Natalie Ceeney and the bigger picture
Many congratulations to Natalie Ceeney, Chief Executive of The National Archives (TNA) both for her CBE in the New Year's Honours list, and, yesterday, for her appointment as Chief Executive and Chief Ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service.
We are delighted the Head of Service for information professionals in government is getting this well deserved recognition, if sad that she is leaving us for pastures new.
It's interesting to note the reader comments about her lack of financial services experience on the MoneyMarketing website yesterday. That reminds one of some of the comments when she first joined TNA.
The significant fact, surely, is the huge increase in volume of use of the service, whether at TNA or FOS. At the latter, the volume of complaints has risen in the last ten years from 30,000 to 200,000. With that amount of traffic, you will inevitably have to employ a few experts to deal with the knottier cases.
It's an ability to deal efficiently with the volume of casework that's the issue - so her pragmatic approach to strategy, cost-effective systems, workflow and technology will be what counts.
Elspeth Hyams
Editor, Library and Information Update
