The "Ombuds watchers": Collective dissent and legal protests amongst users of public services ombuds. (Creutzfeldt N + Gill C) Social and Legal Studies. "Watching The Watchers Watch Ombuds Watchers Watch Ombudsmen And Ombudswomen. A reply by The Ombudsmens61percent Campaign.

The "Ombuds watchers": Collective dissent and legal protests amongst users of public services ombuds. (Creutzfeldt N, + Gill C.) Social and Legal Studies. "Watching The Watchers Who Watch The Ombuds Watchers Watch Ombuds*" A reply by The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign. Dear Friend, The speed, fairness and independence of a nation's justice system is a measure of the health its democracy. Judging by the short reign of terror at the government approved and "monitored" Ombudsman Services:Property it is now on life-support: "Ombuds watchers": Collective dissent and legal protests amongst users of public services ombuds. (Creutzfeldt N, + Gill C.) Social and Legal Studies. "Watching The Watchers Who Watch The Ombuds Watchers Watch Ombuds*" A reply by The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign. If RICS the regulator and the government monitors of the government approved Ombudsman Services:Property had done the jobs they were paid to do then there would have been no need for us to write this reply. But they didn't. And so we are. We were inspired to respond to Creutzfeldt N+Gill C's article by: Huw Beynon's, Working For Ford / Get Up Stand Up | Playing For Change | Song Around The World (13.769.897 views) / Eyal Weizman +Fazal Sheikh: "The Conflict Shoreline, Surprise and Disappointment" / that private sector ombuds were excluded from this article / a difficulty with the terms, "Against the law" and "With the law / a disagreement with the authors over some of their conclusions and continued focus on the watchers and not the watched / a need for a rigorous understanding of ombuds and how and why they operate in the way they do and an objection to being labelled a, "watcher." "Watcher: a person who watches television or films - Cambridge English Dictionary." Or, "Watcher: a person who closely follows or observes someone or something - Merriam-Webster Dictionary." The second definition is slightly less demeaning. "Watchers," if our experience is anything to go by, do a great deal more than just watch. Perhaps "activists" or "protesters" would be a far more suitable word for their hours of voluntary unpaid activism and banging of heads on doors that never seem to want to open. There is no lottery funding or charitable status available for the likes of us. The authors seem to acknowledge this on p. 33 in their section: A Collective Approach to Gaming and the Communal Dynamics of Protest. Collective "protest" being "the means through which complainants rendered helpless could regain a voice" rather than being "shut out in the cold." "Protester" or "activist" seem far more appropriate lables to be given. The authors begin by stating, "The article argues that legal consciousness provides an appropriate theoretical lens for studying user experiences of ombuds processes and a useful framework for understanding the ways in which people make sense of experiences, construct ideas about justice and make decisions about what action to take in response to dissatisfaction." Is it not also a political consciousness? Isn't the whole process of being systematically denied justice by the state and its civil servants and politicians - political? Especially when the financial stakes are so high as they were at Ombudsman Services:Property. We're not talking about a kettle that refused to boil. The Ombudsman Services:Property ombudsman, Gillian Fleming was moved to write that the financial implications of a £25K award made against her fee-paying members could be crippling especially at a time of financial constraint. She forgot to mention the financially crippling effects of NOT making such an award to complainants at just such a time. They were, after al, the aggrieved party. The link between fee-paying members who fund the "service" and ombuds' decisions and their pro-business ombudspeak could be easily followed until 2011 when DJS Research were suddenly replaced and the company minutes disappeared from it website. However, for future researchers of ombuds schemes such a line on enquiry is surely essential if academics are serious about understanding the political-economy of ombuds in rigged (or captured) market economies in the early 21st century. (2) The approach adopted by Huw Beynon's in, "Working For Ford" was markedly different and succeeded in giving the production line workers he surveyed a sense of worth and dignity. They were able to forge a collective response something that we accept is denied to complainants. Perhaps a buddy/advocacy network needs to be established so that already stressed complainants have somebody (or body) to help through their "customer journey?" The