To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy / Chair of Ombudsman Services.
For Clarity - Attempt 676.
676. Ombudsman Services And The "Free" Market" In Private Redress.
Dear Mr Clark and Lord Tim Clement Jones,
According to the Prime Minister we're now reduced to importing second hand dreams from the USA. They are to be repackaged and rebranded as the, "British Dream." They are already way past their sell-by date.
These dreams are to be based upon an unquestioning and uncritical belief in something that doesn't exist - free markets. Having been mis-sold PPI and with one market failure after another under their belt, its now time for the Conservatives to mis-sell us, "dreams."
The Prime Minister's British Dream came with a warning,
"So don't try and tell me that free markets are no longer fit for purpose."
thereby contradicting her earlier admission that many (un)free markets were in fact, "dysfunctional" and busily, purposefully and very efficiently, ripping people off.
Q. Mr Clark, by the Prime Minister's very own admission, isn't a, "dysfunctional" market like the one in surveying, no longer fit for purpose?
Critiques US argues,
"Free Market (for Libertarians) is a propaganda term by which Libertarians actually mean unregulated markets. Free markets cannot exist: they are an ideal model in economic theory. The vast majority of uses of, "free market" are actually about real, regulated, imperfect markets, which are very little like free market models. Truly free markets would include markets for anything, including murder, and require perfect information and perfect competition."
The British Dream is thus to be based upon an ideal economic model that doesn't exist in reality. It requires perfect information and perfect competition. To those true believers obsessed with what they take to be an exemplary model of economic organisation, such technicalities are an irrelevance. We believe that this raises serious issues concerning the exemplary model of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) being sold to consumers by the Ombudsman Services, CEO and Chief Ombudsman.
This is because what exists in reality needs to be measured against this model's requirement for a) perfect information and b) perfect competition.
Q. Mr Clark, the information Ombudsman Services:Property now make available to property complainants has all but vanished. Is this not highly dysfunctional and shouldn't the Prime Minister not now intervene?
Q. Mr Clark, how can consumers make an informed and rational decision as to whether to use this private redress scheme to resolve their dispute with surveyors (and at such a deeply emotional time for them) when there is such scant information upon which to make that judgement?
Q. Mr Clark, we have seen how the previous Chair of Ombudsman Services has openly called for a monopoly in ADR. As a result Ombudsman Services would face no competition as there would be no other redress schemes in the market. Isn't this also highly dysfunctional and shouldn't the Prime Minister now intervene?
In her conference speech the Prime Minister stated,
"The free market - and the values of freedom, equality, rights, responsibilities, and the rule of law that lie at its heart - remains the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created."
Where to begin? Perhaps Al Franken's, "Lies. And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them?"
Q. Mr Clark, where was the rule of law when consumers were mis-sold PPI?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, where was the rule of law when consumers had their complaints maladministered?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, don't the executives of Ombudsman Services have a responsibility to their consumers to abide by company's the Terms of Reference?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, why is your workforce denied the protection of whistleblowing policy and their right to freedom of expression as given in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, in the UK courts individuals have the right to appeal decisions. Why isn't this right available to consumers who have received an illogical Final Decision from the Property Ombudsman?
As for, "freedom" it's clear that markets - including the private market in so-called, "civil justice" - are to all intents and purposes free to do as they please.
For example,
"Hundreds of thousands of people write to companies only to be fobbed off with cut letters that either dismiss their complaint or leave them trawling laboriously from one department to another. Tellingly, the BLSB's fifth most common complaint was about complaint handling itself....sadly, it's often only dogged persistence or the threat of legal action or exposure in newspapers such as this one that yields results."
The rigged market in complaint handling appears to directly contradict Mrs May's misplaced and out-dated faith in last century's model of (un)free markets - unlike the Model T Ford which at least got people to where they wanted to be. Most of the time.
Someone should try telling her that.
No comments:
Post a Comment