Mrs Rudd's Broken Solution To The Broken Market In Immigration. (44)
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for justice for the
victims of failed ADR and failed civil justice.
To: The Leader of the House of Commons / The Business Secretary / The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and to the Chair of Ombudsman Services:
Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up (44)
44) Mrs Rudd's Broken Solution To The Broken Market In Immigration.
In broken Britain there is a super-abundance of broken markets all with their very own bespoke broken solutions. Even the language used by many commentators to describe them is broken.
The inherent racism of this Home Office targeting policy would have remained successfully carpeted by yet amother Full English Cover-Up if it hadn't been uncovered by the investigative journalism of The Guardian and Amelia Gentleman in particular. In, The week that took Windrush from low-profile investigation to national scandal (The Guardian Friday 20th April 2018) in which she reported,
"Seven days ago the government had barely acknowledged the
scandal."
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, handing nearly 90% of property often complainants eyewateringly ludicrous decisions to their complaints is also a scandal. Why have you still not acknowledged it?
The Guardian's Pippa Crerar and Peter Walker tell us:
Home Secretary, Amber Rudd 'deeply regrets' failure to spot scale of Windrush issue
MPs accuse home secretary of protecting PM over ‘hostile environment’ strategy
"Rudd told MPs case workers will be given more discretion to prevent anything similar happening again. Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images
Amber Rudd has been accused of protecting the prime minister over the Home Office’s failure to get to grips with the Windrush scandal, after she refused to identify the “hostile environment” strategy as a major factor."
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, is there not also a, "hostile environment strategy" at Ombudsman Services which is typified by your statement that, "For some consumers our best efforts will never be enough - their expectations of our service and the powers we have to resolve an issue are too great?"
"The home secretary said she deeply regretted not spotting the problem of a generation of Britons being wrongly targeted by immigration authorities, vowing there would be a culture change in her department."
A lot of problems escaped detection at Ombudsman Services.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, why are the leaders at the Home Office, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Ombudsman Services so slow to acknowledge the broken nature of their respective solutions yet so quick to pass the buck and apportion blame elsewhere?
"However, there was immediate confusion over whether she had sanctioned regional targets for deporting migrants, with Rudd at odds with the head of immigration service union who claimed they appeared on posters across the Home Office estate."
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, was a target of a 90% complainant dissatisfaction rate set by the regulator RICS and do you regard meeting this target as a successful outcome to a complex and costly property complaint? "Rudd came under continued pressure over the Windrush debacle at prime minister’s questions when Jeremy Corbyn accused her of inheriting a “cruel and misdirected” policy from Theresa May and making it worse."
The OFT promised the consumer that the Ombudsman Services scheme it had approved and monitored would ensure; speedy, fair and independent redress. That was 10 years ago. As dissatisfaction rates at this private ADR scheme soared from 61% to nearly 90% financial awards plummeted.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, hasn't this also resulted from a cruel and misdirected policy - otherwise wouldn't things be very different with 90% of complainants saying how very happy they were with their respective customer journeys?
"The prime minister struggled to get the upper hand in a series of tetchy exchanges with the Labour leader during which she insisted the government was committed to making sure those who were entitled to be in Britain could remain. May added that it was also right to clamp down on illegal immigration. “Up and down this country people want to ensure the government is taking action against those people who are here in this country illegally,” she told MPs."
The Conservative's Home Office policy would seem to be that individuals - especially individuals who don't happen to be white - are presumed to be illegal immigrants until they prove otherwise - which they can't do because the evidence they need to do so is not available. According to Amelia Gentleman; "May's tightened immigration rules mean officials have begun demanding to see papers, often targeting those they suspect (judging by accents and skin colour) may not have them." And, "It reveals something about Britain that these cases did not attract noisy universal condemnation sooner. Several victims speculated on whether this could have happened to them if their skin were a different colour."
