Ombudsman Services:Property - 80%+ Customer Dissatisfaction Rate. (10)

Dear Reader,

      

       Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public

       inquiry into MoneySavingExperts' farcical ombudsmen. Especially, the ones

       at Ombudsman Services.

 

    We sent the following email to the Business Secretary in the faint hope he

    might take firm and decisive action to protect the consumer from those

    responsible for the farce at Ombudsman Services.

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:

Ombudsman Services Case 510458 - Part 3: Asking Questions Attempt 10.

10. Ombudsman Services: Property - 80%+ Customer Dissatisfaction Rate.

Dear Mr Clark,

Speaking of the collapse of Carillion, Sarah Albon, Chief Executive of the Insolvency Service, said, "one significant constraint is the incredibly poor standard of the company's own record keeping."

We've been attempting to point out to your department and to your predecessors - Joe Swinson and Sajid Javid - the incredibly poor standard of record keeping at Ombudsman Services: Property since the departure of the independent researchers, DJS Research and their highly revealing Customer Satisfaction Reports.

Their final report in 2010/11 said that 64% of property complainants were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the outcome of their case. Yet within a year the new research company were able to report: "Both the quantitative data and the associated verbatim comments showed largely positive findings, with strong levels of satisfaction with enquiry handling and high levels of advocacy of Ombudsman Services. Results were consistent by sector."

It was as if Pep Guardiola had taken over.

Q. Mr Clark, how did your monitors of this government approved scheme account for such a dramatic turnaround?

Q. Mr Clark, why wasn't the new and dramatically reduced dissatisfaction rate included in the data?Q. Mr Clark, we were told by the OFT monitors that not only were the same questions being asked but new ones concerning the company's website were to be included in the new deal as well. Where are they?

For two years there was no reporting on property complaints.

Q. Mr Clark, why not?

Q. Mr Clark, why was this permitted to happen?

Q. Mr Clark, the company went from a remarkable standard of record keeping - DJS Research's Customer satisfaction Reports - to no record keeping whatsoever. Why was this permitted to happen?

Q. Mr Clark, was it in order to cover-up the farcical mishandling of property complaints by the Property Ombudsman?

Anita Stuhmeke identified; "audit" and "inspection" as key forces behind ombudsman schemes and the pursuit of, "integrity" and the measure behind which they should be judged. (In: The Ombudsman Enterprise and Administrative Justice p12)

Q. Mr Clark, what audit and what inspection have the government monitors been carrying out at the Ombudsman Services: Property scheme?

Q. Mr Clark, where is the integrity in a scheme that for two years published no audit of its inspection?

Ayeni and Hossain have argued that the most important objective behind ombudsman schemes should be the promotion of Human Rights. (as above)

Q. Mr Clark, Ombudsman Services doesn't even have a Whistleblowing Policy and thereby denies its workers the Human Right to freedom of expression. Why?

Q. Mr Clark, is to cover-up the fact that their Property Ombudsman is handing out decisions that are, "not arrived at in a logical manner" and slashing financial awards from a dissatisfactory £1.511.75p in 2010 to £50 in 2016?

In the Martin Lewis Report, Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform (Commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Consumer Protection and commended by its Chair Yvonne Fovargue ) we see in the section, "How Would You Describe The Ombudsman's Decision?" that 80%+ said the Ombudsman Services: Property Ombudsman's decision was, "unfair."

In just six years consumer dissatisfaction rocketed from 64% to 80%+

Q Mr Clark, why did the government monitors permit this to grow year-on-year without intervening to protect the consumer?

Q. Mr Clark, what is the government's view on Martin Lewis's figure of a truly appalling 80%+ consumer dissatisfaction rate with the Property Ombudsman's decisions?

Q. Mr Clark, your department has a close and continuing relationship with Ombudsman Services, how do you believe the maladministrators there will sell an 80%+ dissatisfaction rate to you and the consumer?

Q. Mr Clark, do you still assure consumers that the scheme your government monitors will ensure them of fair and transparent redress?

The workers have no Human Rights, the decisions are illogical and the reporting non-existent - welcome to private ADR pre-Brexit.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services - Data Manipulation and, "The Incredibly Poor Standard of The Companys Own Record-Keeping. (9)

Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public inquiryinto the RICS and its appointed company Ombudsman Services:Property. 

