Bias. (446)

To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 446.

446) Bias.

Dear Mr Javid,
It is beyond all reasonable doubt that the Ombudsman Services:Property redress scheme - "approved" and supposedly, "monitored" - by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)  are regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) does not "investigate" consumer complaints, "fairly," "speedily" or "independently."

The laws of probability indicate that dissatisfied clients of RICS regulated surveyors will:
1) Be victims of sub-standard surveys.
2) Pay for a service they do not receive.
3) Be victims of inadequate standards of professionalism.
4) Be the recipients of poor advice and service when making expensive purchasing decisions.
5) Not have their phone calls logged in their surveyor's Case File.
6) Not have visits logged in the surveyor's Case File.
7) Not have agreements confirmed in writing by their surveyor or recorded in their surveyor's Case File.
8) Fail to have their complaint resolved before it is escalated to the RICS surveyors' ombudsman.
9) Not be informed by their surveyor that the ombudsman they are being referred to is funded entirely by their case fees and subscriptions.
10) Have their case misrepresented by Ombudsman Services:Property.
11) Have the nature of their case misunderstood by Ombudsman Services:Property.
12) Have their surveyor's evidence withheld from them by Ombudsman Services:Property.
13) Have their surveyor's messages to the staff of Ombudsman Services:Property withheld from them.
14) Have their confidential information handed to their surveyor by Ombudsman Services:Property.
15) Not have their case mediated by Ombudsman Services:Property.
16) Not have their questions answered by Ombudsman Services:Property.
17) Experience delays in the handling of their complaint by Ombudsman Services:Property.
18) Not have their problem resolved by Ombudsman Services:Property.
19) Not have their case resolved through mediation by Ombudsman Services:Property.
20) Disagree with the recommendations suggested by Ombudsman Services:Property.
21) Disagree with the accuracy of their report's recommendations.
22) Discover errors in their Ombudsman Services:Property report.
23) Have their report written by an officer but have the ombudsman's signature cut and pasted to it implying it was investigated by the ombudsman, when it wasn't.
24) Be denied an independent re-survey by Ombudsman Services:Property.
25) Be denied their Human Right to a face to face meeting with the ombudsman by Ombudsman Services:Property.
26) Be denied their Human Right to a meeting held in public by Ombudsman Services:Property.
27) Be forced to gain access to information held on their case by Ombudsman Services:Property, through the Data Protection Act. 
28) Be forced into making further representations due to the inaccuracy of Ombudsman Service:Property's reports.
29) Be unsuccessful with these further representations.
30) Not receive a financial award. Or,
31) Receive a derisory financial award.
32) have their case maladministered by Ombudsman Services:Property.
33) Not serious or persistent breaches of the RICS Rules of Conduct reported to RICS by the Ombudsman.
34) Be confronted with an ombudsman who doesn't appear to know the company's Terms of Reference.
35) Who condones having their name cut and pasted onto reports written by others.
36) Who happens to believe this deception is an effective way of clearing a backlog of cases.
37) No longer have their dissatisfaction with their customer journey documented by Ombudsman Services:Property.
38) Be kept unaware of the RICS continuous monitoring of what they, the RICS, describe as, "the effective resolutions of complaints."
39) Be victims of a negligent disregard for the truth.
40) Be victims of the following:
"To be effective the (redress scheme) must be seen as an impartial arbitrator between parties - currently this does not seem to be the consensus of opinion." (DJS Research: Customer Satisfaction Report)

We asked the Chair of Maladministration at Ombudsman Services, Prof. Dame Janet Finch,
Q 100: Was this bias?

We didn't get an answer.

Q. Mr Javid, is the Ombudsman's apparent bias explained by the need to meet the RICS' Memorandum of Understanding with the company - for the Ombudsman to resolve complaints, "effectively" and that giving a complainant's case a forensic examination - is far from effective?

Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.