Ombudsman Services Part 5: Saj'll Fix It? When? (2)

To: The EU - Justice Sub-Committee:

           Dear Committee Member, 

We see that Mr Javid is about to fix the Tory Party. Perhaps he should have begun by fixing The Broken Solution on offer at Ombudsman Services.

     

To: The Leader of the House of Commons / The Business Secretary / The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. and the Home Secretary:

Ombudsman Services Part 5: Saj'll Fix It? When? (2)

Dear Mr Javid,

When you were the Business Secretary, Ombudsman Services failed to produce a Customer Satisfaction Report for its Property scheme and failed to give a detailed breakdown of its, "financial awards" or an explanation as to how they were arrived at. This contravened OFT criteria. The awards stood at £50.

We sought to raise these issues with you but without success.

We asked you a number of questions about The Broken Solution on offer at Ombudsman Services but never got a reply even though the company has a close and continuing relationship with your department and so - we assumed - you would have been fully aware as to what went on at this ADR scheme.

Our first question to you was:

1) Mr Javid, Business Secretary, doesn't the fact that RICS Members and (Un)Regulated Firms' fees pay for the scheme and that their Director of Professional Regulation sits on the Board, not  create a conflict of interest?

 

Question 2 was;

       2) Mr Javid, Business Secretary, when the Director of Professional 

       Regulation sits on the Board of Ombudsman Services and each

           year his Members and (Un)Regulated Firms send more and more of

       their dissatisfied clients to The RICS ombudsman, doesn't this just

       serve to confirm  what the late Consumer Focus had said all along -

       that RICS' inability to adequately regulate their Members and

           (Un) Regulated Firms has led to practice that do not work in their

           customer's interests - practices like handing their dissatisfied          

       clients £100 for a wrecked dream?

Lewis Shand Smith has told the Guardian that his solution is broken because ombudsmen need a regulator. However, when you were the Business Secretary, RICS the regulator, had their Director of Regulation sitting on the Ombudsman Services company Board. As he also sits on the Board one would think Lewis Shand Smith would have known this.

The thousands of consumers who had their dreams shattered by Lewis Shand Smith's broken solution deserve an urgent explanation as to what went on and what went wrong at this government monitored scheme.

Please fix it.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Please comment. Please join  our campaign for a public inquiry into the RICS and its Broken Solution - Ombudsman Services:Property.