Jobs & Money grabs the Headlines

Jobs & Money was this week judged the best personal finance section in any national newspaper as it picked up a series of accolades at the coveted Headline Money Awards.

Judged by an independent panel of personal finance journalists and experts, Jobs & Money saw off competition from both national broadsheets and tabloids, when it picked up the award for consumer team of the year. And, in what turned out to be a night of success, there was also a double triumph for individual team members.

Rupert Jones was named mortgage writer of the year for both the breadth and quality of his reporting and in particular for his outstanding and ground-breaking coverage of the on-going endowment crisis.

Meanwhile our consumer champion Tony Levene was named runner up in the highly competitive consumer journalist of the year category for his relentless campaigning journalism on behalf of Jobs & Money readers. The judges praised him in particular for: "not being afraid to ruffle a few feathers".

The awards are the second such major endorsement for the team in just five months. In December last year the section was named Personal Finance Broadsheet Newspaper of the year in the prestigious annual Bradford & Bingley personal finance media awards.

Judges of both events praised Jobs & Money for its distinct style and campaigning ethos. In their comendation, the Headline Money judges said: "The section has certainly found its readership and developed a distinctive, idiosyncratic style: intelligent, not too high-brow and definitely not patronising. The section is refreshing in the way it moves outside the confines of what is typically recognised as 'personal finance'.

"It covers a wide range of topics in an imaginative way while still maintaining a campaigning ethos."

Over the past year Jobs & Money has consistently led the field with consumer-focused journalism, covering not just the traditional areas of mortgages, pensions and insurance but also the growing tide of anger at the sales tactics and poor service at power and telecom companies so apparent from our postbag.

Our successes include:

Dual mortgage rates:
Thousands of you complained about the dual interest rate policy introduced by Halifax, Nationwide, Abbey National and other lenders. Jobs & Money championed Halifax borrower Chris Wright's complaint about being left on a higher rate, and encouraged readers to take their cases to the Financial Services Ombudsman. Mr Wright became a test case for the Ombudsman, whose final ruling opened the doors for compensation totalling more than £100m.

Endowments:
Jobs & Money first broke the endowment shortfall story four years ago but since then we have doggedly pursued insurers, lenders and advisers, battling for the right to compensation, while highlighting the worsening shortfalls faced by many.

Pensions:
Before the politicians were taking notice, Jobs & Money was highlighting the demise of final salary pensions, the spiralling deficits in local authority schemes - and the bumper pensions that company directors continue to pay themselves.

Reader's letters:
Jobs & Money has won huge sums for individuals caught out by company incompetence, mis-selling or rule breaking. Over the past year we've gained at least £150,000 for readers who've contacted our popular Capital Letters pages, written by Tony Levene. The sums have included a near £80,000 victory over Nationwide and a £30,000 win over Alliance & Leicester for an 81-year-old reader.