To: The Leader of the House of Commons / The Business Secretary / The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government / The Home Secretary and The CEO, The Chair of Ombudsman Services and Chief Ombudsman of Ombudsman Services:
Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up (57)
57) Private ADR That Is - Not Fit For Purpose.
Dear Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Brokenshire, Mr Javid, Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith,
OMG, yet another branch of this rotten Dutch-elm diseased government is not, "fit for purpose." The Guardian tell us:
Miscarriages of justice body is not fit for purpose, lawyers say
Criminal Cases Review Commission has systemic failures, survey finds
The lawyers have accused the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which decides whether alleged miscarriages of justice should be referred to the court of appeal, of systemic failures.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Brokenshire, Mr Javid and Mr Shand Smith, isn't an Ombudsman scheme which - as a matter of routine - hands out decisions not arrived at in a logical manner and which maladministers consumers' complaints not also guilty of systematic failures and why didn't government monitors intervene to protect the public from such abuse?
Amid concerns that the referral rate has dropped significantly since the CCRC was established, the Guardian has been given exclusive access to a survey of the lawyers’ experience of the body’s investigations into 33 alleged miscarriages of justice.
The results suggest lawyers see a common pattern of failings such as not interviewing witnesses, not understanding the significance of non-disclosure, not visiting the scene, and a misunderstanding of key points of law.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Brokenshire, Mr Javid and Mr Shand Smith, DJS Research reported that Ombudsman Service investigators; did not understand the complexity of property complaints, misrepresented information and had a Lead Ombudsman who arrived at decisions in an illogical manner which resulted in complainants attempting to submit further evidence and to challenge those appalling decisions - without success. Why didn't the government monitors of this government approved scheme intervene to protect consumers?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, is what you mean by A Broken Solution In A Broken Market?
“The CCRC has become an office-bound, moribund organisation,” said Matt Foot, of Birnberg Peirce. “The people employed there are not qualified to do what they’re doing, and often don’t understand the law. It’s become a different organisation to what it was set up as. The biggest problem is that it doesn’t actually investigate.”
We asked the Lead Property Ombudsman, Gillian Fleming, to ask our surveyors, Monk and Partners, to answer our questions and she declined but did not refuse to do so. Whatever that means.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, how on earth can a Lead Property Ombudsman investigate a consumer's complaint if she doesn't routinely ask questions?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, is this what you mean when you say you are offering, A Broken Solution In A Broken Market?
The CCRC, which began its work in 1997, has about 600 cases under review at any one time. It has the power to refer cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland back to the court of appeal. It can only do so, however, if it concludes there is a real possibility that the court would quash the conviction.
The survey, which follows the launch of an all-party parliamentary group last November to highlight miscarriages of justice, has been submitted as part of a response document to the Ministry of Justice triennial review of the CCRC. Signatories to the response include Birnberg Peirce, the Cardiff University Innocence Project and the Centre for Criminal Appeals, a charity working with alleged miscarriage cases.
In 2017, MoneySavingExpert's Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform stated that nearly 90% of property complainants thought the Property Ombudsman was, "unfair." A truly staggering figure. A truly staggering degree of unfittedness for purpose. Hundreds of cases urgently need to be reviewed.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, is this what you mean when you say you were offering A Broken Solution In A Broken Market?
The body will face further pressure on Wednesday when a BBC documentary will disclose internal board meeting minutes that its says show the organisation is struggling with its workload.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith. we asked you questions about your company's minutes - minutes which stated you could not cope with the number of complaints and did not have suitably qualified staff o handle them. Is this what you mean when you say you were offering A Broken Solution In A Broken Market?
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, why did you remove your company's minutes from your website? Was it to cover-up the fact that you didn't have a clue as to what you were doing?
The minutes, obtained by the Centre for Criminal Appeals, show that case review managers have to cope with “large, sometimes unworkable portfolios”, typically managing 24 cases at any one time.
The CCRC, which has an annual budget of about £5m, told the BBC’s Panorama programme: “The board [minutes] show … we share our concerns within the organisation and take them seriously. Our workload has increased in recent years and budgets have not.”
The Ombudsman Services' Annual Reports and minutes reveal an obsequious need by those at OS to show that they were spending their members' money wisely...adding real value to their business practices etc. etc.