We sent the following email to the Business Secretary.

To Business, Energy and Industry Strategy Secretary:

Ombudsman Services Case 510458: Part 3 - Asking Questions (9)

Attempt 9. Data Manipulation and "The Incredibly Poor Standard of The Company's Own Record-Keeping."

Dear Mr Clark,

The Guardian article below reveals accountancy firms, "with close relationships with chief executives" (of Carillion).

 

   That Frank Field believes, "they're all mates aren't they?"

And that one, "significant restraint is the incredibly poor standard of the company's record keeping." (Sarah Albon: Chief Executive of the Insolvency Service)

Q. Mr Clark, couldn't the Guaridan article not also be describing be the RICS and its relationship with its, "appointed" company Ombudsman Services:Property?

The Executive Director of the OFT said the Ombudsman Servives:Property redress scheme had, "successfully met the criteria applied by the OFT." That the redress scheme will provide access to, "free, easily accessible and speedy redress schemes that will ensure fairness and transparency."

It will ensure fairness and transparency.

Q. Mr Clark, you department has a close and continuing relationship with this scheme - why hasn't this free, easily accessible and speedy redress scheme that ensures consumers fairness and transparency, not published an annual report for 2017?

We believe that there is an urgent need for a public inquiry to examine this sector of the rigged redress market. A market that has developed practices that do not work in the customer's interests

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

MPs on the work and pensions select committee were told auditors and Carillion were ‘all mates’. Photograph: Daniel Sorabji/AFP/Getty Images

Britain’s four biggest accountancy companies are facing fresh scrutiny, with the head of the industry watchdog calling for the competition regulator to investigate their auditing activities following the collapse of Carillion.
Stephen Haddrill, the chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), told MPs at a joint select committee hearing on Tuesday that “there should be more competition in the major accounting and audit area”.

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Haddrill said he would ask the Competition and Markets Authority to look at the sector again. In 2013, its predecessor, the Competition Commission, criticised the big four for their close relationships with chief executives.

He was responding to Frank Field, the Labour MP and chair of the work and pensions select committee, who asked whether KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers should be broken up. It is conducting a joint enquiry with the business committee into Carillion’s collapse.
Field noted that two of the construction company’s recent finance directors had previously worked for KPMG and it had audited Carillion’s accounts for the past 19 years. “They are all mates, aren’t they?” he said.
The FRC has opened an investigation into KPMG’s auditing of Carillion’s accounts in recent years. The watchdog started closely monitoring the infrastructure company after it issued a surprise profit warning in July, Haddrill told MPs, but was unable to disclose this publicly because of confidentiality requirements. He agreed those rules needed to be reviewed.
“There must be enormous cause for concern about the way the company was governed. We all look at what’s happened with a degree of incredulity, so we need to look on what basis the directors were making those decisions,” he said.
Haddrill rejected MPs’ suggestions that the accounting watchdog was “toothless” but agreed that it needed more enforcement powers.

Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

It also emerged that Carillion is unlikely to have “enough assets to meet even the cost of winding up the company”, according to Sarah Albon, the chief executive of the Insolvency Service. The group collapsed with £29m in the bank, a £1.3bn debt pile and a pension deficit of close to £1bn.
Albon told MPs that Carillion was made up of 326 companies, 199 of them in the UK, with 169 directors. She said the Insolvency Service’s investigations normally took 21 months and it was putting “considerable resource” into the Carillion inquiry.

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“One significant constraint is the incredibly poor standard of the company’s own record-keeping. It took some hours to identify how many directors we could potentially be targeting,” Albon said.
MPs heard Carillion borrowed to continue to pay dividends, but cited cashflow problems when pension scheme trustees pushed it for higher contributions. According to a parliamentary briefing released last week, it paid out £217m more in dividends than it generated in cash between 2012 and 2016.
Robin Ellison, the chair of trustees of the Carillion defined benefit pension scheme, insisted they had been “as tough as we could be. We weren’t just sitting there playing patsy with the company”.
He noted that the Pensions Regulator, which had had regular meetings with Carillion since 2008, could ask the company to make additional pension payments. “It would have been nice if they’d compelled the company to pay an additional £10m-15m contributions per year,” Ellison said.
He told MPs he was called into a meeting with the Carillion board the day before the company went into compulsory liquidation. “They felt if they could get over the cashflow issue, by the end of the month they would have refinanced the company,” Ellison said.
“I believe that they believed that they had a plan for the survival of the company which was manageable. In the end it wasn’t.”

