Accountability 5. (525)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 525.

525) Accountability 5: Making It Right - Customer Satisfaction Reports.

Dear Mr Clark,

The Ombudsman Services executives talk about, "Making It Right" but where to start? Perhaps with their unsatisfactory Customer Satisfaction Reports.

There is so much that this company needs to do regarding making it right for the complainant that the sensible thing to do would be to close them down and take the whole sorry mess into public ownership and control. We need to take back control of ombudsman defined, "civil justice."

Their 2015 Property Report is a case in point.

It's now a pale imitation of what went before. In the good old days of DJS Research, complainants were actually asked what they thought of the way in which their complaint had been investigated. Not any more. Why not? Because most thought that their customer journey was a nightmare and the executives have decided to bury the bad news about their abysmal performance.

Don't just take our word for it - judge for yourself. Simply go to www.ombudsman-servces.org and compare the information for 2015 with that of 2010.

The Rev Smith and Prof Finch have eviscerated the, "Property Report" and it now stands at a whopping one page. (well 2 if you count a page of self promotion) Down from 8 in 2010. So much for accountability. However, that one page does contrast remarkably with what is said on page 21 of their main report. Here we are told;
"81% said they were satisfied with the mutually accepted settlement process."

81% no less!

That's incredible, especially when you set it alongside what is reported in the Property Report. Here things are significantly different - but you have to search for it as the truth is hard to find - 2% of complainants settled for a, "mutually acceptable" outcome of their case. That leaves a staggering 98% who had an, "ombudsman decision" forced upon them.

For 98% of property complainants the ombudsman's decision was not mutually acceptable.
An overwhelming complainant rejection of Prof Finch's new fangled way of, "resolving" disputes.

As for accountability - what did the 98% actually think of their customer journey? We don't know because The Rev Smith and Prof Finch didn't bother to ask them. When complainants were asked way back in 2010 most said it was, "very unsatisfactory."

So just how did The Rev Smith and Prof Finch make it right for 98% of property complainants? The citizen has a right to know.

Q. Mr Clark, how does this shameful lack of Ombudsman Services' accountability meet the European Directive 2013/11/EU requirement for ADR schemes to be - accountable?

Accountability 4: The RICS "Monitor" Ombudsman Services:Property's Decisions For Effectiveness. (523)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 523.

523) Accountability 4: The RICS Monitor Ombudsman Services:Property's Decisions For, "Effectiveness."

So, sadly, no independence there OS:Property.

Dear Mr Clark,

The EU Directive 2013/11/EU (21st May 2013) insists that;
"32: The independence and integrity of ADR entities is crucial in order to gain Union citizens trust that ADR mechanisms will offer them a fair and independent outcome."

Although, apparently, unable to adequately regulate their Members and Regulated Firms in the first place - why? - the RICS have put in place a Memorandum of Understanding with its, "appointed" company and monitor it closely for its "effectiveness" in resolving citizens' disputes with its inadequately regulated Members and regulated Firms. It also has )or had) its placement sitting on the Board of the company.

Q. Mr Clark, how can our citizens trust a mechanism that has been rigged by the RICS from its top to its bottom?
Q. Mr Clark, where is the independence that the EU Directive insists upon when Ombudsman Services:Property clearly sits in RICS' pocket?
Q. Mr Clark, how can citizens trust The Rev Smith and Professor Dame Janet Finch when they preside over a company that maladministers our citizens' complaints?
Q. Mr Clark, how can citizens trust The Rev Smith and Professor Dame Janet Finch when they also preside over a company which hands our citizens illogical Final Decisions?
Q. Mr Clark, where is the integrity that the EU Directive insists upon when OS:Property maladminister our citizens' complaints and hand them illogical Final Decisions?

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Francis Maude, Michael Fallon, Jonathan May, Monk and Partners, Gillian Fleming, The Rev Smith, Oliver Colvile, Dame Janet Finch, Dame Julie Mellor, Nick Clegg, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid and yourself.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company which formerly traded as the SOS before undergoing rebranding) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Dcisions and its executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS malign influence.

