Ombudsman launches scathing attack

The Credit and Investments Ombudsman (CIO) has launched a scathing attack on the Government’s Ramsay Committee and its call for a single, non-statutory ombudsman scheme to replace both the CIO and the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Appearing before a Parliamentary Joint Committee yesterday, the CIO Ombudsman, Raj Venga described the proposal as being little more than a politically expedient whitewash.

Referencing the recommendations contained in the Ramsay committee’s draft report, Venga used his opening statement to the Committee to say: “We think this is, frankly, nothing more than whitewash.  It’s a politically expedient solution that fixes nothing”.
His statement then went on to claim that the interim report did “not even offer a glimpse of how his single non-statutory ombudsman scheme will deal with life insurance and bank scandals which have caused public outrage, invited the scrutiny of numerous parliamentary inquiries, prompted calls for a Royal Commission, and spurred the Government to commission the Ramsay review in the first place”.

“The fact is a single non-statutory ombudsman scheme will not be able to prevent or address any of the life insurance or banking scandals we’ve seen in the past. Nor will it have the necessary powers to deal with small business claims against insurers and banks,” Venga’s statement said, claiming this was because “like CIO and FOS, the single non-statutory ombudsman scheme will not be able to subpoena a third party to attend as a witness or produce documents; it will not be able to join third parties, cross-examine witnesses, take evidence on oath, investigate criminal fraud or impose penalties”.

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“Only a court or statutory tribunal can do this,” he said.
“Any investigation a single non-statutory ombudsman scheme may conduct in relation to life insurance systemic issues will necessarily fall short of exposing and fixing entrenched poor cultures,” Venga said.