The Ombudsman Services Independent Assessor - "Information would not advance your cause." (8)

       Dear Reader,

       Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a

       public inquiry into the RICS and its, "appointed"  company Ombudsman

       Services:Property.

    In the hope of advancing the consumer's cause we sent the

    following email to following government Ministers:

    To the Leader of the House of Commons and

To the Business Secretary:

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-up (7)

8) The Ombudsman Services Independent Assessor - "information would not advance your cause."

If the consumer goes to the Ombudsman Services website, clicks on "For consumers" then clicks on, "Complaints data" then drops down to, "Annual reports" and then clicks on, "annual report" they will read that, "In accordance with the Ombudsman Association's requirements to be open, transparent and accountable, the annual report has details about our performance, accounts and the complaints we have handled."

Only there is no annual report.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, does this not confirm what we have been saying since 2010 that Ombudsman Services is not open, transparent or accountable and the details about its performance since the departure of DJS Research Ltd, have been virtually non-existent?

On the 17th August 2010 Roger Brown of Ombudsman Services wrote,

"In your email you say we have failed to inform you of the contact details for the lay members of our Council. It is not that we have refused rather that the provision of this information would not advance your cause any, as they, like me have no role to play in Ombudsman decisions."

Just as the Property Ombudsman hadn't, "refused" to answer our questions so Mr Brown didn't, "refuse" to provide us with the contact details we had requested. Either way - we didn't get any answers to our questions or the contact details of the Council members.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, is this not a cover-up and if it isn't just exactly where is the transparency and accountability required of Ombudsman Services by the Ombudsman Association?

We contacted the Council of Ombudsman Services anyway

We didn't get a reply from them either yet in the their publication: Resolving complaints fairly is clearly states their job is to, "agree the appointment of the Ombudsman, keep the service independent review our performance and recommend any changes that might be made to the way we work."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, when any criticism of the way the Ombudsman works was being kept from the Council how could the Council possibly do its job?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, was this not a cover-up?

A member of the Council sat on the Member Board of Ombudsman Services.

The consumer is told that;

"Jane is a fellow of the RICS" and "Steven Gould is Director of Professional Regulation and Consumer Protection for the RICS."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, how does having two RICS officials sitting on the Member Board possible satisfy the Ombudsman Association's requirement that this scheme's Ombudsman be - independent?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, how can an Ombudsman who is having their performance monitored by two RICS officials possibly be independent?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, is this what MoneySavingExperts mean when they say that ombudsmen schemes are, "farcical?"

The company's Member Board Minutes of the 9th meeting of the Member Board of the Surveying Ombudsman Service (now rebranded as Ombudsman Services:Property) show that on the 24th July 2008 they took place at RICS Offices 12 Great George Street, Westminster.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, The RICS who can't force their Members or (Un)Regulated Firms to follow their Rules and Regulations and who have, as a consequence, developed practices that do not work in their customer's interests, have, "appointed" Ombudsman Services:Property to appoint an Ombudsman who arrives at decisions in an illogical manner, which apparently meets all of the Ombudsman Association's requirements and whose, "performance" is mulled over at RICS headquarters - all goes to set a worldwide gold standard in regulatory excellence and integrity. Can this possibly be true?

This is the state of pre-Brexit private ADR a landscape where information doesn't advance the consumer's cause. If it's farcical now one dreads to think what it'll be once we've escaped Brussels's regulatory red-tape.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458

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

Ombudsman Services - And The Foreign Secretary's Superb Brexit Model (7)

       Dear Reader,

      

       Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public

       inquiry into the RICS and its appointed company, Ombudsman

       Services:Property. We sent the sixth email in our, "cover-up" series to the following

       government  Ministers:

   

   To the Leader of the House of Commons and

To the Business Secretary.

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up (6)

7) Ombudsman Services - And The Foreign Secretary's Superb Brexit Model.

Dear Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark,

The Foreign Secretary's speech detailing his superb teleological Brexit model, printed in full in the Spectator, came with gobbledygook instructions. Bits were missing. Those that were there don't appear to fit together.

Regarding laws, Mr Johnson stated, "If we are going to accept laws, then we need to know who is making them, and with what motives, and we need to interrogate them in our own language, and we must know how they came to be in authority over us and how we can remove them."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, what were the motives behind the RICS' continuing failure to implement their own Rules and Regulations?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, why do the RICS choose instead to let their unregulated members use their Property  Ombudsman to hand out broken solutions to property complainants?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, how did the RICS come to be in authority over us when they spectacularly fail to apply their own Rules and Regulations and why haven't they been interrogated about this regulatory failure?

