The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign - www.blogspot.com
To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 423.
423) Influencing Skills.
Dear Mr Javid,
The appointments section of the Sunday Times when advertising the post of, "Chair of Ombudsman Services" insisted that the new ambassador would have, "interpersonal and influencing skills."
Influencing skills?
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) have developed extremely effective, "influencing skills" which when combined with their, "engagement work" persuaded your predecessor Vince Cable to, "fix" the lettings market and start driving the cowboy operators out of the sector.
Vince Cable also fixed the Royal Mail.
The RICS' "engagement work" - most of which was hush-hush and conducted, "behind the scenes" - thus very effectively influenced government legislation.
Influencing skills are of course just an up-market form of lobbying much in the same way as When The RICS say that they, "appointed" Ombudsman Services:Property to settle their Members' disputes what we believe they really mean is that they control the show at - what is to all intents and purposes - their company, from start to finish. Only they choose to operate behind the scenes and not out in the open. With a set up like this it's fanciful to think that an ombudsman, whose salary is paid for by her members, is in any meaningful way, "independent."
The market in surveying appears to be rigged in the first place - it has "developed practices that are not working in the customer's interests" - and when things invariably go wrong, is rigged in the second - the customer gets a dodgy decision from their ombudsman or if they're really lucky, about a hundred quid.
Q. Mr Javid, this raises one of the most fundamental questions of our campaign - if The RICS can influence the government to legislate to regulate the cowboys operating in the lettings sector why can't they - as regulators with a Royal Charter - act to influence the cowboys operating in the surveying sector - their very own Members and (Un)Regulated Firms - in a market they're supposedly control and for which they were given a Royal Charter?
Are The RICS simply too posh to squash?
It must come as little surprise then that the term, "influencing skills" should migrate from The RICS successful engagement work with politicians and civil servants to its "appointed" company Ombudsman Services:Property and from there to the Chair of the whole organisation.
It would take an extraordinarily principled and strong-minded Chairman to withstand that sort of pressure.
Q. Mr Javid, do you not agree that the present Chair of Ombudsman Services lacked the required influencing skills to prevent the; maladministration, illogical Final Decisions and significantly reduced levels of financial "award" doled out to consumers by her ombudsman and that these disastrous failings of leadership should now be the subject of a public inquiry?
The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince'll Fix it Cable,
- answers from Francis Maude.
- answers from Nick Clegg.
- answers from Mark Prisk.
- answers from Jo Swinson.
- answers from Sajid Javid.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company that formerly traded as the Surveyors Ombudsman Service before undergoing rebranding) and the role of The RICS.
- compensation for the victims of the ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions.
- compensation for the victims of the executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS' influence.
Comment is still free. If you are a victim and wish to tell your story please do.
Thanks,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.
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