Information relation to Perverse Decisions undertaken in breach of existing regulations.

W Hunter made this Freedom of Information request to Financial Ombudsman Service Limited This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was refused by Financial Ombudsman Service Limited.

Dear Financial Ombudsman Service Limited,

Your independent assessor has chosen to ignore the issue that Ombudsman McCarthy has chosen to make a perverse decision in breach of the accepted use of the English language on a matter placed before the FOS to adjudicate.

Ombudsman McCarthy has cited the FCA handbook section DISP 2.7.2. to justify her decision when that provision clearly states that the opposite of Ms McCarthys ruling applies.

https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook...

My contention is that the statement included as DISP 2.7.2 within the FCA Handbook , which is

"A complaint may be brought on behalf of an eligible complainant (or a
deceased person who would have been an eligible complainant) by a person
authorised by the eligible complainant or authorised by law. It is immaterial
whether the person authorised to act on behalf of an eligible complainant is
himself an eligible complainant."

Under the accepted usage of the English Language can be read as:

"A complaint may be brought on behalf of a deceased person who would have been an eligible complainant, by a person authorised by the eligible complainant. It is immaterial whether the person authorised to act on behalf of an eligible complainant is
himself an eligible complainant.

The FOS, in the person of Ombudsman McCarthy, has in her perverse decision interpreted the actual content of DISP 2.7.2. as the following:

"A complaint may NOT be brought on behalf of a deceased person who would have been an eligible complainant by any person UNLESS authorised by law. It is immaterial whether the person authorised to act on behalf of an eligible complainant is himself an eligible complainant.

My interpretation of the content of DISP 2.7.2. complies with accepted use, the interpretation issued by Ms McCarthy on behalf of the FOS re writes the provision of the required regulation to completely change the accepted usage meaning.

Since I believe that the subsequent decision is neither Fair, Impartial or indeed Lawful, and at this time the FOS has failed to respond to a number of FOIA requests regarding these matters within the time limits specified, and not before the independent assessors final response, I am submitting these requests to you via this website.

1. Please provide any policy or procedure within the FOS which allows any member of FOS staff to make a ruling on what they think a regulation should state rather than enforcing what it does state.

2. Please provide any policy or procedure which would allow an applicant to raise the issue of an ombudsman reaching a perverse decision in breach of the regulations specified, stating how this process is undertaken and who it needs to be addressed to.

3. Please provide any documentation in existence within the FOS which shows any attempt or indeed any application to have the provisions of DISP 2.7.2. of the FCA handbook re written to comply with Ombudsman McCarthys interpretation and or when that re written portion came into effect.

4. Please specify any disciplinary procedure or administrative action which can be applied to address the actions of an Ombudsman which are shown to be perverse and in breach of the requirements of their position.

5. Please provide a copy of the contract of employment which would have been and/or is the current terms of reference for Ms McCarthys employment withholding only those portions applying to financial remuneration if different from any other ombudsmans standard employment terms.

6. Please provide any policy or procedure which details the process for a member of the public to speak directly to the Chief Ombudsman Ms Wayman regarding the actions of the staff and indeed the organisation that she heads or indeed any means of bringing untoward behaviour by staff to the head of the FOS.

Yours faithfully,

W Hunter

Information Rights Officer, Financial Ombudsman Service Limited

Dear W Hunter

Thank you for your email requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. You can expect a response from us by 26 July 2017.

Yours sincerely

Stakeholder team
Financial Ombudsman Service

PO Box 73208 | London | E14 1QQ
Email: [Financial Ombudsman Service request email]

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Information Rights Officer, Financial Ombudsman Service Limited

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Hunter

Thank you for your request made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please find our response attached.

Yours sincerely

Stakeholder team
Financial Ombudsman Service

PO Box 73208 | London | E14 1QQ
Email: [Financial Ombudsman Service request email]

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Dear Financial Ombudsman Service Limited,

Please pass this on to the Chief Finanacial Ombudsmans office for the attention of Ms Wayman as the person who has responded to the FOIA requests, Mr Liam Parkin, has apparently managed to commit offences under the DPA and possibly FOIA because it would appear that they have no idea what they are doing.

I am writing to request an internal review of Financial Ombudsman Service Limited's handling of my FOI request 'Relevant Authority and staff complaints procedure'.

I am doing so because Mr Parkin has not specified any exemption, valid or otherwise, under the FOIA to refuse to supply the information.

He failed at any point to specify that the FOS considered any request vexatious, instead citing the impact on the FOS ability to undertake their normal duties and their resources.

He mentioned section 14 (1) of the FOIA " 14 Vexatious or repeated requests.

(1)Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the request is vexatious." without it would appear bothering to read section 14 (2) which states:

"(2)Where a public authority has previously complied with a request for information which was made by any person, it is not obliged to comply with a subsequent identical or substantially similar request from that person unless a reasonable interval has elapsed between compliance with the previous request and the making of the current request."

For a request to be vexatious within the meaning of the act it must either be a repeated request for information similar to that previously disclosed with insufficient time between requests, or a request for information that would place a "Grossly Oppressive Burden on the public authority"

My FOIA requests to the FOS have failed to solicit any information from the authority in that the majority have been simply ignored or refused by the recipient in ignorance of the requirements of the FOIA, which is why I re submitted substantially similar requests via this public forum.

