To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary / Chair of Ombudsman Services / Leader of the Liberal Democrats / CEO of Livewell Southwest Ltd and to the Health Secretary.
For Clarity - Attempt 645.
645) Mr Cable tells us, "The consequences were very serious."
Dear Mr Clark, Lord Tim Clement Jones, Mr Cable, Prof Waite and Mr Hunt,
The consequences of the growing lack of transparency and accountability in the business of government and the government of business, are indeed, "very serious."
Mr Cable, your quote in Heather Stewart, Rowena Mason and Jamie Grierson's report for The Guardian should be read alongside The Guardian's, "NHS accused of keeping secret its plans to cut services" and our Blog on Francis Maude's astonshing claim to be Cabinet Secretary in a government where transparency was to be at the beating heart of everything you lot did.
This of course never happened. The heart had simply been by-passed.
These two articles seem to confirm what we've been saying since 2010 - that we live in a post-Brexit-red-bus-
It is becoming abundantly clear that as taxpayers we now paying politicians and civil servants not to answer our questions but instead to patronise us by telling us that to do so - to answer our questions - would, "not be in the public interest."
Behind the scenes, a public interest is being created in which the public are to be excluded from having any interest. Otherwise things would be different.
The Guardian journalists say,
"New data from the Office for National Statistics showed just 4.600 overstayed their visa last year. Estimates for previous years had been close to 100.000."
Mr Cable, you bemoan the fact that the prime minister still hasn't got her listening ears on and that government ministers chose to avoid factual evidence, instead preferring to make up policy on a whim, a fancy and a deeply held prejudice.
Mr Cable, we too spent at least 5 years trying to persuade you that, "fixing" the lettings market for the RICS but not the surveying market for consumers was a bad idea, but instead you chose to ignore us.
Your colleague, Jo Swinson stood up in Parliament and told the nation that regulating lettings agents would automatically drive up standards whilst apparently ignoring the evidence to the contrary gathered by the OFT - that rogue-RICS-regulated surveyors, "were developing practices that were not working in the customer's interests."
Q. Mr Cable, was this highly selective approach to regulation due to your department's close and continuing relationship with Ombudsman Services and its Chair, Professor Dame Janet Finch?
his is the same Professor Dame Janet Finch who withdrew her candidacy to be head of the UK Statistics Authority after MPs in committee had questioned her independence.
We see that the Cabinet Office, (Secretary - Francis Maude) "slipped out the announcement of Dame Janet's decision to withdraw her application for the post late on Wednesday evening as the furore over the News of the World phone-hacking intensified."
So much for Mr Maude's transparent government.
Q. Mr Cable, if Professor Dame Janet Finch was forced to withdraw her candidacy for the post of Head of the UK Statistics Office because MPs questioned her independence, why was she Chair of Ombudsman Services which claims to be, "totally independent" when handling consumers' complaints?
Q. Mr Cable, aren't the consequences of this seeming lack of independence very serious for those complainants using Ombudsman Services?
Professor Dame Janet Finch was responsible for - The Finch Report: Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications.
This report was funded by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. Your department.
It talks about; accessibility, excellence and expanding access to research.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, DJS Research once conducted Customer Satisfaction Reports for Ombudsman Services and their figures complemented the company's Annual Property Report. Under Professor Dame Janet Finch's chairmanship DJS Research's contract was terminated and the Annual Property Report went from 8 pages to 1. Why has accessibility to data all but vanished at Ombudsman Services?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, what is, "excellent" about a one page report?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, why is there less transparency and accountability now than there was in 2009/10?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, what is, "excellent" about reducing average financial awards to property claimants from £1.511.76p in 2010 to 50 quid in 2016?
The doctors' union the BMA is having its Freedom of Information requests ignored by government and the Ombudsman Services:Property RICS, "appointed" private redress scheme has eviscerated data on its performance in resolving disputes.
Q. Professor Waite, is that why your organisation failed to provide with the name of the person who phoned me at home to tell me my father was not entitled to a full DST when in actual fact he was?
Q. Professor Waite, why have you still refused to tell me the name of your organisation's Anonymous Desktop Reviewer - the person who was responsible for the ludicrous one-sentence judgement in my late father's case?
Q. Professor Waite, why can't those who use the service you provide see data on the number of Plymothians who are told they are not entitled to full DST Assessments (when in fact they are) and as a consequence thereby forced at significant personal and financial cost to challenge those appalling decisions?
Mr Cable, we did write to you at your department to say that the RICS's Ombudsman Services:Property would - if unchecked - provide a blueprint for the future. A future with vanishing transparency and accountability but one where failed politicians still feel compelled to tell us how hard they tried but how cruelly misunderstood they were. That it's all down to unstoppable globalisation.
Q. Mr Clark, when consumers take their complex and costly complaints to Ombudsman Services:Property will each and everyone of them receive a, "fair" and, "independent" investigation of their case?
Q. Mr Hunt, is the removal of acceptable standards of 21st century accountability, transparency and governance a prerequisite for the privatisation of our NHS?
Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - Workstock number 510458.
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