There has also been a total failure by RICS the regulator and its appointed company Property Ombudsman to insist that their surveyors keep and maintain case files and therefore evidence of what they said and what they did when communicating with their clients. Here the discrimination is universal. A near 90% consumer dissatisfaction rate has attracted no condemnation - noisy or otherwise. Even MoneySavingExperts chose not comment on the appalling statistic they'd unearthed.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, why are such inept and appallingly lax standards permitted to continue in an organisation that has a Royal Charter and is expected to act for the public good?
"The prime minister denied the hostile environment had affected the Windrush generation, saying: “The problem at the time is that they were not documented with that right, and that is what we are now putting right.”
Amelia Gentleman names some of the many victims of Home Office racism: Elvado Romeo, Paulette Wilson, Renford McIntyre, Michael Braithwaite, Sarah O'Connor and Anthony Bryan.
At Ombudsman Services the victims are assigned numbers.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, do you regard the thousands of dissatisfied complainants of Ombudsman Services' civil justice to be a) nameless victims or b) uppity consumers for whom your best efforts will never be enough?
"Earlier this week, Rudd unveiled an emergency package of measures in an attempt to draw a line under the affair, but the Home Office has remained under pressure as new cases continue to emerge."
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, when your CEO and Chief Ombudsman stated that he was providing a broken solution in a broken market was this a similar attempt to draw a line under the affair? "Under the government’s plans, thousands of people will be offered the chance to obtain British citizenship free of charge and without the requirement to take language tests. A compensation scheme for those affected by the failings will be introduced within weeks."
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark and Mr Javid, why aren't the thousands of victims of Ombudsman Services' broken solution being offered the chance of having their cases re-investigated by a fair-minded and totally independent person (or persons)?
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"During her grilling from the home affairs select committee on Wednesday, Rudd remained steadfastly loyal to May." "The home secretary, who Tory ministers expect to survive in her role as long as no new scandals emerge, was accused of protecting the prime minister, her predecessor at the Home Office, after refusing to say whether May was responsible for the department ending up too focused on policy, rather than people."
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, your CEO and Chief Ombudsman describes consumers using his service as a stock of work to be assigned a number - ours is 510458 - and then disposed of speedily and effectively. Why do you not extend your victims the courtesy of asking them whether they thought their customer journey was satisfactory or not? “I think the Home Office needs to have a more human face ... I’m trying to look forward to make those changes now. I want the Home Office to have more personal focus,” she said. However, asked whether the fault lay with changes that she had implemented, rather than her predecessor, she said: “That would be for others to judge ... I don’t think I can give a clear answer to that.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark and Mr Javid, why did government monitors of this government approved scheme judge the Ombudsman Services scheme to be successfully meeting the targets it set when almost 90% of complainants thought otherwise? "Labour’s John Woodcock, who sits on the committee, told Rudd: “You could give a clear answer but you’re choosing not to because you’re choosing to protect the previous incumbent of the home department, who is the prime minister.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark and Mr Javid, why has no-one from government or Ombudsman Services given an answer as to why this scheme's solutions were broken?
"The home secretary also refused to identify the so-called hostile environment immigration policy brought in by May – which requires people to proactively prove their status – as a specific failing."
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, isn't a broken solution a specific failing of your ADR scheme?
"Rudd again appeared to deflect blame from the current government, saying the Windrush problem had been around for decades, and it was “disappointing no previous governments saw this coming.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, DJS Research's Customer Satisfaction Reports for Ombudsman Services detailed how the CEO and Chief Ombudsman's solution was broken, why have government monitors and this company's executives deflected the blame onto consumers whose expectations of the service have been, "too great?"
"Lucy Moreton, the head of the ISU immigration workers’ union, told the commitee that the changes introduced by May in 2011 had made a difference.