Since there has been no response whatsoever from the FOS regarding the original requests the public requests cannot be considered vexatious because no previously released information exists to show any previous request was recorded or actioned by the FOS despite all attempts to raise the requirements of the FOIA to the staff concerned.

In respect to the "Grossly Oppressive Burden" implied by the response from Mr Parkin, I do not believe that even by consolidating 4 separate FOIA requests the information could conceivably be described as oppressive let alone Grossly so.

The first two questions should be simple to answer from the HR / Payroll departments records who as previously mentioned must as a matter of course have complete records of all employees names positions and contact details within the organisation to hand.

The next question, of how an employee is made aware of the requirements of their position within the organisation must be in a personnel manual or similar facility unless the FOS is prepared to state that all employees are taught by word of mouth after hiring?

Question 4 in the response should not be burdensome at all, because I personally do not believe that any such policy could exist, unless again the FOS has so many policies which contain information stating that staff do not have to comply with the requirements of the English language that to sift through them would not be cost effective?

Questions 5-10 of the response ask in turn for the following,

A policy or procedure already in effect and the person responsible for it.

Any record of an application to change the FCA handbook made by the FOS and when any such change came into effect.

Any disciplinary procedure or administrative action applicable to the actions of an ombudsman shown to be perverse and in breach of their employment.

A copy of a single individuals employment contract with only personal details different from other ombudsmans contracts removed

Any process whereby a member of the public can communicate in person with the head of the organisation

and finally

How complaints regarding the independent assessor can be addressed.

None of those requests carry any gross administrative burden to an organisation with it's own IT infrastructure.

Mr Parkin has also failed to consider the following provisions of the act, specifically

"(5)A public authority which, in relation to any request for information, is relying on a claim that section 12 or 14 applies must, within the time for complying with section 1(1), give the applicant a notice stating that fact."

Mr Parkin failed to issue any such notice.

In addition, section 7 specifies :

(7)A notice under subsection (1), (3) or (5) must—

(a)contain particulars of any procedure provided by the public authority for dealing with complaints about the handling of requests for information or state that the authority does not provide such a procedure, and

(b)contain particulars of the right conferred by section 50.

Mr Parkin failed to specify any information under section (7) (a) whilst including the provision under section (7) (b)

He did state at the end of the response "As per section 17(6) of the Act, we won’t be entering into any further correspondence or responding to future requests on the same or similar topics. "

Section 17 (6) of the FOIA states

"(6)Subsection (5) does not apply where—

(a)the public authority is relying on a claim that section 14 applies,

(b)the authority has given the applicant a notice, in relation to a previous request for information, stating that it is relying on such a claim, and

(c)it would in all the circumstances be unreasonable to expect the authority to serve a further notice under subsection (5) in relation to the current request."

Apparently stating that subsection 5 does not apply because previous requests have already bee identified as vexatious and notice regarding that decision had already been issued.

Unfortunately no such action has previously taken place so section 17 (6) is meaningless.

Which brings me to the final issue regarding this response which is that Mr Parkin has consolidated 4 FOIA requests by cutting and pasting the relevant questions from each into a single response which he has then copied to each of the four requests as replies.

What Mr Parkin has totally ignored is the fact that only 3 of those requests were published by the applicant via this site, the fourth was sent by direct Private E-Mail from the applicant to the office of the FOS Independent Assessor who has already specified in writing that the Independent Assessors Office is totally independent of the FOS and as such the assessors staff could not provide any information requested under the FOIA regarding the FOS, all such information must be requested from the FOS directly.

Mr Parkin has therefore taken private information within the meaning of the DPA from myself as an individual, and published that private information in a public arena in gross breach of the requirements of the DPA.

He has also by the very fact that he had access to that information proven beyond any doubt that either the Independent Assessors office staff have given false information in response to a valid FOIA request when stating that no information regarding FOS policies and procedures could be provided because they were a separate independent entity, or the Independent Assessors office have grossly breached the requirements of the DPA by providing a private FOIA request to the FOS in breach of the relevant act.

I would furthermore state that it is a matter of extreme public interest for the general public to know that the FOS is apparently operating in a manner which makes the English Language obsolete by producing perverse and unsupportable decisions in breach of the current accepted use of the English Language.

It would appear somewhat self evident from this public display that either the Chief Ombudsman Ms Caroline Wayman is either complicit in this practice or, as I feel more likely, is simply having all knowledge of this issue withheld from her by the desperate actions of subordinates who have mis managed the situation to the extent that the only way to keep her in ignorance of their actions is to prevent any communication with her at all.

I am writing to request an internal review of Financial Ombudsman Service Limited's handling of my FOI request 'Information relation to Perverse Decisions undertaken in breach of existing regulations.'.

[ GIVE DETAILS ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINT HERE ]

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Yours faithfully,

W Hunter

Information Rights Officer, Financial Ombudsman Service Limited

Dear Mr Hunter

Thank you for your email. As we have applied Section 17(6) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to your request we won't be corresponding with you further about your request or completing an internal review. If you remain unhappy your next step is to contact the Information Commissioner's Office.

Yours sincerely

Stakeholder team
Financial Ombudsman Service

PO Box 73208 | London | E14 1QQ
Email: [Financial Ombudsman Service request email]

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