Please comment, share your story and join the campaign either by contacting the blog or by emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmmail.com. Many thanks. Steve Gilbert.

Accountability 3: The BIOA Hallmark of Fair Redress.(522)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 522.

522) Accountability 3: The BIOA Hallmark of Fair Redress.

Dear Mr Clark,

Government guidance states;
"An effect (and BIOA compliant) Ombudsman scheme can be the hallmark of fair redress. It is important therefore that anyone establishing such a scheme should consult with the Cabinet Office which acts as a Government liaison point on Ombudsman matters, and also provides the channel of communication with BIOA."
(New Ombudsman schemes:guidance 21st September 2010)

We attempted to liaise with the Cabinet Office over the illogical Final Decisions flooding out of Ombudsman Services:Property but no one took the time or trouble to respond to our concerns thereby condemning hundreds (if not thousands) to a similar fate - an illogical Final Decision from the OS:P ombudsman.

Q. Mr Clark, Ombudsman Services' illogical Final Decisions and maladministration is extremely effective but how is it BIOA compliant, how is it a hallmark of fair redress and does it comply with the European Directive on fair and effective ADR?

The Ombudsman61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Francis Maude, Michael Fallon, Jonathan May, Monk and Partners, Oliver Colvile, Gillian Fleming, The Rev Smith, Dame Janet Finch, Dame Julie Mellor, Nick Clegg, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid and yourself.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company formerly trading as the SOS before undergoing re-branding) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration.
-  the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS' malign influence.

Please comment, share your story or join the campaign either by liaising with the blog or by emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmail.com. Thanks. Steve G. 

Accountability 2: The BIOA Has Considerable Experience And Expertise. (521)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 521.

521) Accountability 2: The BIOA Has Considerable Experience And Expertise.

Dear Mr Clark,

According to the Government's, "New Ombudsman schemes: guidance" (Sept 21st 2010) the British and Irish Ombudsman Association - now re-branded as The Ombudsman Association (OA) - has;
"considerable experience and expertise, gained since its inception in 1993, in the establishment and running of Ombudsman schemes."
(www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-ombudsman-schemes-guidance)

The BIOA',s (OA's) Chair is also the CEO and Chief Ombudsman of Ombudsman Services. He has an Independent Assessor. In her, "First and final report" the organisation's Independent Assessor stated;
"I was concerned by the scale and significance of the failings of certain cases. I was surprised to find such instances of maladministration within an Ombudsman organisation."

The scale and significance of such failings + maladministration = considerable experience and expertise. Extraordinary.

Q Mr Clark, if your Government is going to cull badgers on the flimsiest of evidence shouldn't you now, at long last, take action against maladministrating ombudsmen the scale and significance of whose failings are now well documented?

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Francis Maude, Michael Fallon, Jonathan May, Monk and Partners, Gillian Fleming, The Rev Smith, Dame Janet Finch, Dame Julie Mellor, Jo Swinson, Nick Clegg, Sajid Javid, Tom Cobley and yourself.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property  (a company which formerly traded as the SOS before being re-branded) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS malign influence.

Please comment, share your story and join the campaign either by contacting the blog or emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmail.com. Thanks. Steve Gilbert.

Accountability 1: The British And Irish Ombudsman Association (BIOA), The Cabinet Office, Ombudsman Services and The Rev Smith. (520)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary.:
For Clarity - Attempt 520.

520) Accountability 1: The British and Irish Ombudsman Association (BIOA), The Cabinet Office, Ombudsman Services and The Rev Smith.

Dear Mr Clark,

Naomis Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill's workshop with Ombudsman Watchers highlighted the huge and systemic failing of ombudsman schemes to be, in any meaningful way, accountable.

