The Ombudsman Services:Property Approach To Information. (540)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 540.

540) The Ombudsman Services:Property Approach to Information.

(would seem to be to hide it, twist it, distort it, ignore it, refute it and generally abuse it.)

Dear Mr Clark,

In, "Procedural and Practice Issues" Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill tell us that,
"information provided by the bodies being investigated was often accepted at face value."
(www.ox.law.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/critics-of-the-ombudsman-system-understanding-and-engaging-online-citien-activists.)

This was most certainly true when it came to the Ombudsman Services:Property ombudsman, her fee-paying Member and our complaint about him. However, not all the information was made available to us, the interesting bits were obtained through a Data Protection Act request.

This fee-paying Member's messages are already part of some of our earlier blogs but we've referred to them once again along with three questions we attempted to ask Prof Dame Janet Finch, the Chair of Ombudsman Services as they serve to illustrate what the two researchers are saying above: that when it comes to information, the relationship between the ombudsman/investigating officer and their Member and the one between ombudsman/investigating officer and the complainant are qualitatively very different.

So much for the Level Playing Field. It's a modern-day myth.

The day robber baron Phillip Green sells his yacht for a £1, just like he did BHS, is the day we'll begin to have a level playing field and it'll make shopping in Poundland even more exciting than it already is. Who knows, OS:Property might actually begin to investigate consumers' complaints, "fairly" and "independently" and take the time to carefully consider the information placed in front of them instead of arriving at a predetermined outcome as they do now.

We tried asking the chair of Ombudsman Services, Prof Dame Janet Finch the following three questions;
"Q 87: Is it not the case that the very people who finance the system set it up this way?

It is a matter for concern that the ombudsman did not think to disclose Monk and Partners' statements to me.

I ask you, was it not the duty of the ombudsman, as set out in the Terms of Reference 8.6 -
that, 'In handling complaints, carrying out investigations and reaching any Final decision; (as provided here under)
(a) to proceed fairly and in accordance with principles of natural justice.
(b) to make reasoned decisions in accordance with what is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances having regard for principles of law, good practice, equitable conduct and good administration.
(e) to have regard for any applicable rule of law, the terms of a relevant contract, any relevant judicial authority or regulatory provision, any relevant codes of conduct or practice, any guidance of a general nature given by the Council and what is in the ombudsman's opinion best practice in handling complaints, and,
(f) to give reasons for any decisions made or conclusion reached?


Q. 88: I asked the ombudsman: was agreeing to carry out essential repairs to our home not a tacit acceptance that the original survey was not of a satisfactory standard?

I didn't get an answer from the ombudsman.

Q. 89: I asked the Independent Assessor to comment on the professional integrity of Monk and Partners give the ombudsman's statement that:
"I did not look at the photographs." And, "Your view seems to be that external photographs taken without express permission are somehow inadmissible because they amount to evidence gathered in a suspect way."
(But Mr Monk had previously stated he would not come to our home again!)

I pointed out to the Independent Assessor that I knew what I thought, but then I'm not the ombudsman. I knew that a teacher standing outside a pupil's home photographing it would be in serious trouble but that the same standards did not seem to apply to certain surveyors.

The ombudsman had the evidence but seems to have seen nothing wrong with this.

The Independent Assessor's response was;
"The Terms of Reference of the service, which can be downloaded from the website, provide that the procedure for the conduct of an investigation will be such as the ombudsman considers appropriate subject, in brief, to the duty to proceed fairly, to make reasoned decisions, not to disclose details of a complaint except in certain circumstances, and to have regard for any rule of law, contract, code of conduct."

That is not what the Terms of Reference say.

7.3 is quite specific on the matter - it states;
'7.3: Information passed to the ombudsman will be disclosed to the other party unless reasons are given setting out circumstances justifying non-disclosure." 

(We never got reasons justifying the non-disclosure of Mr Monk's messages to the investigating officer from anyone at the company - so, in effect, the complainant will never know what's being said behind their back unless they resort to a Data Protection Act request which in itself makes a mockery of TOR 7.3 and TOR 8.6 and the company's ludicrous claim to be both, "fair" and "independent." They simply do the bidding of their fee-paying Members. It's rigged redress.)

Professor Dame Janet Finch did not answer our questions.

No-one at the company answered our questions.

Those managers who've captured capitalism have erected a Trump-like wall across the half-way line of The Level Playing Field. It effectively restricts access to justice and leaves complainants banging their head against a brick wall.


Q. Mr Clark, we are told by the Prime Minister that she has a plan that will mean Government stepping up, righting wrongs and challenging vested interests. When are you going to step up, challenge the RICS/Ombudsman Services:Property's vested interests and right the wrongs of the its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration?

Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.