Ombudsman Services Case 510458: Part 3 - Asking Questions. Attempt 8.

      Dear Reader,

      
      Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public inquiry into the         RICS and its appointed company - Ombudsman Services:Property. 

      And the shambles  that is private ADR.

We sent the following email to the Leader of the House of Commons but fear that it may well have been intercepted by a politically engaged and influenced civil servant. 

 

To the Leader of the House  of Commons:
Ombudsman Services Case 510458 - Part 3: Asking Questions Attempt 8.
8) RICS Politically Influenced And Politically Engaged Civil Servants.

       Dear Mrs Leadsom,

The RICS forced the BIS Secretary to, "fix" the lettings market through its, "political engagement" and "engagement" policies. Policies that influenced MPs, Ministers and Senior Civil Servants.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, how many politically engaged and influenced civil servants are there?
Q. Mrs Leadsom, does that explain why none of our emails to the Department of Business, Innovation and Industrial Strategy or Cabinet Office have been responded to?
Q. Mrs Leadsom, isn't this totally unacceptable in a modern democracy?

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Mandarins would appear to have power but without accountability. Its' not only the Houses of Parliament which needs restoring but the democracy that supposedly goes on within side it.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services / Case 510458 - Part 3: Issue (1) Asking Questions - Attempt (7)

 Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public inquiry into farcical ombudsmen. We sent the following email to the Leader of the House of Commons in the expectation of prompt and decisive action:

   To the Leader of the House of Commons:

Ombudsman Services /  Case 510458:  Part 3 - Issue 1 - Asking Questions. Attempt 7.

Attempt 7. "I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form." Hugh Masekela.

Dear Andrea Leadsom,

From the black-tied Members of the Presidents Club (the Telegraph's secretive titans of business), to the tongue-tied RICS Members of the Ombudsman Service: Property Club - injustice does indeed come in many forms.

There's the institutionalised political incorrectness and sleaze of sections of the business elite to the institutionalised injustice and farce of the private ADR elite via a host of dismal stopping-off places along the way.

It is a remarkable achievement that two female Financial Times scantily-covered undercover reporters should abruptly bring to an end 30 years of what one conservative mp has described as, "slimeball" behaviour at the Dorchester Hotel, by blowing the whistle in the most extraordinary of ways.

As a consequence, Mr Mellor and Mr Mendelsohn have both lost their jobs but Mr Zahawi appears to have kept his thanks to a fortunate early withdrawal. Even the subsequent sackings appear to carry with them an element of injustice.

It is surely farcical that the Minister for Children and Families, who days before attending the Presidents Club Annual Grope should call for improved education standards in Ipswich schools, then chose to attend such an event and subsequently not do the decent thing and resign when caught with his trousers down. (metaphorically speaking).

It calls into question the judgement of those who attend such black tie dinners.

DJS Research, through their Customer Satisfaction Reports, called into question the goings-on at Ombudsman Services:Property. All that happened was that they lost their contract. Events went on as before.  

Q. Mrs Leadsom, would it take the efforts of two further undercover Financial Times' reporters working at Ombudsman Services:Property to expose the farcical goings-on before such similar decisive action is taken?

We wrote to the Ombudsman Services:Property Ombudsman to ask her about her interpretation of the company's terms of reference. We asked;

"5. Ombudsman's Principle Aim:
The Ombudsman's Principle Aim is to receive complaints made by complainants in accordance with these Terms of Reference and to consider and where appropriate, investigate such complaints in order to encourage and/or facilitate the terms of their resolution, settlement and/or withdrawal."

At no time have you sought to do this. I see that (the RICS Firm) after visiting our home uninvited for the xth time, regretted no longer being able to come with an independent surveyor. At no time prior to this was this course of action ever countenanced. Why not?