Before then, she told MPs, immigration case workers dealing with a Windrush generation person could assess their case by checking their knowledge of events such as the 1977 silver jubilee and the the 1976 drought, adding: “That level of discretion is no longer permitted.” Rudd later said she hoped to give immigration staff more discretion to assess people’s cases to prevent anything similar happening again. Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones, when almost 90% of property complainants say that their cases have gone wrong why did you fail to address and fail to produce an Annual Report for 2017?
"She also told the MPs that the government was still checking to confirm no Windrush citizens had been wrongly deported, and had not yet begun to assess how many might have been detained over their supposed immigration status. Asked by the committee chair, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, when she first learned of the issue, Rudd replied: “I became aware over the past few months, I would say, that there was a problem of individuals I was seeing. “This was covered by newspapers, and MPs bringing it forward anecdotally over the past three or four months, and I became aware that there was a potential issue.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, when independent research showed complainant dissatisfaction to be rising year on year why did it only become apparent to you when MoneySavingExperts' report for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Consumer Protection - Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform inadvertently gave the game away?
"She continued: “I bitterly, deeply regret that I didn’t see it as more than individual cases gone wrong that needed addressing. I didn’t see it as a systemic issue until very recently.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, why has no-one in government or at Ombudsman Services expressed any regret - deep or otherwise - for what has gone wrong and for what has still not been adequately addressed - is this not also a systemic issue?
"The home secretary paid tribute to the “extraordinary job” done by the Guardian’s Amelia Gentleman, who had been highlighting the issue for more than six months." Rudd caused confusion over the existence of regional targets for deportations, which she claimed to be unaware of, prompting Cooper to suggest that she might “lack a grip” on the system. She confirmed she had asked for more removals to take place generally, of around 12,000 people a year, adding that there was “nothing wrong” with trying to remove people who were here illegally. However, after the hearing, Moreton said: “Net removal targets certainly do exist, and I’m somewhat bemused as to why the home secretary would say they do not.” The home secretary denied that the Tories’ target to bring net migration below 100,000 – which she has previously refused to say whether she would stick to – had fuelled the saga.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, the RICS monitor Ombudsman Services for what it determines to be the effective resolution of disputes. Is a 90% complainant dissatisfaction rate, "effective?"
“I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it. It’s wrong to think the net migration target is the problem here. The problem here is that people were not properly documented,” Rudd said. She denied she had discussed the net migration target in the context of the whole Windrush scandal with May, but refused to be drawn on “private conversations” they have had more generally on the issue. Satbir Singh, chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, told the MPs there was now a “decision-making culture of suspicion”, based around “inflexible and unrealistic evidentiary burdens”.
At Ombudsman Services complainants were confronted by an ombudsman who arrived at decisions in an illogical, investigating officers who didn't understand the complexity of property disputes and misrepresented the evidence which forced complainants to attempt to submit further evidence and/or seek to challenge those seriously flawed decisions.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, doesn't the predetermined nature of the Property Ombudsman and her team's - decisions (otherwise wouldn't they have been radically different) also suggest inflexible and unrealistic evidentiary burdens were placed upon complainants?
"Singh said that even though he is a UK national born in the country, he was recently asked to prove his immigration status when renting a flat. As his passport was at an embassy to get a visa he missed out. He said: “That, for me, was a clear coalface indictment of how this works.” A Home Office spokesperson said: “We want immigration enforcement to deport more people who are here illegally and tackle illegal immigration which puts pressure on taxpayer-funded public services and exploits the vulnerable. But it’s never been Home Office policy to take decisions arbitrarily to meet a target.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Javid and Lord Tim Clement Jones, doesn't the staggeringly high dissatisfaction rate with the Property Ombudsman's decisions suggest arbitrary targets also needed to be met - otherwise things would be different but they aren't?
There has been a rush to wind things up at Ombudsman Services. The Full English Cover-Up has clunked into place. And the victims are left cattle-trucked.
Yours sincerely, Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458. The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is at: www.blogger.com - ombudsmans61percent and www.facebook.com - Ombudsmans Sixtyone-percent.
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