The Foreign Secretary spoke of voters' fears and anxieties over foreign laws, removing people from office and taking back control, and ridiculed, "the exact relationship between the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights, justiciable in Luxembourg and the European Convention on Human Rights whose court sits in Strasbourg."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, in a purportedly modern democracy how is it acceptable for those working in the private alternative redress sector to have no statutory right to the protection of a Whistleblowing Policy?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, why is this fundamental human right to free speech being denied them?

He says, "as the PM has said repeatedly, we must be able to take control of our laws...

It would obviously be absurd - if we were obliged to obey laws over which we have no say and no vote."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, is the Foreign Secretary unaware of the pre-Brexit private civil justice being made up behind the scenes and away from public scrutiny and accountability by "farcical ombudsmen?

The broken solution to a broken market over which we - the British consumer - have no say and no vote.

Next, "The British people should not have laws affecting their everyday lives imposed from abroad, when they have no power to elect or remove those who make the laws. And there is no for us to find ourselves in any such position."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, in which case why are the British people in the position where they have no power to elect or remove "farcical" ombudsmen who most certainly affect our everyday lives with their private and broken model of civil justice?

Regarding regulation Mr Johnson believes,

 "It is only by taking back control of our regulatory framework and our tariff schedules that we can do those deals and exploit the changes in the world economy."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, don't we need to begin by first taking back control of the RICS and its regulatory framework - one which has seen an entire market - in surveying - develop practices that do not work in the customer's interests?

Not only does this government appear incapable of regulating this particular regulator, with its "politically influenced" and "engaged" ministers and civil servants, it can't even do a deal with its friends in the DUP. So much for taking on the rest of the world.

He seems to have walked right past The Big Red £350 Million Bus without even noticing it. This enabled him to say,"Freed from EU regimes, we will not only be able to spend some of our Brexit bonus on the NHS - it may be that we will need a regulatory framework, scrupulous and moral but not afraid of the new."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, didn't the Foreign Secretary and his back-stabbing chum promise the British people that they would spend an extra £350 a week on the NHS?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, do you not both agree that we urgently need a RICS regulatory framework one which actually enforces its Rules and Regulations and work to actually benefit  the public and not itself?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, is it not the case that if the RICS actually spent its time regulating its members instead of politically influencing and engaging government ministers and civil servants that there would be no need for its farcical ombudsman scheme?

Mr Johnson believes that, "We will no longer be able to blame Brussels for our woes because our problems will be our responsibility and no-one else's'"

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, if that were indeed the case why has no-one in government taken responsibility for the woes of those countless victims who have fallen prey to the Rev Shand Smith's, "broken solution to a broken market?"

Further, "We are the Olympic gold medal winners in the sport of national self-deprecation."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, shouldn't that be - you are the Olympic gold medal winners at national cover-ups?

Finally, he staggered over the finishing line with a claim that our genius as an island race is, "In its insistence upon democracy, its openness, its belief in the rights of the individual in its protection of our legal system its scepticism about excessive regulation ......" And on and on he went clearly gifted with an egotistical imagination that who can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign Remainers and glorify himself. 

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, where is the democracy when the RICS can politically influence and engage civil servants behind the scenes, where is the openness in a private ADR scheme failing to comply with OFT criteria for its existence, where are the rights of consumers when farcical ombudsmen hand them illogical final decisions, who stood up to protect our judges when the daily Mail called them traitors and where is the excessive regulation at RICS - an organisation that cannot and will not enforce its own Rules and Regulations?

We don't see how Brussels was responsible for any of the above. The Foreign Secretary would make a good - bad - Ombudsman.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services - "Disappointed." (6)

    Dear Reader,

    Thank you for taking the time this Valentine's Day to read about our

    campaign for a public inquiry into the RICS and its, "appointed" company

    Ombudsman Services:Property.

 

To the Leader of the House of Commons and

To the Business Secretary.

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up. (5)

6. Ombudsman Services - "Disappointed."

Dear Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark,

It's interesting to read Roger Scruton, of all people, talking about narcissism and attention-seeking, combining it with a good measure of The National Interest and then fortunately fading from view in today's Telegraph.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, how can it be in the national interest to have a once independent civil service infiltrated by countless RICS "politically influenced" and "engaged" civil servants?

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, as a government do you know just how many RICS people are working at Westminster and have they formed secretive lodges?

 

Perhaps they're that secretive they're yet to come to your attention.