(To: enquiries@surveyors-ombudsman.org.uk Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2010 11:15:26 +0000)

The RICS Firm agreed to carry out works to our home and then kept us waiting 226 days before we eventually were put into what they describe as a "Complaint Handling Procedure." At no time in this, "Complaints Handling Procedure" did they offer an independent re-inspection. Yet months later in a private message to their Ombudsman (but not sent/disclosed to us) such a course of action was discussed.

When we obtained this undisclosed information through a Data Protection Act request and learnt what was being said between our surveyor and his Ombudsman we asked the firm's Ombudsman to authorise an independent re-inspection of our home.  She refused this request on the grounds that had she considered it necessary at the time then she would have ordered one. But she didn't.

This decision manages to combine:

- not disclosing information when it is her duty as Ombudsman to do so,

- not giving a reason for failing to disclose information,

- not investigating why her fee-paying member hadn't made this offer during the 226 days he kept us waiting.

- not making this offer when we had entered his Complaints Handling Procedure,

And,

- not accepting that there was clearly a problem with the original survey (otherwise why had the surveyor agreed to essential work to be carried out) which clearly needed to be independently verified through an independent re-inspection.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, how much longer must the consumer wait before decisive action is taken by government to protect them from farcical ombudsmen - or do they have to wait for two more Financial Times reporters to do the job for them?

Our favourite Hugh Masekela album is, "Waiting For The Rain."

It cheered us up when it came through our roof and down the walls and we waited and waited for our RICS Gold Standard surveyor to carry out his side of the bargain to put things right.

Something he spectacularly failed to do.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services / Theresa May / Irresponsible Company Bosses / Unacceptable Abuse. (6)

To the Leader of the House of Commons:

Part 3: Ombudsman Services:Property - Case 510458. Issue 1: Asking Questions Attempt 6.

6) Ombudsman Services / Theresa May / Irresponsible Company Bosses / Unacceptable Abuse.

Dear Mrs Leadsom,

We're now being told by Theresa May that she will enact legislation to, "Fine greedy bosses who betray their workers." 

(The Guardian. Toby Helm, Michael Savage and Philip Inman - Executive Pay: I will fine greedy bosses who betray their workers. 21st Jan 2018)

Theresa May will now target, "irresponsible company bosses" and "stamp out abuse." We hope she has more success with this recent idea than her earlier plan to put workers on the boards of companies with all those irresponsible bosses, which came to nothing.

Q Mrs Leadsom, when DJS Research reported that the Ombudsman Services: Property Ombudsman routinely, "arrived at decisions in an illogical manner" why did the company's bosses not stamp out this abuse and wasn't their failure to act grossly irresponsible?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why didn't the government's very own monitors of this government approved scheme intervene to protect ordinary working people and wasn't their failure to act not also grossly irresponsible?

The company's very own Independent Assessor reported the maladministration of consumers' complaints by those at Ombudsman Services.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, wasn't this also, "abuse"?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, weren't the company's bosses being, "irresponsible" in allowing this maladministration to happen?

Q. Mrs leadsom, why didn't the government's monitors of this government approved scheme intervene to protect the consumer?

We're told that, "The regulator will also be given the power to request information about how companies run schemes" which is surely something that should have been in place immediately after the Robert Maxwell scandal.

In the case of Ombudsman Services:Property the regulator is the RICS and it has a Memorandum of Understanding with its, "appointed" company (Ombudsman Services:Property) which enables it to monitor the, "effective resolution of disputes."

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why is a decision that has been arrived at in an illogical manner considered to be, "effective" by the regulator - RICS?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, how do such decisions work to the public's benefit?

Mrs May is again saying that she will, "govern not for the privileged few but for every one of us."

MoneySavingExpert's Callum Mason has described ombudsmen schemes as being a, "farce" (Callum Mason: MSE tells MPs of need for urgent reform to ombudsman, "farce." 1st Nov 2017)

Ombudsmen, with their whistleblowing-data-free farcical schemes, are now part of that privileged few. The many - the 80%+ dissatisfied property complainants according to MSE - would, we would imagine, certainly want someone to start governing on their behalf.

