Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform

Dear Reader,

We sent the following email to a Labour MP:

    Dear, 

Thank you for both taking the time to read our email and then to respond to it.

You are one of the very few people since 2010 to do so.

Unfortunately, we do not share your enthusiasm for Martin Lewis' Report - Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform or understand why it has been so widely seen as a balanced document.

A report into what MoneySavingExperts describe as, "farcical ombudsmen" is - we agree - long overdue but we maintain that their recommendations for a, "gold standard" would merely exacerbate an already dire situation for consumers and would most certainly not guarantee them the protection they have every right to expect.

It speaks volumes about the parlous state of British justice and democracy when its citizens should actually need protection from ombudsman - farcical or otherwise.

We've sent over 1200 emails to the BIS - now the BEIS - with just one reply (we were redirected to the Health Secretary) and in that time have seen Consumer Focus (who raised the issue of the RICS failing to adequately regulate its Members and (Un)Regulated Firms) come and go along with Jo Swinson MP and Sajid Javid MP. Even the quote we used from Consumer Focus has vanished from the record.

The BEIS seem to be ideologically welded to a de-regulated marketisation of everything that hasn't already received the same treatment, and this includes the private market in ADR. As such, a private company such as Ombudsman Services is save from the onerous responsibility of having to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests.

This is a, "civil justice" enterprise with self-appointed ombudsmen and executives who arbitrarily determine what is and isn't, "civil justice." They do so with to all intents and purposes - no meaningful transparency or accountability.

Indeed, the government's supposed, "monitoring" of this scheme on behalf of the taxpayer is itself a scandal.

To suggest, as Martin Lewis does, that the BEIS (along with the Ombudsman Association) should somehow determine what is a, "Gold Standard" for ombudsmen is itself farcical.

As for the Ombudsman Association, it is the ultimate old boy/old girls' club and as we have shown fails (like the RICS) to apply its own rules to its members. We thought the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership would look aghast at an organisation that once had a Whistleblowing Policy as a criterion for ombudsman scheme membership but appears to removed it so as to accommodate The Rev Lewis Shand Smith (former OS board chairman) and his Ombudsman Services scheme which at a time when schemes needed just such a policy - didn't have one. And continues not to have one.

Not one worker employed by ombudsman schemes has the protection of a Whistleblowing Policy, and as a consequence, the right to freedom of speech as enshrined in the Human Rights Act. Why is the Labour Party silent on such a fundamental right of workers - especially those working in the civil justice industry?

To again suggest as Martin Lewis does, that the Ombudsman Association should also play a key role in determining a, "Gold Standard" for ombudsman is, we believe, equally farcical. 

On the record, Allan Meltzer is quoted as saying, "We don't have a gold standard. It's not because we know about the gold standard. It's because we do." (My Friendly Debate With Allan Meltzer The World's Leading Monetarist. Jerry Bowyer. Forbes/Contributor Opinions).

 

Winston Churchill's decision to fix the price of gold at $4.86 was an error that led to the depression, massive unemployment and the 1926 General Strike. He had earlier memorably said of the miners, "Drive the rats back down their holes." So much for their human rights. It was Austerity Churchill-style.

We came off the Gold Standard in 1931.

We need something radically different. An independent body to determine who should be an ombudsman, what their role is and how their performance in that role should be judged.

Martin Lewis' Report does not give a compelling reason as to why these two organisations should be given such a responsibility or on what evidence this recommendation was made. We're merely told that he had, "on the record" conversations with certain people, We aren't told who these people were or what went on the record. We are thus unable to see it and judge it for ourselves. We just have his word for it as a self-appointed expert.

What must be of enormous concern constitutionally and democratically are self-appointing, self-regulating and self-clubbing individuals with a very swanky name - ombudsmen - colonising the justice landscape and claiming it for themselves. In doing so that have been ably aided and abetted by their pro-business and pro-market colleagues in Parliament.

What has emerged is a private state within the state.

Surely, what we as consumers and citizens need, are ombudsmen who are totally transparent and totally accountable to both Parliament and the people for their decisions. To ensure that such decisions are never again illogical but always fair and just, an independent body with the sharpest teeth and brains is needed to ensure that that is what happens for each and every complaint and for each and every complainant.

If that isn't at the heart of what the Labour Party is about then self-regulating farcical ombudsmen will simply continue to treat consumers as second-class citizens whose customer journeys through the ADR landscape often see them alone and abandoned by the wayside.  

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number 510458.

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is at www.blogger.com and www.facebook.com Ombudsmans Sixty-onepercent.