workers at Fords responses to the situation they'd been placed in and how they sought to assert control over a work load imposed by an assertive management are - explained. The "ombuds" in Creutzfeldt +Gills' paper remain shadowy figures. The starring actors never set foot on the stage. Many people who turn to these "ombuds" - a wide range of individuals all with varying skills (some with very few) - but all sharing that same ridiculous name - are often desperate and vulnerable people. Their experiences of the Byzantine / Kafkaesque / mind-numbingly idiotic processes and ombudspeople they come up against in their hours of greatest need can be - and often are -traumatic. Especially so when handed an eye-wateringly ludicrous decision for all their trouble. And no hope of appeal. The "Final Decision." It sounds eerily like something out of Germany between the two world wars especially when The Rev Lewis Shand Smith, CEO and Chief Ombudsman kept referring to the people he was sitting in judgement on as: a stock of work. Each given a number and then summarily dispatched. There is no in-depth analysis of what led ombuds watchers / activists / protesters to fight back. No Weberian "ideal-type" ombuds or Gold Standard as Martin Lewis (1) erroneously insists upon from which named ombus all-too regularly diverge or what led to that divergence. And which caused some to fight back. With Huw Beynon you knew why the good guys were good and why the bad guys were bad. The workers were most certainly going to stand up for their rights. When we were promised by Jonathan May of the then OFT a "speedy" fair" and "independent" "investigation" of our complaint by Gillian Fleming the then property ombudsman At Ombudsman Services:Property that is what we expected. When we got the opposite we too decided to stand up for our rights. How did this particular ombuds diverge from an ideal type of ombuds - one that is: fair, speedy and truly independent? Please see: www.blogger.com Ombudsmans Sixtyone-percent. But surely it is the ombuds who should be being placed under the researcher's array of theoretical templates and probed by their investigational tool-kit and not just those victims who chose to fit back? In: "The Ombudsman Enterprise + Administrative Justice" (2011) by Buck t, Kirkham R and Thompson B Ch 6 "Accountability" - we read that the ombudsman enterprise is an, "unelected institution employed to provide assurance to Parliament and the wider population as to the efficacy of Government - the interaction of these different bodies is important if the most effective form of accountability is to be achieved. The ombudsman is an institution endowed with remarkable power that itself needs to be called to account. Not only can an ombudsman fail due to error or incompetency, but an ombudsman can fail through timidity." We believe the ombuds we came up against - the one who DJS Research described as: "arriving at decisions in an illogical manner" who didn't "routinely ask her members questions" or answer ours is ably described by the above authors. Perhaps their - error / incompetency / timidity schema could form a grid into which all ombuds can be allocated according to their proneness for: error, incompetency and timidity? We also had some difficulty understanding Figure 3: An integrated legal consciousness model for analysing interactions between citizens and ombuds systems. (p20) It seems that after being fitted-up by the ombuds responsible for their injustice the activist/protester is then being fitted into a grid - a grid which really doesn't seem go far in explaining the causes of that injustice in the first place. It would be interesting to know if they were indeed victims of: error / incompetency / timidity or a combination of all three? And we are talking about ombuds injustice on an industrial scale. A production-line of injustice. With assertive ombuds all spouting ombudspeak. Much of which makes little or no sense. How can Lewis Shand Smith's "superb model of ADR" at Ombudsman Services need to be "closely and honestly looked at" if it truly were, "superb?" Do we want empirical scholarship for empirical scholarship's sake when thousands of anonymous individuals are being mugged by largely unregulated and unaccountable ombuds? Ombuds who routinely fail Buck Kirkham and Thompson's need to be held to account? When citing Hertogh's, "anonymous people who have lost confidence in the law" shouldn't the focus of attention be on: * the decisions that caused those people to lose confidence? * the individuals/ombuds who caused them to lose their confidence? In a modern democracy worthy of its name ALL such decisions must be digitalised and put on the internet for public scrutiny. That would help to resolve the accountability and transparency deficit. A standardised form, scrutinised regularly by a combination of MPs. consumer groups and protester/activists. We would question why in the low grid/low