The Ombudsman's Investigations Need Investigating. (555)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 555.

555) The Ombudsman's Investigations Need Investigating (2).

Dear Mr Clark,

To its great discredit the UK government permits ombudsman schemes to operate in a grey area without clear or fixed criteria and without the requirement to provide consumers with a clear definition of what they - ombudsmen - take to be an, "investigation."

Mr Clark, wouldn't you agree that It's hard to trust someone who doesn't see the need to define just what exactly it is they're doing.

We thought we'd help ombudsmen over the apparent hurdle they've created for themselves by defining what it is they're supposed to be doing.
Investigate:
- carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to discover and examine the facts.
- make inquiries as to the character, activities or background of someone.

"Systematic," "formal," "facts," "inquiries," "character," "activities" or "background of someone." As none of this happened in our case, then - and if the above definition is correct - we quite obviously didn't get an investigation but something else. A cover-up perhaps?  A stitch-up?

Certainly, a miscarriage of private justice.

For example:
COMPLAINT ABOUT M AND PARTNERS Our ref: 510458. 20th July 2010

"Dear Mr G.

COMPLAINT ABOUT M AND PARTNERS

I am writing in response to the email of 16 July.

You say that a failure to give my view on whether the Firm should have come to visit when you told them about water pouring down the walls and hallway is, in effect a refusal. You may hold to that opinion but I do not agree."

You may hold to that opinion but I do not agree....

Q. Mr Clark, this is supposed to be an investigation of a complaint by an ombudsman. We asked the ombudsman for her opinion on the Firm's integrity and customer care but all we got was a master-class in ducking and diving, "you may hold that opinion but I do not agree." 
So much for making inquiries as to the character, activities or background of someone or discovering and examining facts.

Whether the ombudsman refused to give us an answer or not completely misses the point - at the end of the day when all's said or done, she didn't answer our question. Surely, her evasiveness when it comes to answering complainants' questions raises further questions about her independence and ability to objectively investigate complaints.

I didn't give you an answer because I don't like you.
I didn't give you an answer because I couldn't think of one.
I didn't give you an answer because to have done so would have meant making inquiries as to the character, activities and background of my fee-paying Member and carrying out a systematic inquiry into the facts.

If the ombudsman does not agree with our opinion that she's refused to give us an answer then her company's Terms of Reference state quite clearly that she is duty bound to provide us with an explanation as to why she hasn't given us an answer.

They state, "It shall be the duty of the ombudsman
8.6 (f) To give reasons for any decisions made or conclusion reached."

We didn't receive a reason from the ombudsman for her decision not to answer questions about her fee-paying Member.

Q. Mr Clark. either the ombudsman didn't know her duties as an ombudsman and therefore shouldn't have been an ombudsman or knew her duties as an ombudsman and deliberately misled a complainant in which case she shouldn't have been allowed to continue as an ombudsman. When are you going to investigate ombudsmen who freely operate outside the remit of their Terms of Reference?

Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.