To: The Leader of the House of Commons / The Business Secretary / Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and local Government and Chair of Ombudsman Services:
Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover- Up (41)
41) If Only Ofsted Had Inspected Ombudsman Services....
Dear Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones,
Our local community school hasn't done very well in its recent Ofsted inspection.
We know this because within a day of the report being published I got a text message from a neighbour providing a link to the actual report whilst another stopped me in the street to give me all the gory details thus saving me the trouble of reading it myself as I'd promised to do.
Neither neighbour have children who go to the school yet their knowledge of its failings are A class. They've both obviously done their homework.
The second neighbour hadn't long moved into the area and got on to the subject of surveys - new roof and rodents. Surveyors? "You don't know if they're any good until it's too late."
As a professional body surveyors knock spots off teachers.
Imagine the NUT regulating education, "politically influencing" and "engaging" civil servants, Ministers and MPs in order to "fix" the market whilst setting up their own "appointed" company to handle complaints brought by aggrieved clients.
The nearest Ombudsman Services came to a meaningful inspection was when DJS Research conducted 3 Customer Satisfaction Reports for the company. 3 Reports that would have put a school into special measures but not Ombudsman Services who simply got rid of their inspectors and found new ones who weren't at all critical of the farce that was unfolding.
Ombudsman Services would have us believe that they have an educational role. They tell us:
Education
Ombudsman Services: Property is much than just a complaints handling organisation. Helping business to get it right first time to reduce consumer detriment is a big part of an ombudsman’s role. We are unique in that we have more than 8000 firms under our jurisdiction which equates to more than 14000 offices. |
"Ombudsman Services:Property is much than just a complaints handling organisation."
We're so glad we're not the only ones who can't write a proper sentence or spell tickety-boo correctly..
The company claims that a big part of what they actually do is help businesses, "get it right first time." Unfortunately, this extravagant claim isn't backed up by the available data - data which tells anyone who cares to search for it that
surveys and evaluations remain the most complained about issue concerning property complainants and upon which they make expensive purchasing decisions.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, doesn't appear to have been relying on a RICS survey when purchasing several apartments recently but a wealthy Conservative Party donor, for the rest of us who do use the services of RICS surveyors why has your organisation failed to help them get it right in the first place?
Not only do RICS surveyors not get it right, "first time" but they appear to have found a perfect way of passing that, "detriment" on to their clients.
The 2016 Annual Property Report states:
Key Themes
Many complaints continue to be driven by poor communication and poor complaints handling. Often a simple misunderstanding about roles and responsibilities then met with poor communication and poor complaints handling, drives complaints
which otherwise would be avoided.
(1) We regularly encounter an absence of effective record keeping both in terms of office records and records of on site inspections.
In terms of surveying specifically, dampness remains the single most complained about issue, followed by timber, rot and woodworm, roof, services and Japanese knotweed.
(2) Often poor record keeping alongside a lack of holistic thinking –not following the trail, and incorrect assumptions drives survey reports not to accurately reflect the condition of the property on the date of inspection. |
Regarding (1) above. Through a Data Protection Act request to Ombudsman Services we discovered that the surveyor we'd employed had written a serious of notes/memos to his Ombudsman bemoaning the fact that in, "hindsight" he should have done just that: confirmed things in writing and kept a log of all those site visits.
Fortunately, we'd kept photocopies of the letters we'd sent him and which set out a time line of events. The Property Ombudsman did not refer to them when making her decision thus siding - it would seem - with her fee-paying Member. Otherwise things would have been different but they weren't.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, isn't a key part of your company's, "broken solution" the bizarre failure of the Property Ombudsman to actually look at the evidence?
As for, "arriving at decisions in an illogical manner" -
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, if the RICS surveyor actually did regret, "not confirming things in writing" why didn't he send us copies of his correspondence to his Ombudsman and why didn't the Ombudsman give us a reason for not disclosing them as is required by the companies Terms of Reference?
Regarding (2):
We were told by the Property Ombudsman that we'd waited almost a year before complaining when in fact a letter we'd written to the Firm clearly stated otherwise. There was no copy of this letter in the Firm's case file. No log of our visits to their offices or phone conversations either.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, aren't you even worse at, "educating" your fee-paying Members than you are at, "investigating" them?
The RICS have a Memorandum of Understanding with their company and closely monitor its performance to ensure the, "effective resolution of disputes."
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark and Mr Javid, why do the Privy Council permit an organisation with a Royal Charter - RICS - to fail the British public in this way - where is the, "public good" in that?
Teachers are regulated till the pips squeak, surveyors aren't. It's gone way past being, "farcical" when a private redress scheme can't even be made to publish an Annual Report on its "performance" and account for it in a 21st century democracy. It's The Full English Cover-Up.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.
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