The Financial Ombudsman Service's organisational model has passed its use-by date and needs a complete overhaul, according to an independent review of the dispute resolution scheme's performance.FOS released the report of consultant Cameronralph Navigator yesterday, which said the ombudsman did not meet its benchmark for efficiency because of undue delays in dealing with disputes.The FOS board said in a statement it "shares the concerns expressed about the current dispute backlogs and the need to further streamline FOS's dispute handling processes."Cameronralph Navigator said FOS needed to take immediate steps to clear its backlog and start working towards a long-term solution.It also recommended that FOS change its approach to dealing with disputes involving financial difficulty by taking a more "assertive approach". It said FOS should be "more proactive" in assessing whether a proposed hardship variation was likely to be viable."The primary issue identified by our analysis is the configuration of FOS into a series of 'production line' steps, each focusing on a particular dispute resolution technique. This is designed to progressively filter out the less complex disputes and to resolve as many disputes as possible by co-operative means, reserving the effort of the most experienced and senior staff for the most complex and most contested disputes at the end of production line," the review said."The downside of this configuration is multiple hand-offs between FOS staff, queuing of disputes between internal stages, delays in achieving a FOS view on the merits of disputes and some frustration for the parties."Cameronralph Navigator said that without substantial structural and process change, further incremental improvements were unlikely to be of the scale that stakeholders expect. Its report included 27 recommendations."The next era for FOS requires a move to smaller, vertically integrated and more flexible teams," it said.However, FOS met its benchmarks for accessibility, independence, fairness, accountability and effectiveness.Cameronralph Navigator said FOS's significant investment in systems, infrastructure, management skills, tools and staff development meant the proposed changes were viable.Submissions to the review highlighted a number of issues besides delays. Industry and consumer groups said FOS needed to offer financial service providers a right of review, should pay more attention to legal principles in its considerations and needed more staff with a strong understanding of the industries covered.