At about the same time as we were attempting to contact Francis Maude to complain about Ombudsman Services, the Cabinet Office issued the following guidance to the British public in September 2010;
"3. The British and Irish Ombudsman Association (BIOA) is a voluntary organisation to which all of the Ombudsman in the UK and Republic of Ireland belong. It has considerable experience and expertise, gained since its inception in 1993, in the establishment and running of Ombudsman schemes."
(www.gov.uk/governemnt/publications/new-ombudsman-schmes-guidance.)

Part of that supposed expertise included the insistence that Ombudsman Schemes wishing to become members of its organisation must have a Whistleblowing Policy.

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign thought that was both fair and reasonable.

To any fair-minded person, a Whistleblowing Policy seems to be a fundamental and essential corollary to accountability. Like seat belts in a car.

Q. Mr Clark, when the CEO and Chief Ombudsman of Ombudsman Services became the Chair of The BIOA hat requirement for member organisations - like his - to have a Whistleblowing Policy suddenly vanished. Why?

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Francis Maude, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Michael Fallon, Monk and Partners, Jonathan May, Gillian Fleming, The Rev Smith, Dame Janet Finch, Dame Julie Mellor, Nick Clegg, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid, Daniel Whiddon and yourself.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS' malign influence.

Please comment, share your story and join the campaign either by contacting the blog or by emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmail.com. Thanks. Steve Gilbert.

"Get Right With God" - Lucinda Williams. (519)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 519.

519) "Get Right With God" by Lucinda Williams.

Dear Mr Clark,

"If I could learn and be complete
If I could walk righteously again."
(Lucinda Williams)

It's becoming ever clearer from the growing body of evidence that is being painstakingly amassed by the gallant few, that a staggering a number of ombudsmen have still not learnt how to walk righteously. Many have yet to reach the toddler stage.

Getting right with God is one thing but ombudsman schemers need to get right with the People. That's something of an entirely different magnitude.

Q. Where are our gold medal Parliamentarians when we need them?

There is one we can think of, Peter Heaton-Jones, an MP who did stand up to be counted over the issue of the regulation of care homes and the rotten-to-the-core system of extorting money from the sick, the elderly and the dying in order that they pay for the full cost of their care and not the State - this is the NHS at its very worst.

Q. Where is the Parliamentary and Health Service Secretary, Dame Julie Mellor, on this hugely important issue?

No doubt busily threatening some poor, hapless complainant with prosecution if the way she treated us is anything to go by.

Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill conclude the first part of the ombudsman watchers' criticism of the lack of accountability of ombudsman schemes with;
"one participant accepted that demands for greater accountability by ombudsman schemes needed to be balanced against the need for their independence, and that a key issue in the relation to the effectiveness of ombudsman schemes was getting the balance right between accountability and independence."
(www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/critics-of-the -ombudsman-system-understanding-and-engaging-online-citizen-activists)

Like the other participants we fundamentally disagree with this strange notion of, "balance."

Why attempt to walk over Niagara Falls on a tightrope when you can go around it?

The promise of, "independence" is being cynically exploited by ombudsman to miss-sell the idea that civil justice automatically awaits complainants. They would have us believe that because they say they are independent they are automatically, "fair"  and "efficient."

"Believe me - I'm an ombudsman."

Ombudsmen like The Rev Smith have taken it upon themselves to define what is meant by being, "independent" and so, hey presto and as if by magic, they appear to be really independent.

It's the key to the con. 

And because ombudsman schemers abhor accountability like vampires abhor sunlight the complainant will never know if in reality they are actually independent or not. Ombudsmen like The Rev Smith also define what is meant by, "civil justice." They have appropriated both of these terms for their own purposes whilst at the same time surreptitiously removing, "accountability" from the equation. They imply that if they were made to be accountable that that would somehow undermine their independence and ability to be both fair and effective.

There is no balancing act between independence and accountability.

They are not independent and they are most certainly not accountable.