Q. Mr Shand Smith, wasn't this obsessive need to be seen to be spending your members' money wisely, the root cause behind your Broken Solution?
Sir Anthony Hooper, who retired in 2012 after eight years on the court of appeal, told Panorama that the CCRC has been compelled to become more cautious because the court itself was increasingly resistant to legal challenges.
“It’s become much more difficult for an appellant to succeed … and therefore that will no doubt influence [the CCRC] on what cases that they send through,” Hooper said. Asked if he was believed the bar currently set by the court of appeal was wrong, he said: “I’m saying that.”
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, truth be known - to investigate a complex property dispute thoroughly and impartially requires skilled officers who are fearless and prepared to act without favour - who even ask questions. This all takes time and costs money. Isn't this something your fee-paying Members refuse to sanction but it would not add value to their business practices?
The lawyers’ survey states that a record low of 0.77% of cases seen by the CCRC were referred back to the court of appeal in 2016-17. “Almost all the cases being prepared by professionals working in this field are being refused,” said Foot.
Q. Mr Shand Smith, why did so many cases that went to the further representation stage, fail?
Q. Mr Shand Smith, when so many cases failed was it because your fee-paying Members had insisted on setting the bar ridiculously high in order to ensure that their money was being well spent?
The CCRC was established after a royal commission on criminal justice report in 1993 examined a series of high-profile wrongful convictions, including those of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six. The RCCJ report concluded that the Home Office was not sufficiently independent to investigate miscarriages of justice, so the new statutory body was set up. But the current rate of referrals is far lower than when the Home Office was responsible for miscarriages of justice.
Q. Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, MoneySavingExperts report a near 90% dissatisfaction rate from property complainants. Doesn't this convincingly suggest that your Broken Solution is totally lacking in independence?
Dennis Eady, a case consultant for the Cardiff University Innocence Project, said so few cases were referred back to the appeal court because the CCRC’s remit was too narrow. The CCRC will only refer cases on a legal technicality or when there is significant new evidence.
“That remit has been treated increasingly conservatively,” Eady said. “Sometimes there are clear miscarriages of justice but it’s very hard to get new evidence. Under the current system there is almost nothing you can do in those cases.” The RCCJ report initially proposed that cases could be referred back to the court of appeal if there was any doubt over the safety of a conviction.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Brokenshire, Mr Javid, Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, when an Ombudsman arrives at decisions in an illogical manner and nearly 90% of complainants state they have been treated unfairly isn't this also a miscarriage of private justice?
The lawyers’ document calls for the threshold of new evidence to be changed. “The statutory test therefore must be changed in line with that suggested by [the Ministry of] Justice and the RCCJ in 1993 as a first step to reform, ie a test that requires the CCRC and the court of appeal to consider holistically whether a miscarriage of justice may have occurred for whatever reason.”
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Brokenshire, Mr Javid, Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, aren't Ombudsman Services' miscarriages of justice down to a Property Ombudsman not asking questions, forensically examining the evidence, actually investigating the consumer's complaint but being obsessively concerned to be seen spending the Member's money, "wisely?"
The document argues that the current referral rate of 0.77%, down from an average of 3.3%, is partly due to a shortage of funds and suitably qualified staff. “The CCRC is currently not fit for purpose, due to resourcing and skills limitations that lead to outright investigation failures, internal cultural problems and an inapposite legal test that it must apply,” it states.
Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Clark, Mr Brokenshire, Mr Javid, Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith, when investigating officers cut and pate the ombudsman's signature onto reports and send them out to complainants as if they've been investigated by the ombudsman and then have a party to celebrate, is this a cultural problem and is it not also A Broken Solution?
The survey results suggest that in 81% of cases seen by the lawyers who responded, the CCRC failed to obtain the documentation it would need from the police or others to assess whether evidence had been hidden. In 69% of cases it failed to interview potentially significant witnesses, and in 48% of cases it failed to understand relevant law, the lawyers said.
The CCRC declined to comment on the survey’s findings.
Q. Mr Shand Smith, why did you repeatedly refuse to a) comment on DJS Research's findings and b) act on them?
The only fair and just solution to Lord Tim Clement Jones and Mr Shand Smith's Broken Solution is a public inquiry and reinvestigation of those appallingly "investigated" complaints.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number 510458.
The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is at: www.blogger.com and www.facebook.com Ombudsmans Sixtyone-percent.