A Prime Minister who sees herself as a, "customer" of such organisations, sub-contracting out ADR/justice to the lowest bidder, doesn't strike us as the sort of person consumers can trust to get the job done. Meanwhile, consumers continue to get done by farcical ombudsmen and their farcical schemes.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why didn't the Conservative government act in favour of ordinary working complainants when we complained to the OFT in 2010 that 61% of property complainants were being given decisions by the Property Ombudsman that were, "not arrived at in a logical manner?"

According to MoneySavingExperts that figure now stands at 80%+.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, isn't that, "an unacceptable abuse?"

Q. Mrs Leadsom, when will it ever end?

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services - Is This Government A Customer Of Ombudsman Services? (4)

    Dear Reader,

    We sent the following email to the Leader of the House of Commons,

   To the Leader of the House of Commons:

Ombudsman Services - Issue 1: Asking Questions (4)

4. Is This Government A Customer Of Ombudsman Services?

Dear Mrs Leadsom,

The Prime Minister said in the House of Commons yesterday that the Government was a customer of Carillion and not that Carillion was a customer of the Government - which would surely have been a more constitutionally appropriate arrangement.

Theresa May seems to be implying that she and her ministers are just the temporary office staff for the people who really matter and who actually run the country - the RICS, the large corporations and the multi-nationals.

A society regulated by a private sense of justice.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, is the Government also a customer of Ombudsman Services?

It would appear that this government has sub-contracted out justice - what it is and how it should be doled out - to private contractors. These private contractors - Ombudsmen - despite ever worsening performance warnings, have continued extracting a profit of sorts for their fee-paying Members in the form of ever diminishing so-called, "financial awards" to their clients - the pre-Brexit consumer.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why didn't the government monitors of this government contracted-out justice scheme intervene the moment its Ombudsman began slash financial awards to property complainants?

Clearly, the RICS fee-paying Members of this RICS appointed scheme - the company's shareholders - benefit greatly from the current arrangement.

"Financial awards" to ripped-off clients are a burdensome tax on their profits. Far better to dream up a scheme that transfers the cost of failure from the company to the consumer. And so, for the price of a case fee this scheme shifts the burden from the culprit - the RICS Member Firm - to their client and victim, the consumer.

This system insures incompetent RICS surveyors against future failure.

For two years, and in contravention of OFT criteria for the scheme's approval, Ombudsman Services:Property failed to produce a report on its performance in handling property complaints.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why didn't the government monitors monitoring this scheme intervene to protect the consumer during these two years ?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, as there was nothing to actually monitor what were the government monitors monitoring?

MoneySavingExperts have used the "F" word to describe ombudsmen - "farcical."

We believe they should have used the, "C" word - "colluding."

The Ombudsman Services:Property Ombudsman's, "financial awards" have plummeted from an average of £1.511.75p in 2010 (which was even then considered far too low by DJS Research) to £50 today.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, in a world in which Carillion executives' bonuses and its shareholders' dividend went up, dissatisfied clients of RICS surveyors' practices that did not work in the customers' interests, went down. Does this not define the reality behind the economics of free market capitalism for the average citizen in England and Wales today - that the taxpayer and consumer will always bail out incompetent companies and their incompetent executives?

The RICS are proud to announce that,

"We are one of a number of professions operating under a self-regulation model, which means our members aren't regulated by government but are internally monitored and inspected. Our self-established standards of regulation meet, and in some cases surpass, the Government's own principles of better regulation."

(www.rics.org)

And yet The RICS also say the can't award compensation or force their Members and Regulated Firms to do anything or refrain from doing anything even if that means they are in breach of RICS Rules and Regulations.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, when the RICS can't enforce their own Rules and Regulations and their Property Ombudsman will not report his/her fee-paying RICS surveyors to the RICS Regulatory Board, where is the pre-Brexit protection for the consumer?

RICS also say,

"The continued demand for Royal Charters, which may seem an antiquated concept, shows they retain their cachet in the modern professional world as a, "gold standard" of excellence and integrity."

This is the same RICS which can't even persuade its Members and Regulated Firms to keep something as basic as a Case File. By any standards - gold or otherwise - this is extraordinarily inept.