group individual dissent section such individuals are described as being "with the law." If you are resisting the law how can you be, "with the law?" The idea that individuals, "Defer" to appalling ombuds decisions is also problematic. The authors claim: "Alternatively, deference may have a more positive form as individuals feel personally aggrieved, but recognise the the fundamental legitimacy of the outcome and need to defer to community values." Why would individuals feel the need to be personally aggrieved if the outcome is legitimate? Or how can you combine feeling, "personally aggrieved" at an appalling miscarriage of justice and accept that a shockingly bad decision is, "legitimate?" Placing people somewhere on a grid comes at a cost. The words we use to describe who we are and what we attempt to do are enormously important - it's what helps make watchers / activists / protesters: watchers / activists / protesters. The words Creutzfeldt and Gill use to describe us and what we do seem at times remote. We agree that the, "law's hegemonic role in sustaining domination" (Morgan Kuch 2015) is in urgent need of understanding given we are now living through what one former ombudsman has called, "the Golden Age of the Ombudsman." So that these "Golden People" can be suitably regulated, held to account and perhaps even have some of the shine taken off them when imprisoned. That would in itself require a radical understanding of the historical context in which these new Sun Gods came to flourish: a time when British capitalism dominated by a free market ideology demanded de-regulated markets and a bonfire of the regulations. A time when rigged or "captured" markets (Piketty) gave rise to rigged and captured redress. Or as one Ombudsman Services Annual Report put it - our members want to see that their money is being spent wisely - that we are adding value to their business practices. No mention of complainants' practices. Their "outcomes" certainly did add that value. It's how ombuds made redress: "Good For Business." Huw Beynon's use of structured interview surveys in, "Working For Ford" might have been helpful in the research and on page 21 the authors admit as much. They say, "This would have allowed us to deepen our analysis of ombuds watchers legal consciousness." But what of their political consciousness? An examination of ombuds legal/political/economic consciousness would be timely and interesting especially given their habit of: error / incompetency and timidity. But what about the validity of the activists' campaigns? And why isn't there a grid or continuum being devised into which ombuds and their schemes can be placed to publicly account for their: fairness, speed and independence in resolving complainants' disputes. As well as their: error / incompetency and/or timidity? And one also for the regulators which would help explain why regulators regularly don't get it right in the first place. The question as to why the formal justice system should cause so many to question - and some to resist it - never seems to get asked. We are told on page 16 "They eventually dissent from the wider system of political and legal redress which they come to see as complicit in preserving an unjust status quo. Importantly, that status quo is understood by the ombuds watchers as legally sanctioned, with ombuds being a part of the legal and political system that is, in the words of one of the groups, 'corrupt by design.'" Isn't it corrupt by design? If it wasn't wouldn't it look very different? If it actually did all the things it said on its tin we wouldn't be here would we. But we are. Surely, an analysis of its design couldn't but show it was designed - for it members benefit: to add value to their business practices? Having Gillian Fleming lower so-called financial awards "significantly" could only add to that "benefit." One ombuds, "benefit" is another protester's, "corruption." The Rev Lewis Shand Smith, former Chief Ombudsman and CEO at Ombudsman Services, liked to describe his, "superb model of ADR" as being, "Good For Business." This seems to be as good a starting point as any: Good For Business. Why not deploy it as an ideal type and one to measure ADR schemes against? This could be contrasted with a: Good For Consumers ideal type and a league table of ombuds schemes produced quarterly. Those responsible for their scheme's performance could be held to account by a panel of MPs and ombuds watchers / activists / protesters. With quarterly League Tables of ombuds performance published in the Daily Mail. For example: * Do they offer fee-paying members, "value for money? * Do they add value to their members' business practices? * Do they cut financial awards when asked to do so? * Do they hand out illogical decisions? Or * Do they offer complainants speedy justice? * Do they offer the right financial compensation? * Do they raise financial awards when asked to do so? * Do