The Tories will win over the electorate by showing they are prepared to put the national interest first

• Roger Scruton

14 February 2018 • 6:00am    (Telegraph 14/02/2018)

The Tories under Theresa May urgently need a philosophy Credit: Victoria Jones/ PA

The Brexit negotiations have made the national interest into the central topic of politics. At a time of narcissism and attention-seeking such as the world has never known, a brief spell of objective debate has been granted. And the public have been gripped by it. There are those foreigners trying to swindle us again! And there are those nationalist Brits trying to swindle the foreigners! Whatever else will emerge from the debates, one thing is certain. We will have learnt that the deep questions of politics, the questions on which all else depends, are not about the future, but about the past. They concern our national inheritance, the hopes and attachments that unite us and the place of our...

We're disappointed to report that at that point, he disappeared into the ether.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, surely one of the deepest questions of politics must be how Theresa May's government sees itself as merely a "customer" of organisations such as Carillion and the RICS?

In an earlier blog we did ask if you were simply office temps for the RICS - and other companies and corporations - with an eye on future lucrative employment with such groups should you successfully complete your internships, but we didn't get an answer.
The Head of the Enquiries and Reporting Centre at the OFT in: Ref EPIC/ENQ/E138617 wrote, "I am sorry to send you what I know will be a disappointing response but I hope this clarifies our position in respect of the complaint you have made. However, if you are unhappy with the way we have dealt with this matter you can make a further complaint to General Counsel's Office (GCO) of the OFT at the above address or by email to generalcounsel@oft.gov.uk"

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark if the person sending this knew it would be "disappointing" then why did they send it - why not send a response that would have made us happy - one that actually answered our questions?

We were told that it would not be an appropriate use of time and resources to answer our questions about the OFT's monitoring of the Ombudsman Services:Property redress scheme.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, is this not a cover-up and if it isn't a cover-up then what exactly it?
Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, if deep questions had been asked of Ombudsman Services:Property by its government monitors, do you not think that the complainant dissatisfaction rate would have dropped dramatically and be nowhere near its currant 80%+ rate?
Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, when an OFT monitored Property Ombudsman arrives at decisions, "in an illogical manner" time after time after time, aren't they to use Roger Scruton's term, swindling the public and why aren't deep questions being asked for it and deep answers being given of it?

Mrs May's government does seem to have a philosophy. It appears to be - admit nothing, deny everything and make counter accusations.

If that's what Roger Scruton means by The National Interest then we clearly need a new National Interest one that's in the interests of all the nation.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.
The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is at: www.blogger.com and www.facebook.com Ombudsmans Sixtyone-percent.

Ombudsman Services' Close And Continuing Relationship With The BEIS - 5

    Dear Reader,

    Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public inquiry

    into the RICS and its, "appointed" company - Ombudsman Services:Property.

To the Leader of the House of Commons.

To the Business Secretary.

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up. Attempt 4.

5. Ombudsman Services' Close And Continuing Relationship With The BEIS.

Dear Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark,

From our Freedom of Information Act request we learnt that your department has a, "close and continuing relationship" with the maladministrators at Ombudsman Services.

We asked your predecessors at the BEIS; Sir Vince Cable, Jo Swinson and Sajid Javid, that when its Property Ombudsman, "arrived at decisions in an illogical manner" and 61% and then 64% of property complainants thought the Ombudsman's decision went partly or totally against them, why they continued to sanction the scheme.

We didn't get a reply.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, was this because our correspondence had been intercepted by a, "politically influenced and engaged" civil servant or that the Ministers were totally indifferent to the plight of property complainants

Thanks to MoneySavingExperts' Report for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Consumer Protection - Sharper Teeth: The Consumer Need For Ombudsman Reform at its discovery of an 80%+ property complainant dissatisfaction rate, we see that trend has gone from 61% in 2009/10 to 80%+ in 2017.

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, when DJS Research Ltd were replaced in 2011, data on complainant dissatisfaction rates ceased being reported on. Was this to cover-up the fact that the Property Ombudsman's investigations of consumer complaints was farcical?

An 80%+ complainant rate is truly staggering. Its CEO and Chief Ombudsman, The Rev Shand Smith describes it as a, "broken solution."

Q. Mrs Leadsom and Mr Clark, as the government approved and apparently, "monitors" this scheme why hasn't it withdrawn that approval and why are you still letting complainants take their complex and costly complaints to it?

The only solution to this broken solution is surely a public inquiry into how RICS, the regulator, failed to police its Members and (Un)Regulated Firms in the first place and how it - and those government monitors - permitted an 80%+ property complainant dissatisfaction rate to develop unchecked.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up (4)

 Dear Reader,

       Thank you for taking the time to read about our campaign for a public

       inquiry into the RICS and its, "appointed" company Ombudsman

       Services:Property.