When teachers and nurses are stressed to breaking point and quitting the treadmill of their respective record keeping regimes in droves, surveyors have no such worry. No such paper work for them. No such accountability or transparency.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, when there is no record keeping by RICS surveyors what evidence are The RICS internal monitors and inspectors actually basing their inspections and monitoring on?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why - as is the case with Ofsted - aren't these inspection reports published and why isn't there a league table of RICS surveyors so that consumers could have an informed choice of who to employ?

The RICS is overseen by the Privy Council.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, what are the Privy Council monitoring and inspecting?

As of today The RICS' Ombudsman Services:Property are back to their old ways - there is no Annual Report for the whole of 2017.

They would appear to have come off the Gold Standard for private redress.

The RICS have the cachet of their own motto - "Est modus in rebus - there is measure in all things"

All things except the measurement of their surveyors' performance and their ombudsman's performance in resolving consumers' expensive and complex property disputes.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services: Issue 1 - Asking Questions 3: Asking The Ombudsman To Send Our Complaint To The Board.

          Dear Reader,

        

    We sent the following email to the Leader of the House of Commons:

To the Leader of the House of Commons:

Ombudsman Services: Issue 1 - Asking Questions.

Attempt 3. Asking The Ombudsman To Send Our Complaint To The Board.

Dear Mrs Leadsom,

According to John Rawls, "A society regulated by a public sense of justice is inherently stable." (A Theory of Justice p.498)

This Government's approach to regulation and privatisation - far less of the former far more of the latter - has led to a mushrooming of self-regulating private ombudsmen schemes which have bought with them widespread consumer dissatisfaction - a staggering 80% + at Ommbudsman Services:Property according to MoneySavingExpert's Report - Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, Christopher Hamer the former TPO Ombudsman once asked, why it was that regulators didn't get it right in the first place. Mrs Leadsom why don't regulators like RICS get it right in the first place?

In this regulatory wasteland, businesses are left free to develop practices that do not work in their customers' interests. There is clearly a growing public sense of injustice. Our shared regulatory role (if it ever existed) has been steadily usurped by powerful vested interests. Ombudsmen are one such group. Their vested interest is in determining and administering private civil justice and maintaining a steady supply of cases. Cases that result in a 80%+ complainant dissatisfaction rate.

As a result of this unregulated market in private redress, John Rawls would say that society is becoming inherently unstable. 

Q. Mrs Leadsom, don't MoneySavingExpert's farcical ombudsmen have a vested interest in regulators not getting it right in the first place because if they did it would render them redundant?

John Rawls continues, "other things equal, the forces making for stability increase (up to a point) as time passes."

Time, is a huge contributory factor to injustice. Evidence degrades, gets misplaced, victims give up or die. For the victims left waiting in ever longer queues for their ever thinner slice of justice, time is most definitely not a healer.

One of the forces making for increasing societal instability is the refusal - or as the Property Ombudsman would say, failure - of those in positions of power and authority to simply answer our questions.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why is this? And why has it reached such epidemic proportions in a supposedly democratic society?

It would seem that the coach who so expertly schooled the Prime Minister in question-avoiding techniques is the same one used so successfully by ombudsmen. The PM is rapidly reaching their level of proficiency.

Zoe Williams, in her excellent article, "With The NHS Reality Has Finally Caught Up With May" (Sunday 7th Jan 2018) wrote,

"Your answers become more and more inane." Answers such as, 'what I see when I look across the railways is people wanting to provide the best service' and, 'the environment is about a huge variety of things'

Zoe Williams asks, "What does any of this mean? Even you have no idea."

She cites 2016 research by Peter Bull, a psychologist at York University, who published analysis of political interviews. Interviews,

"In which Theresa May emerged as the Prime Minister least likely to give a plain and practical answer to a question. In two interviews he studied, she gave a direct response only 14% of the time. (the average for a politician was 46%)"

Her explanation of the Prime Minister's avoidance technique is clear, precise and illuminating and could equally be applied to certain Chief Ombudsmen and Lead Property Ombudsmen (and possibly ombudsmen in general. They would make a fascinating subject for a possible future Peter Bull research project). She says,

"Her particular formulation - to rephrase a specific question into a non-specific matter of bland principle, then agree with the platitude - appeared to work frustratingly well for a vexingly long time." 

