To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 504.
504) Critics of the Ombudsman System: Understanding and Engaging Online Citizen Activists 4. Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill.
4. Ombudsman Schemes Don't Do What They Say On The Tin.
Dear Mr Clark,
Point 6 of the Executive Summary is one of the most contentious so far. Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill tell us,
"At the same time, the critiques put forward by the ombudsman watchers may highlight the way in which the public misunderstand the role of ombudsman schemes and be indicative of an apparent gap between public expectation and what ombudsman schemes are set up to provide."
(www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/critics-of-the-ombudsman-system-understanding-and-engaging-online-citizen-activists)
This point would seem to suggest that the public are in some way responsible for putting the cart before the horse, getting the wrong end of the stick and trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
The implication being that ombudsman watchers are the ones who have somehow got it wrong. It's all been one huge and unfortunate misunderstanding. If only they'd read the small print more carefully.
But what if the information contained there was misleading?
Surely, the onus must always be on those setting up these schemes in the first place. Why aren't they totally specific about what they are and are not aiming to do? Why do they leave it to their victims to second guess what their, "good intentions" might be? Who stands to benefit more from these misunderstandings: consumers or the businesses ombudsmen front?
We suspect it's the ombified businesses with their suspect, "business practices."
What also needs to be researched is not just the relationship between ombudsmen and their victims but the one between ombudsmen and those markets that so generously permitted them to, "ombuds" them. What is the quid pro quo?
For example, the RICS, "appointed" Ombudsman Services:Property to clear its mess up for them and watches its appointees closely to ensure that they do. The quid pro quo here is financial - instead of facing huge and potentially crippling insurance claims, legal costs and damages, surveyors, through their, "appointed" ombudsman scheme, (and having the "investigations" of complaints carefully monitored for, "effectiveness") tend to walk away scot-free never having had to put their hand in their pocket. The RICS even pay their fees.
This ombudsman scheme legitimises poor regulation and incompetence. It is corrupt.
In doing so the RICS have colonised so called, "civil justice" and have devised - rigged/captured - a highly effective way of passing off the cost of their Members' and Regulated Firms' business inefficiency and corrupt practices, onto their clients.
The RICS philosophy is best summed up by Steven Gould, Director of Regulation at the RICS and who is also a Board Member of Ombudsman Services, when speaking on the subject of letting agents. He is the embodiment of the philosophy of self regulation. He said,
"Self regulation properly developed, implemented and efficiently policed, provides the best and most effective means of ensuring consumer protection, without increasing the regulatory burden on business."
(www.property118.com/new-call-for-government-to-regulate-letting-agents)
The key to the door of this ideology is the - without increasing the regulatory burden on business - bit.
It is just plain wrong. Otherwise things would be very different. If, what the Director of Regulation at the RICS said were indeed true, RICS would have done all the above and policed their Members effectively - there would never had been the need for them to have, "appointed" Ombudsman Services:Property to do their job for them.
Christopher Hamer, the former TPOS ombudsman summed all of this up brilliantly in just one simple sentence,
"Why don't RICS regulate properly in the first place?"
Why don't they?
Is it because to do so would be a burden on their Members' business practices? Regulation being seen a cost - a tax on inefficiency and corruption.
Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill seem to expect consumers to know all of this before they take their complaints to an ombudsman.
We didn't know any of this at the time we were bundled off to OS:Property by our gleeful surveyor. Naively, we thought that the ombudsman was independent and would investigate our complaint, "fairly." We thought ombudsmen were a distant branch of government. The good guys.
We were conned. We didn't con ourselves.
Q. Mr Clark, why don't the RICS efficiently police and regulate their Members and Regulated firms and why do they pass the regulatory burden onto their clients?
The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Francis Maude, Michael Fallon, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid, Oliver Colvile and Mr Clark.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company formerly trading as the SOS before undergoing re-branding) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of the ombudsman's illogical final decisions.
- the setting up of a truly fair and independent redress scheme free from RICS malign influence.
Please comment or share your story either on the blog or by emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmail.com. Thanks. Steve Gilbert.
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