Ombudsman Services:Property. Maladministration. The Ombudsman Association. (472)

To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 472.

472) Putting The Con Into Consumer.

Dear Mr Javid,

We saw in the previous Attempt at Clarity (471) how the key to conning the consumer was the fanciful claim made by executive ombudsmen that ombudsmen were in some way, "independent."

Independent from reality perhaps?

Ombudsmen like The Rev Smith (CEO and Chief Ombudsman and Chair of The Ombudsman Association) are clearly very busy men and yet he still finds the time to tell us that we live, "in the Age of the Ombudsman."

They even have their very own organisation to prove it - The Ombudsman Association - where they conference and network and can be important independent people.

I'd like to be, The Pasty Ombudsman. Do you think they'd admit me to their hallowed ranks?

We find it somewhat unsettling that these independent-minded individuals never seen to confront head on the strange anomaly that the RICS need to place their operatives on the Board of Ombudsman Services to ensure that The Rev Smith is indeed, independent.

We tried asking The Ombudsman Association's Secretary:
Q. 5: Wouldn't have been more accurate - for OS - to have told the consumer that, apart from the two RICS representatives sitting on the Board, they were entirely independent?
But we didn't get an answer to that one either.

Q. Mr Javid, with RICS' placemen sitting on the Board of Ombudsman Services, how can ombudsmen claim to be independent?

Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.