 

    We sent the following email to those who have or had a responsibility

    for running the OS:Property ADR scheme. There are no RICS contact

       details.

 

To the Leader of the House of Commons. To the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. To the Business Secretary. To the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and to the Chair of Ombudsman Services.

 

Ombudsman Services Part 4: The Full English Cover-Up. (4)

Dear Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid, Mr Clark, Sir Vince Cable, Jo Swinson and Lord Tim Clement Jones,
Isn't is about time there was a public inquiry to investigate our claims that Ministers, "brushed off" ADR abuse allegations?

Ministers to investigate sex scandal 'cover-up' amid claims officials 'brushed off' child abuse allegations

Ministers have launched an investigation into claims that foreign aid officials brushed off allegations of child abuse committed by aid workers.

telegraph.co.uk

Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid, Mr Clark, Sir Vince Cable, Jo Swinson and Lord Tim Clement Jones, the Ombudsman Services website states under ADR entity reporting that: "As part of our ADR approval, under Schedule 5 of the regulations, we are required to produce annual activity reports which are available here:" Why is there NO entity report for Property and why is there no Annual Report?

Surely, what's good enough for Priti Patel is good enough for the 80%+ property complainants who thought Ombudsman Services:Property's "investigation" of their complaint was - unfair?

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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

Ombudsman Services - Pt 4: The Full English Cover-Up (3)

To the Leader of the House of Commons.

To the Secretary of State for Housing Communities and Local Government

and

To The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:

Ombudsman Services - Pt. 4: The Full English Cover-Up. (3)

3) "If wrongdoing, abuse. fraud or criminal activity occur we need to know about it, immediately, in full." (spokesperson for DFID)

Dear Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid and Mr Clark,

Most fair-minded individuals would fully concur with the above statement regarding the shocking activities of certain Oxfam aid workers - people did need to know about it, immediately, and in full.

We sincerely hope that this correspondence reaches you and is not, once again, intercepted by a, "politically influenced" and "engaged" RICS civil servant as would appear to be the case with our previous hundreds of attempts to contact you.

There is an alternative explanation which is that you have absolutely no wish to know about the RICS with its broken market in surveying or its company - OS:Property - with its broken ADR solution to that broken market, then, now or at anytime in the near future for that matter and definitely not in full.

That being so, it is clear that the same standards required of Oxfam by the FDID were not and are not being applied to Ombudsman Services:Property by the Department of BEIS or the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Otherwise, action to protect the consumer from this private redress scheme's, "broken solution" would have happened the moment DJS Research Ltd were producing their highly critical Customer Satisfaction Reports of this Property Ombudsman's "solutions.". Instead, the government monitors took no action - not even when CSRs for the Property Scheme mysteriously and inexplicably came to an abrupt end.

Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid and Mr Clark, why don't exactly the same exacting standards that apply to Oxfam, apply to Ombudsman Services:Property and what its Chief Ombudsman and CEO, The Rev Shand Smith calls its, "broken solution to a broken market?" 

The evidence shows that the company were responsible for the, "broken solution" that most certainly helped to further break the already broken market.

According to DJS Research the market was already shattered by 2013. As were a majority of complainants.

The Head Of ERC @ the OFT.gsi.gov.uk wrote to us: Our ref EPIC/ENQ/E/138617 8 February 2013:

"I should also stress that the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007, which is the legal basis for the OFT overseeing estate agents redress schemes, states that - the OFT may withdraw approval of a redress scheme. This gives the OFT a power, rather than a duty, to withdraw the scheme leaving us the option to take other action to remedy problems should we feel this to be appropriate."

(----- ------ Head of the Enquiries and Reporting Centre)

Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid and Mr Clark, when Gillian Fleming, the Property Ombudsman, "arrived at decisions in an illogical manner," when there was a consensus of opinion that the Ombudsman was not an impartial investigator of complaints and when so-called financial-awards were reduced from £1.511.75p to £50, why didn't the OFT withdraw its approval?

Q. Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid and Mr Clark, when this company ceased to produce Property Customer Satisfaction Reports why did the OFT consider this to be, "appropriate" and therefore take no action to protect the consumer?

MoneySavingsExperts reveal a present-day consumer dissatisfaction rate of over 80%+ which the government clearly believes to be, "appropriate" otherwise it would have intervened to protect the consumer.

It seems there is no; wrongdoing, abuse, fraud or criminal activity at this private redress scheme - just a broken solution.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert - Workstock Number - 510458.

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