Academics Ask: Should Troublesome David Take On Goliath? (506)

To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 506.

506) Academics Ask - Should Troublesome David Take On Goliath?

Dear Mr Clark,

When your research is in part funded by Dame Julie Mellor, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, it must make being unbiased and totally objective - difficult.

Point 8 of Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill's Executive Summary is concerned with troublesome ombudsman watchers. They say;
"The influence of ombudsman watchers and the degree to which they should be engaged with is likely to remain a troubling issue for ombudsman schemes. This involves balancing the need to address negative publicity and the desire to draw lessons from the experiences of dissatisfied complainants, at the same time as recognising that this risks privileging potentially unrepresentative perspectives."
(www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/critics-of-the ombudsman-system-engaging-online-citizen-activists)

What is troubling for democracy and the citizens it purports to represent and protect, is that a government intent on privatising justice should see its approved ombudsman schemes in need of monitoring by ombudsman watchers.

Something is seriously wrong with ombudsman schemes and the people running them. That's troubling.

That dissatisfied complainants are rendered powerless by ombudsman schemes is troubling.

That dissatisfied complainant's only hope for something approaching redress is reduced to the potentially privileging perspectives of ombudsman watchers is also troubling.

That academics should see criticisms of ombudsmen cosying up to regulators, arriving at decisions in an illogical manner and maladministrating complaints as, "negative" publicity is troubling.

That researchers should conceptualise their research in such language is troubling.

What is David supposed to do? Write a letter of complaint, address it to Goliath and hope that that brings him crashing down?

Q. Mr Clark, don't you agree that it is troubling that government does nothing to protect its citizens from ombudsman schemes, choosing instead to leave the job to ombudsman watchers?

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Michael Fallon, Francis Maude, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid, Oliver Colvile and yourself.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company which formerly traded as the SOS before undergoing e-branding) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS' malign influence.

Please comment either on the blog or by emailing - shockingsurveys1@gmail.com. Thanks.
Steve Gilbert.