To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 475.
475) If The BBC Why Not The RICS?
Dear Mr Javid,
We now know the appalling abuse that took place at the BBC because something was eventually done to expose it.
The BBC is now to have an external regulator, Ofcom. The National Audit Office will be pouring over its books and 6 shiny new government stooges will be telling it how to be independent.
Job creation for important people who live to sit on committees. Someone has to do it we suppose.
Q. Mr Javid, if the BBC is to be independent in the sense that we take independent to mean why does it need 6 government stooges to involve themselves in the organisation's independence in the first place?
Quite clearly this is an administration that is determined to dominate the new political landscape. Parents are now told that academies are what is good for their children. Parents might be invited onto governing bodies if they are "business-like" about it. Doctors are having their pay and conditions imposed upon them. Sunday is to be treated like any other working day and you will be paid accordingly. Tenants in rented accommodation are being told to move just after they've moved in and the meaning of key words in the English language are being conservatized.
Q. Mr Javid, as the BBC need to be more transparent, accountable and properly regulated why not simply publish in full the minutes of meetings and put them online for all to see?
The RICS only have/had 2 stooges sitting on the Ombudsman Services board to ensure that it was/is, "entirely independent."
Q. Mr Javid, why didn't Ofcom (a strong regulator according Mr Whittingdale) intervene strongly when the maladministration of consumers' complaints was uncovered at the company?
Q. Mr Javid, if the 2 RICS stooges at OS aren't there to interfere with the independence of the ombudsman and ensure that disputes are sorted in the way that they want them to be, what do they actually do - sit there and look pretty?
In ridiculing, "Left wing luvvies" for seeking to protect the independence of the BBC, hasn't the Culture Secretary - who according to Wikipedia appears to never have actually ever had a proper job in his life and whose experience of culture somewhat coloured by jiggly-boobie bars - over-reacted when announcing he is to appoint those 6 "Right wing haties" of his?
Q. Mr Javid, why is there such a glaring discrepancy between the treatment of the BBC (with its Royal Charter) and the RICS (and its)?
Q. Mr Javid, is a jiggly-boobie specialist who appears to operate in dark and dimly lit spaces the right man to be making decisions about, transparency, accountability, regulation and standards at the BBC?
We hasten to add that jiggly-boobie bars and girlfriends with predilections are all fine and part of life's rich tapestry but isn't there a transparency, accountability and fit and proper person issue here?
Just as is, are maladministrators fit and proper people to handle consumers' complaints?
Mr Whittingdale stated on the floor of the House of Commons that the BBC's governance was to be;
"In the public interest."
That,
"Ofcom will become the BBC regulator."
And,
"Ofcom would operate with the power to investigate any aspect of BBC services."
Importantly, there would be,
"A strong regulator alongside a strong BBC."
Q. Mr Javid, if it is in the public interest for there to be a strong regulator for a strong BBC why isn't RICS a strong regulator for surveyors and why is it not acting in the public interest?
After all its Royal Charter says it should. It is expected to act professionally and to be there for the public advantage.
At a time when the government is saying on the one hand that de-regulation and cutting red-tape is essential for economic growth - your Arthur Daley Charter where;
"You make contact with the customer. Understand their needs. And then flog them something they could well do without" eg PPI, Academy Chains, a marketised NHS, the sick, elderly and dying forced into paying for their care, Private Redress Schemes - the list goes on - it's saying on the other that a strong regulator is needed for the BBC.
Q. Mr Javid, is this not part of a concerted Toy attack upon freedom and democracy that private civil justice is part of that attack and that this is you devotedly finishing Mrs Thatcher's Master Plan - The Privatisation of Everything?
Anyone with a love for their country and for fairness, freedom, justice and democracy will be as alarmed as we are at how this administration with its obsessive, compulsive, disorderly ideological drive to deregulate markets and hand over the reins to "business-like" tax avoiding managers who captured and rigged the economy for their own benefit, must despair at just how easily you get away with it.
The scheming and underhanded way this administration is systematically redefining and replacing the public interest to further advantage those with private undisclosed interests, whilst studiously ignoring the evidence as to how destructive this is to the lives of those outside of this self selecting elite, is abhorrent and shameful.
Sadly, shameless people don't care. It allows them to maladminster consumers' complaints without a care in the world or force others to work on Sundays for Monday's pay.
The blatant attempt by the Education Secretary to rig the governing bodies of academies, what will be taught in them and how is not "business-like" it is corrupting, corrosive and to borrow from David Cameron, cancerous.
It leads to:
- An unqualified teacher and daughter of a Tory party donating Lord who just happens to run a chain of academies rewriting a history curriculum - and history - after refusing to sully herself by completing a PGCE and thereby coming into contact with Mr Gove's "blob." She thus side-stepped the attendant risk of having her Oxbridge worldview challenged but as an unpaid and unqualified teacher gets to determine who does and who doesn't teach at daddy's academy - and no doubt for how much or little. No doubt she will inherit 4 schools one day.
Q. Mr Javid, what qualifications do ombudsmen have that permit them to maladminister consumers' complaints?
- An academy trust lauded by David Cameron falling apart because its Thought Leader got too "business-like" and decided to award himself two salaries.. The fact that this scandal only came to light because a whistleblower had the courage to speak out paints a bleak picture of corruption, greed, dismal governance and inadequate regulation or regulators.
Around the same time as David Cameron was fronting a conference on anti-corruption the public was discovering:
- That South Yorkshire Police are to be investigated for attempting to rig the news reporting of the Hillsborough Inquest. The whistleblower in this instance had a superior police officer make complaints about her and she suffered as a consequence.
- The Conservative Party was facing prosecution over rigging election expenses and last year' General Election.
- Jeremy Hunt had done a hand-brake turn and decide not drive off his particular cliff. yet.
Meanwhile Mr Whittingdale was being stentorian and emphatic:
"The BBC needs to become much more accountable to those it serves."
And,
"The BBC needs to be fair, accountable and sustainable."
Q. Mr Javid, why aren't exactly the same standards being applied to the RICS?
Q. Mr Javid, why when the RICS has been described as being Byzantine in its structure and lacking accountability for finances hasn't the National Audit Office marched in there years ago?
Q. Mr Javid, why when we sent you copies of what an Ombudsman Services whistleblower sent to us, have you done nothing about it?
When it comes to handing out gongs shouldn't there also be special awards for those courageous individuals with real jobs who risk everything when the make the momentous decision to whistleblow?
Why hasn't Ombudsman Services:Property which is regulated by the RICS got a whistleblowing policy?
Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.
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