cases the first time I see a case's reference number is when I receive the "case closed" summary email many months later. What I have ended up doing is repeatedly phoning ICO approx 1-2 months after opening a new case to get the reference number.

          Note: you cannot add relevant documents to a case without including the reference number in the email subject. Also note that as the website page for opening a case limits you to attaching a max of 3 (4?) documents, does *not* let you attach ZIP files (PDFs, Word docs, etc only), and has a size limit for each document then in many situations you may need to later add additional documents via email.

          There's a risk however that, as you cannot add more docs without a reference number, that your case could be closed before you manage to add those documents (if the person assigned to work your case, just after the ref number is allocated, quickly decides there's not enough information to work the case!).

          "I suppose I'll have to chase them, too, to find out why their workflow is broken."

          Perhaps broken by design, to help limit the number of cases they have to deal with?

          1. Alan J. Wylie

            Re: ICO - broken by design

            Thanks for that.

            Yes - I do have a case reference number, quoted in the subject of my e-mails.

            Perhaps broken by design, to help limit the number of cases they have to deal with?

            Cynical? Moi?

  3. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Alert

    Let it SNOW

    Have they invited ServiceNow to the party? It's a vital/must have tool in the modern IT service to make issues vanish

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "Workday and our implementation partner IBM are helping us to rethink parts of our business and how it operates,"

    Somebody should have told her she's not in a business, she's operating a government service. It is - or should be - s different mindset.

  5. Robert Grant

    Workday and our implementation partner IBM are helping us to rethink parts of our business and how it operates

    Translation: some things we need either Workday can't do, or IBM can't make it do. So we're changing our business to suit the software.

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