INDEPENDENT ASSESSOR

The Independent Assessor

PO Box 1024
The Brew House
Warrington
WA4 9FG

Mr Khan

17th August 2015

Dear Mr Khan
I have now completed my assessment of your complaint against Ombudsman Services, which I have
laid below.
1.0

Summary of Complaint

You set out your complaint about the Ombudsman Services in your email of 25th June and
confirmed by email of 8th July that my understanding of your complaint was correct. In making
your complaint to me you have highlighted that you seek:

A review of the service provided in responding to your enquiry for information from the
Ombudsman Services.

A review of the 50 goodwill payment offered by Ombudsman Services in their stage 2

complaints response.

For completeness I should also like to explain that my terms of reference preclude my consideration
of the actions, or the decisions taken by the Ombudsman. I have therefore focussed on the areas of
service in how Ombudsman Services dealt with your case.
2.0

My review of your case

I have reviewed your correspondence and the records held by Ombudsman Services about how it
dealt with your request for information in how it decides certain aspects of its remedy follow up
including case file notes and emails.
I am aware you have already been involved in the detail of the contacts you had with Ombudsman
Services so I will not reiterate verbatim here all the evidence I have reviewed. I will instead

reference key records or aspects of the way your case was dealt with where they inform my review
of your service complaint and the level of goodwill offered you.
You raised an enquiry with the Ombudsman Services on 30 th March about orders in implementing
goodwill payments where there is a credit balance due also. The service sought further information
from you and asked you to call them to speak with them about your enquiry in early April and you
by reply explained that you could not do so and asked for the information by email. On 20 th and
29thApril the service responded to say that it could not deal with your enquiry. On 30 th April you
emailed to raise a service complaint about the confusing response and explained they had wasted
your time, you clarified that you were seeking information about standard enforcement procedure.
The Customer Relations Team responded on 5th May explaining it was not their role to answer
queries regarding complaints with energy companies and escalated your enquiry back to the
enquiry team and a Senior Enquiry Officer responded with information about Ombudsman
Servicess compliance processes also on 5 th May. You replied on 6th May (though logged on their
systems on 12th May) complaining that it had taken you a number of emails to get this information
and that you were unhappy with the manner of the response given you had followed the
information on the Ombudsman Servicess website in raising your concern. The acknowledgement
promised you a response by 20 May 2015.
An initial service complaint response was sent to you on 19 th May. It upheld your complaint about
the confused response and answered your question about the use of quotation marks in use of the
title Managing Director. It apologised for any inconvenience and explained the website was being
updated. You escalated your complaint by return complaining about incorrect content of the
website. An immediate apology for incorrect information on the website and explanation that the
website was being updated was sent on 21 st May. You responded on 26th May and explained you
wanted a response from the Deputy Chief Executive.
The Deputy Chief Executive responded on 19th June. In responding he upheld your service
complaint about the poor response to your enquiry and the incorrect website information and
offered a payment of 50 in recognition of this.
3.0

Findings

Turning to the issues you have raised for me to consider, which fall within my terms of reference.
There is already recognition in the stage 1&2 responses that the service to you was not as it should
be in regards to responding to your enquiry and the content of the website. I agree with their
analysis on this: there were failings in these aspects of the service provided to you. As earlier
reviewers I consider that there is maladministration in those areas of your complaints.
Reviewing the level of service award offered to you of 50 against their own service framework I
consider that it is appropriate recognition for the maladministration identified and the obvious
frustration that they will have caused you.

4.0

Recommendations

Having looked at the facts of the case I have upheld your complaint to me. However, I consider that
the response you have already received from the service does appropriately address the issues you
have raised: it has apologised their failings, explained it is updating the website and has
endeavoured to recognise the inconvenience to you in an appropriate award.
I do therefore recommend that Ombudsman Services should continue to honour their offer of 50
goodwill for the problems you encountered.
5.0

Next Steps

Please confirm with Ombudsman Services whether you accept my recommendation by replying to:
By email
Customer-relations@ombudsman-services.org
By post
Customer Relations Manager
Ombudsman Services
The Brew House
Wilderspool Park
Greenalls Avenue
Warrington, WA14 6HL
I have asked Ombudsman Services to complete my recommendation within 28 working days, if you
choose to accept.
This letter concludes my review of your service complaint and brings my involvement with your
case to an end my terms of reference do not provide for any appeal of my decisions, which are
final. I do not enter into correspondence following a decision and therefore it only remains for me to
thank you for asking me to consider your complaint.
Yours sincerely,

James Dipple-Johnstone,
Independent Assessor