Ombudsman Services:Property. The RICS Member Firm. The Disqualification of an Ombudsman (560)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 560.

560) The Disqualification of an Ombudsman.

Dear Mr Clark,

It doesn't seem that so far in this country an ombudsman has ever been disqualified. 

However, there hasn't been an awful lot of a critical nature that's been written about them  and as they're more secretive than The Masons such matters are likely to go unreported.

Our letter to Gillian Fleming, the Ombudsman Services:Ombudsman continued;
"I have read the Terms of Reference and would like to raise this point:
4. Disqualification (b) does any act or finds himself/herself in any position which, in the reasonable opinion of the Surveyors Ombudsman Service Member Board, conflicts or is likely to conflict with his/her position and/or the exercise of his/her powers and/or duties as Surveyors Ombudsman Service board member, or the effective operation of the Surveyors Ombudsman Service, the Ombudsman or these terms of Reference ...."

Q. Does it not bring the Service into disrepute when you accept evidence gathered in this way? Surely, the proper thing to have done in this situation would have been to have written to The Firm saying that evidence gathered in such a fashion, is not acceptable?

Q. Why didn't this trigger a reappraisal of all of The Firm's so-called "evidence?" Or does this service set one standard for its members and another for complainants?"

It is not that you have not answered some of the questions posed by a complainant. It is that you have not answered any of my questions or that some of the responses you have made have, in themselves, raised further questions."

Needless to say the ombudsman didn't answer my questions.

Q. Mr Clark, how is it conceivably possible for an ombudsman to investigate a consumer's complainant fairly and independently when they will not answer a consumer's questions? Isn't it time that this wholly unacceptable state of affairs was in itself investigated?

Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.