they allow the complainant the right to challenge those decisions? Is the ombuds: * prone to error * prone to incompetency * prone to timidity or a combination of the above. We should like to suggest academics use Ombudsman Services:Property as a case study. How did it go from being a superb model of ADR to bust in less than a decade? Where was government whilst this happened? Where were the MPs? You are welcome to use the information gathered at www.blogger.com Ombudsmans Sixtyone percent to help you. Ombudsman Services have removed the data detailing the calamity that was its Property "brand" from the historical record. OS:Property could become an "ideal type." The ultimate ombuds case study of the early 21st century. And where did the Ombudsman Services executives attribute blame for its spectacular failure? The system of course. Its new Chair, Tim Clement Jones even blamed complainants for complaining when his "best efforts" were seen by many of them as simply not being good enough. No mention of the individuals it failed or the "detriment" those nameless but numbered individuals suffered. We are - and remain: Case 510458 of The Rev Lewis Shand Smith's workload. One recipient of an OS:Property decision, "Not arrived at in a logical manner" was Julia: "We chuckle when we read the reply from our surveyor to our complaint - please refer to the Surveyors Ombudsman!! That was a no risk strategy for them! It has been eye-wateringly ludicrous! We have suffered financial loss and severe health issues. I really do want to tell my story if for nothing more than to help other people" Isn't now time for academic scholarship/research to cease being a "no risk strategy?" Isn't it time it came down off the fence and helped the victims? It's as if The Good Samaritan is being rebuked for failing to administer open-heart surgery or a brain scan in the case of the OS:P ombuds. What is needed is access to the 84% of dissatisfied complainants at Ombudsman Services:Property and a structured survey of their own experience. Something that DJS Research were doing until their contract was mysteriously terminated. We asked the OFT about this. We were told by the HEAD OF ERC@OFT Our ref EPIC/ENQ/E/138617 - "I have investigated this matter and understand that OS:P has confirmed that the new company will ask the same questions as those used on previous surveys, with the addition of some new questions about the OS:P website." This simply didn't happen. Why? Again Buck, Kirkham and Thompson's Ch 6 is important. Who is holding this powerful institution to account? Just ombuds activists and Buck, Kirkham and Thompson it would seem Q. Why replace DJS Research with another research firm that was going to ask the same questions? When this didn't happen - when the same questions weren't being asked - and when there were NO Property CSRs an innocent bystander couldn't help but come to the conclusion that the executives were intent on breaking the downward spiral of their mishandling of consumer complaints. We wrote to and phoned Ombudsman Services and asked for the contact details of all those property complainants who had unaccountably NOT been asked the same questions but were told that the information we sought was covered by the Data Protection Act. It seems that the law really does protect those who least deserve it. The Chair of Ombudsman Services at that time, Dame Janet Finch, a Professor of Sociology, seemed to have a phobia for statistics and questions concerning her Property brand. We would like to recommend that Chairs of ombuds schemes should be the subject of far greater scrutiny too. Huw Beynon gave us a lasting statement of workers' experiences when on the production line a Ford Motor Co. He didn't sit on the academic fence. The mass production of appalling decisions by legal and quasi-legal ombudsman schemes has all but succeeded in doing the opposite - the victims' experiences are deliberately not being recorded. Their stories aren't being told. Silence is the order of the day. Apart, that is, from the efforts of ombuds watchers / activists / protesters. And Julia. And where ARE the politicians and academics in all of this? Our appeals to Labour's Yvonne Fovargue and Helena Kenndy's committees fell on deaf ears. Three times we contacted all Labour MPs with an email and twice all members of The House of Lords. Baroness Stowell was the only respondent. It seems that no matter what their stated political orientation is when it comes to holding ombuds to account they all stampede for the exit. Career ending issues? ombuds and anything to do with ombuds. We found it difficult to fully understand the second type of Deference mentioned by Creutzfeldt and Gill- "Alternatively, deference may have a more positive form, as individuals feel personally aggrieved, but recognise the fundamental legitimacy of the outcome and need to defer to community values." Again, why would individuals feel personally