Complaints Manager

The Complaints Manager is accountable for the end-to-end management of FCA-regulated complaints, ensuring good customer outcomes, regulatory compliance, and effective remediation in line with FCA DISP, Consumer Duty, and internal risk frameworks.

The role provides senior leadership to the complaints function, acting as a customer advocate while safeguarding the organisation against conduct, reputational, and regulatory risk. Complaints insight is leveraged as a key control and improvement mechanism across the business.

Regulatory & Governance Context

• Operates within the FCA complaints framework (DISP).
• Supports delivery of Consumer Duty (Principle 12), with a focus on fair value, customer understanding, and customer support.
• Contributes to conduct risk management and operational resilience.
• Works closely with Compliance, Risk, and Legal functions.
• May support or feed into SMF16 / SMF17 responsibilities (depending on firm structure).

Key Accountabilities

Leadership & FCA-Compliant Complaints Handling

• Lead and develop a complaints team to deliver timely, fair, and evidence-based complaint outcomes in line with DISP timeframes and standards.
• Ensure complaints are handled with appropriate empathy, clarity, and transparency, particularly where customer detriment is identified.
• Act as escalation owner for complex, vulnerable customer, high-risk, or high-impact complaints.

Regulatory Compliance & Consumer Duty

Own and maintain the FCA complaints operating model, policies, and procedures.

Ensure compliance with:

• DISP complaint definitions and categorisation
• Final response standards and signposting obligations
• Redress, compensation, and root cause expectations
• Embed Consumer Duty into complaints handling, ensuring outcomes evidence:
• Fair and proportionate redress
• Effective customer support
• Identification and mitigation of foreseeable harm
• Prepare and oversee FCA complaints reporting, including half-yearly returns and support HORC with any ad-hoc regulatory requests

Performance, MI, Quality Assurance and Policies

• Own complaints MI, ensuring accurate, timely, and meaningful reporting, including:
• Volumes, uphold rates, and root cause trends
• Resolution timeliness
• Redress and compensation costs
• Vulnerability indicators and outcomes
• Design and maintain robust QA frameworks aligned to FCA expectations and Consumer Duty outcome testing.
• Use MI to provide challenge and insight to senior leadership and governance forums.
• Ensure complaint related policies and processes are fully documented, implemented and maintained.

Root Cause Analysis & Conduct Risk Reduction

• Lead root cause analysis across complaints data to identify systemic issues, control weaknesses, or conduct risks.
• Work with Product, Operations, Technology, Credit Risk, and Compliance teams to implement corrective actions.
• Track and evidence the effectiveness of remediation activity, demonstrating reduction in harm and repeat complaints.
• Ensure lessons learned from complaints feed into risk assessments, policy reviews, and product governance.

Customer Remediation & Redress Oversight

• Own the governance of complaint-related remediation and compensation decisions.
• Ensure redress is fair, consistent, and aligned to FCA guidance and internal authorities.
• Manage complaints-related budgets, including goodwill and compensation spend, with strong financial controls.
• Support large-scale remediation or past-business-review activity where required.

Strategic Leadership & Continuous Improvement

• Develop and execute the complaints strategy in line with regulatory change, Consumer Duty maturity, and business objectives.
• Anticipate regulatory developments and ensure the complaints function adapts proactively.
• Lead or sponsor complaints transformation initiatives, including process automation, system enhancements, or operating-model change.
• Provide expert input to senior leadership on conduct risk, customer outcomes, and regulatory readiness.

Team Management & Capability Development

• Build and maintain a skilled complaints team with appropriate FCA knowledge and decision-making capability.
• Set clear objectives, conduct performance reviews, and implement structured coaching and development plans.
• Ensure training covers:
• FCA complaints rules (DISP)
• Consumer Duty
• Vulnerable customer handling
• Root cause analysis and decision-making quality
• Maintain succession plans and role resilience.

Stakeholder Management & External Engagement

• Build strong working relationships with Compliance, Risk,, Product, Finance, and Customer Operations.
• Act as a senior point of contact for potential regulatory interactions relating to complaints.
• Support internal governance forums (e.g. Board, Risk, Compliance & Conduct Committee and Exco) with insight and recommendations.
• Represent the complaints function as a trusted adviser on customer fairness and regulatory expectations.

Skills, Knowledge & Experience

• Extensive experience managing FCA-regulated complaints in financial services.
• Strong working knowledge of FCA DISP, complaint lifecycle management, and regulatory reporting.
• Practical experience embedding Consumer Duty within complaints handling and outcome testing.
• Proven leadership experience in regulated contact centre or customer operations environments.
• Analytical skills, with the ability to translate MI into actionable conduct and customer insights.
• Strong judgement and decision-making capability in complex or ambiguous complaint scenarios.
• Experience supporting regulatory reviews, audits, or thematic work.
• Involvement in complaints transformation.
• Understanding of SMCR accountability frameworks.
• Customer advocacy and ethical decision-making
• Regulatory judgement and risk awareness
• Strategic leadership and influence
• Data-led insight and continuous improvement
• People development and coaching
• Change leadership in regulated environments

Regulatory Responsibilities

In addition to any specific individual obligations as detailed above, this role is subject to the FCA’s Conduct Rules under the Senior Managers and Certification regime (SM&CR). All employees both permanent and temporary are expected to:

• Act with integrity
• Act with due skill, care and diligence
• Be open and cooperative with the FCA and other regulatory bodies
• Pay due regard to the interests of customers and treat them fairly
• Observe proper standards of market conduct AND
• Employees must also act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, in line with the Consumer Duty

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

• Company pension
• Private medical insurance

Please inform us on your application if you have a disability that would require reasonable adjustments for the interview process/job role

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