The Ombudsman Association and MoneySavingExpert's Recommendation for a Gold Standard in Ombudsmanship. (715)

715. The Ombudsman Association and MoneySavingExpert's Recommendation for a Gold Standard in Ombudsmen.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog about private ombudsmen and their schemes. 

Ombudsmen and their organisations have a strong aversion to answering questions. They are accountability institutions who work hard and succeed at not being held accountable.

This is the consumer protection landscape pre-Brexit - one where 80%+ property complainants at Ombudsman Services:Property thought theProperty Ombudsman's decision had been "unfair." (Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform p60)

We wrote to the Director of the Ombudsman Association on 21st April 2016:

Dear Director,

We did try writing to you earlier in our campaign to complain about the following:

Your Association - The British and Irish Ombudsman Association (BIOA) - clearly state in its Rule, that to be an associate member each ombudsman scheme is required to have a Whistleblowing Policy.

This seemed fair and reasonable to us.

One member of you Board is CEO and Chief Ombudsman for Ombudsman Services. Ombudsman Services does not have a Whistleblowing Policy.

Q. Why is this person a Board member when the scheme for which he is CEO does not have a Whistleblowing Policy?

Q. Why is Ombudsman Services permitted to remain a member of your organisation when it doesn't have a Whistleblowing Policy?

We were told be the BIOA secretary that he, "was in the process of reconfirming the membership of all existing members" and "could not help us further."

In short, you did nothing about the Ombudsman Services' deliberate breach of

your own Rules.

It would seem that when a member - Ombudsman Services - breaks your Rules  of Membership, instead of expelling that member you simply amend the Rules to accommodate them. And thus it became no longer a requirement for your members to have a Whistleblowing Policy.

The BIOA - now rebranded as The Ombudsman Association - state in their present day Rules; "The Ombudsman Association will only give recognition to Ombudsman's Offices whose primary role is to handle complaints about; unfair treatment, poor service, maladministration or other inequitable conduct of those subject to investigation."

(www.ombudsmanassociation.org/doc/OA-Rules-Schedule1)

You will be shocked to learn that last year that the Ombudsman Association's Independent Assessor wrote the following,

"I was concerned by the scale and significance of the failings I found in certain cases. I was surprised to find such instances of maladministration in an ombudsman organisation."

(For The Good - annual report and accounts 2014-15)

The Independent Assessor was surprised by the scale and significance of maladministration.

We weren't in the least bit surprised because we've had dealings with this organisation and the scale and significance of the maladministration comes as no surprise to us whatsoever.

However, if the BIOA (now rebranded as The Ombudsman Association) had acted on our earlier complaint a significant number of consumers might have been spared; the inadequate conduct, the poor service, the unfair treatment and the maladministration of their complaints by Ombudsman Services.

Q. What do you intend to do about these instances of maladministration by your Board Chairman? Cover them up again?

Yours sincerely,

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign.

cc. To the MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport.

We didn't get a reply to that either but it must of huge concern those who still believe they're living in the mother of all democracies to learn that those private ombudsman schemes that now make the Rules - and determine civil justice - can break them so easily and with apparent total impunity.

What does that say about the quality and integrity so-called, "investigations" of consumer complaints conducted by individuals who arbitrarily ditch Whistleblowing Policies and engage in significant maladministration?

And what does it say about MoneySavingExpert's Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform - recommendation that: The Ombudsman Association should become one of the bodies that determines a Gold Standard in Ombudsmanship?

Our recommendation is that there urgently needs to be a public inquiry into scheming ombudsmen and their farcical schemes.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert. - Workstock Number - 510458.

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is at: www.blogger.com and www.facebook.com Ombudsmans Sixtyone-percent.