Indeed, they have become a law unto themselves stealthily inveigling themselves onto the legal landscape. It has been carefully rigged that way. An act of colonisation. Otherwise ombudsman schemes would be very, very different.

The time has now come when ombudsman schemers must be firmly and consistently regulated by Parliament in order that at all times they can rigorously demonstrate their, "accountability" and "transparency" (something which their highly paid executives stubbornly and deliberately refuse to do so as to cover their arses). Then - and only then - might the British public begin to have some confidence in the schemers' much vaunted "independence."

To date their self-proclaimed, "independence" is entirely spurious. A carefully constructed fiction. A key part in their miss-selling of what they call, "civil justice."

Our evasive ombudsmen quickly need to learn to walk righteously and to step out from the comfort of the shadows they've been allowed to inhabit for so long by our complaisant, colluding and conniving civil servants and parliamentarians.

Q. Mr Clark, scheming maladministrating ombudsmen such as the ones found at Ombudsman Services:Property can no longer be trusted to run the show by themselves. Do you not agree that there is now an urgent need for a public inquiry into the RICS and its, "appointed" company Ombudsman Services:Property?

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Mark Prisk, Norman Lamb, Francis Maude, Michael Fallon, Monk and Partners, Gillian Fleming, Jonathan May, The Rev Smith, Dame Janet Finch, Nick Clegg, Dame Julie Mellor, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid, Peter Davy and yourself.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company formerly trading as the SOS before undergoing re-branding) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS' malign influence.

Please comment, share your story or join the campaign either by contacting the blog or by emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmail.com. Thanks. Steve Gilbert.

The Secretive, Masonic Ombudsman Schemers of the Early 21st Century. (518)

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 518.

518) The Secretive, Masonic Ombudsman Schemers of the Early 21st Century.

Dear Mr Clark,

These highly secretive and masonic ombudsman schemers of the early 21st century could well provide the plot and characters for a Dan Brown novel.

Naomi Creutzfeldt and Chris Gill tells us;
"several participants also felt that the approach of ombudsman schemes could be secretive and opaque. For example, it was alleged that one ombudsman scheme refused to release the identity of provisional advisers used to provide advice on cases, while information provided by organisations was not always shared with complainants. It was not always clear to complainants how cases had been dealt with, leading to a perception of unfairness. Some participants mentioned that this sense of opacity was also present in relation to how ombudsman schemes dealt with Freedom of Information Act requests. They considered that basic information should be provided more transparently, without forcing people to use the FOI process."
(www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/critics-of-the-ombudsman-system-understanding-and -engaging-online-citizen-activists.)

The spiritual leader of this highly secretive sect, The Rev Smith - Chair of The Ombudsman Association - seemingly answers to no one, only his god.

The response he gave to a question put to him by our MP, Oliver Colvile, would have been a good answer had it but been a different question. His regime has no Whistleblowing Policy and does not respond to FOI Act requests.

It is a well rigged regime - a model of opacity.

Q. Mr Clark, in a digital age, The Rev Smith's outfit is positively medieval. Why aren't all the cases that pass through Ombudsman Services automatically made available for public scrutiny on the internet?

The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign is seeking:
- answers from Vince Cable, Norman Lamb, Mark Prisk, Francis Maude Michael Fallon, Monk and Partners, Gillian Fleming, Nick Clegg, The Rev Smith, Jonathan May, Dame Janet Finch, Dame Julie Mellor, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid, Peter Gureny and yourself.
- a public inquiry into the workings of Ombudsman Services:Property (a company formerly trading as the SOS before undergoing re-branding) and the role of the RICS.
- compensation for the victims of its ombudsman's illogical Final Decisions and its executives' maladministration.
- the setting up of a truly, "fair" and "independent" redress scheme free from RICS malign influence.

Please comment, share your story or support our campaign either on the blog or by emailing: shockingsurveys1@gmail.com . Thanks, Steve Gilbert.