aggrieved if the outcome of their case was fundamentally legitimate? On p.20 we're told, "In terms of resistance, this may initially take the form of individual dissent, where legal appeals and other strategies (such as writing to MPs or newspapers) are designed to address a perceived injustice." Why is the injustice, "perceived?" It's either an injustice or it isn't. Our appeals for help to our MPs - one Conservative, Oliver Colvile, and one Labour, Luke pollard - are case studies in themselves and show the enormity of the problem. When a Labour Party MP is less helpful than his Conservative counterpart there really is a mountain to climb. Which is why Eyal Weizman and Fazal Sheikh's The Conflict Shoreline and what happened at al-Araqib a historic Bedouin site is so inspirational. Bulldozed more than ninety times the several dozen residents still return and - with help from Israeli activists - rebuild their homes and their lives. Taking on the ombuds establishment is a walk in the park in comparison. Although some help wouldn't go amiss. On page 24 there's a: Critique of the Ombuds' Inquisitorial + Bureaucratic Justice. They say, "The inability to satisfy complainants they have received a fair hearing is important to the watchers' critique who argue (in line with procedural justice theory - Lind+ Tyler 1988) that it should be possible to satisfy the parties even when the outcome is unfavourable: If the SPSO delivers a quality report, both sides should be satisfied). If it's a quality report it will be unfavourable to one side. Why at Ombudsman Services:Property was it 84% of the times unfavourable to those bringing the complaint? Why was the ombuds' decision 84% of the time in favour of fee-paying members? This is akin to complainants rolling the dice 100 times and getting 1: 84 times. Yes the dice IS loaded. It would seem that the ombuds was insufficiently inquisitorial on a great many occasions. You could be forgiven for believing it was the fee-paying member who was complaining about their client such was their rate of success. Inquisitorial? We were told by the Ombudsman Services:Property ombudsman Gillian Fleming she, "Did not routinely ask questions." So we asked her - how can you conduct an investigation of a complaint if you don't answer questions? She didn't answer the question. We asked her for a face-to-face meeting (as was our human right). This was refused on the grounds that had she thought such a meeting necessary she would have ordered one at the time. She might have, "arrived at decisions in an illogical manner" (DJS Research) but wasn't illogical enough to risk a face-to-face meeting with us. We have pages of this sort of stuff. One wonders what one is supposed to do in a democracy in which ombudsman don't ask or answer questions, MPs most certainly don't and the media doesn't either. Nor it seems do academics. Mortgages and careers are at stake. What Is To Be Done? We're too old and peace-loving for the armed struggle. Our final area of disagreement is with what is found on page 32. Creutzfeldt and Gill say that the second position adopted by some ombuds activists is, "interestingly naïve" and, "given the cynicism which the watchers express about the judicial system and its involvement with maintaining the status quo." Yet on page 28 we're told by (LW- a watcher / activist / protester) that, "The political establishment is ... very reluctant to call into question the integrity of the institution." Just ask Yvonne Fovargue and Helena Kennedy and ALL Labour Party members / members of the House of Lords. Please do. We have but without success. Rather than falling into the trap of being, "interestingly naïve" the authors opt for option 1. An informal, people-friendly arrangement of local committees. Which begs the one big question - why would the hegemonists of the state/quasi-state political-economic-judicial system relinquish their power and be held to account for their corruption, cover-ups and calumny by groups of public spirited, sandal wearing vegetarians? (we include ourselves in this appropriate stereotype) The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking: * Answers from; Vince Cable, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid, Jonathan May, Lewis Shand Smith, Dame Janet Finch, Grant Shapps, Nick Clegg, Steven Gould, Greg Cark, Francis Maude, Gillian Fleming, Andrea Leadsom, Sir Tim Clement Jones, Clive Maxwell, Yvonne Fovargue, Helena Kennedy, Chuka Umunna. * A public inquiry into Ombudsman Services:Property (a company formerly trading as The Surveyors Ombudsman Service or SOS) and the role of The RICS in its "effective resolution of disputes." * Compensation for the victims of illogical Final Decisions. * The setting up of a truly: fair, speedy and independent ADR scheme. 1) Martin Lewis: Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform. For Yvonne Fovargue's APPG. 2) Thomas Piketty: Capital in the 21st Century.