It sums up the Chief Ombudsman and Lead Property Ombudsman's, ploy when "answering" our questions - which was, take the question, turn it around, give it a polish and send it back to you as an answer and then get indignant when you attempt to point out that their answer wasn't actually an answer after all. The Chief Ombudsman told us we were the ones who had misunderstood the Terms of Reference and not the Lead Ombudsman. He didn't explain what is was that we had misunderstood which in itself is yet another example of Peter Bull's 35 ways to avoid directly answering a question - turn it back on the questioner.

With answers like that democracy and justice are, according to John Rawls's formulation steadily becoming less and less stable.

Zoe Williams concludes her article with the warning that,

"A bad government blames its citizens, but citizens can blame back."

At Ombudsman Services a bad chairman blames his complainants. We hope more complainants - MoneySavingExperts 80%+ amongst others - start to blame back too.

From DJS Research's Customer Satisfaction Reports for Ombudsman Services it is clear that Laura Valentini, John Rawls and Zoe Williams's enlightened thinking has yet to reach the Property Ombudsman's office in Warrington.

DJS Research's second report in 2010 at 6.19 disclosed widespread complainant dissatisfaction.

"Dissatisfaction with the overall level of service is perhaps informed the great level of satisfaction with the perceived extent to which the Ombudsman attempted to resolve a complaint through mediation and negotiation."

This failure to mediate and negotiate does not appear to have alarmed the government monitors of this government approved scheme even though the company's Terms of Reference state quite clearly that the Ombudsman had been appointed to the post on the grounds of her mediating and negotiating skills.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, why didn't the government monitors of this scheme intervene to protect consumers from an Ombudsman who didn't successfully mediate and negotiate on their behalf?

We wrote to the Property Ombudsman saying that due to her failure (but not refusal) to answer our questions, we wished to take our complaint to the Council of Ombudsman Services:Property. This was because under, "Ombudsman" - Council 4. Disqualification: It states- (The Ombudsman)

b) does any act or finds himself/herself in any position, in the reasonable opinion of the Surveyors Ombudsman Service Member Board, the Surveyors Ombudsman Service or the Company (that brings it) into disrepute.

We asked the Lead Property Ombudsman:

Q. Does it not bring the Service into disrepute when you accept evidence gathered in this way? Surely the proper thing to do in this situation would have been to have written to The RICS Firm saying evidence gathered in this way was not acceptable?

Q. Why didn't this trigger a reappraisal of all of The RICS Firms so-called, "evidence?" Or does this Service set one standard of service for its Members and another for complainants?

We failed to get an answer.

4 (c) states,

"does any acts or finds himself/herself in any position which, in the reasonable opinion of the Surveyors Ombudsman Service (now rebranded as OS:Property)  Member Board conflicts or is likely to conflict with his/her position and/or the exercise of his/her powers and/or duties as Surveyor Ombudsman Service board member, or the effective operation of the Surveyors Ombudsman Service, the Ombudsman or these Terms of Reference."

We wrote,

"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."

We were informed that taking our complaint to the Member Board would not advance our case.

In this particular scheme the Board won't know if their Ombudsman is bringing it into disrepute because their Ombudsman won't tell them but we still don't understand why the Board should think an 80%+ complainant dissatisfaction rate is in anyway, satisfactory..

Trevor Buck, Richard Kirkham and Brian Thompson tell us,

"The ombudsman is an institution endowed with remarkable power that itself needs to be called to account. Not only can an ombudsman fail due to error or incompetency, but an ombudsman can fail through timidity."

(The Ombudsman Enterprise and Administrative Justice)

Q. Mrs Leadsom, who in government is calling this remarkably powerful institution - Ombudsman Services - to account? Certainly not the government monitors.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, when an ombudsman arrives at decisions in an illogical manner and fails to successfully mediate and negotiate on consumers' behalf, do you consider this to be a failure?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, if you do agree then is it a failure due to; error, incompetency or timidity or a combination of all three?

In a society regulated by a public sense of justice surely an Ombudsman's investigation of consumer's complaint should set the truth free, not imprison it. 

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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