Letter to the Public Administration Select Committee, 24th November 2010
Dear Clive PorroI thank you for your reply (Nov 2010) to my letter of the 5 Nov 2010 where you explain that ‘the Committees oversight of the Ombudsman’s office is strategic – that it monitors complaints as a way of identifying any possible systematic problems but it will not result in the Committees re-examining individual cases’. You ‘hoped that your letter would be helpful’. We see it as another rebuff!
We have spent some 8 years listening to parliamentary cover up routines; we, like thousands of other complainants are increasingly sceptical about the political class and its systematic failure to challenge officials who are often fraudulent. You mention the committee monitors complaints as a way of identifying any possible systematic problems.
The Ombudsman’s systematic problems are clearly seen both in our case and that of Dr Dan Lyons ‘UNCAGED’ scandal. (There are many others) Has the committee examined our case re ombudsman despotism?
Have they examined Dr Lyons criticisms re ombudsman bias? Have they invited along this award-winning author of ‘Government and Public Administrate’ so that it might apologise for the ombudsman’s neglect and bias against him?
PASC is somehow failing the public by keeping a lid on despotic officialdom, and is in danger of becoming the ombudsman’s blind-eyed ‘rubber stamp’ of approval, hiding away her oft-despicable behaviour.
In our case the ombudsman ‘took sides’ in protecting the seriously dysfunctional Revenue/VOA corrupt acts against us by being deliberately deceitful. I eventually found myself facing Revenue lawyers within a contrived Tribunal. At the time the ombudsman was a member of the Administrative Justice and Tribunal Council? No wonder Revenue lawyers showed some concern re our comments about the ombudsman’s suitability?
Things got even worse as we received a biased Decision Notice from the ICO. It’s all about the murky public sectors ‘closing of ranks’ against government critics. The Ombudsman’s handling of the Home Offices malpractice in relation to its deceit against UNCAGED complaints, was the cause of an Early Day Motion (EDM 127) signed by many concerned MPs.
The last few lines of the EDM read as follows: ….’And calls on the government to establish an independent inquiry into the numerous significant outstanding concerns regarding the regulation of this research program (animals) in the light of the PHSO flawed investigations’. (Designed to get the dysfunctional HO ‘off the hook’)
In short the ombudsman was not only giving biased protection to the Home Office, the same as given to the RevenueVOA in our case. She also made sure her evidence was obscure and purposefully elongated. It was said of the ombudsman by UNCAGED, “that she had persistently failed to consider the case and the substantive issues raised in an objective way. And failed to offer any explanation for her perverse and irrational decision”
We also found the ombudsman’s acts against us as irrational, and because of her corrupt acts against us we asked her to resign – she retaliated by setting up ‘evening phone calls to our home’. We have described this parliamentary appointee as being despotic; she certainly has a despotic cover up routine within parliament.
We think that if the PASC had wanted to find the ombudsman’s systematic bias and deceit – there is enough evidence around.
The great majority of complainants are honest worthy whistleblowers hoping to cleanse the political stench that is now associated with the Mother of Parliament. It is extremely important that the PASCommittee does not swallow the ombudsman’s deceitful ‘put down’ of complainants as ‘vexatious’, or ‘persistent complainants’ etc. It is a common ruse, it was intimated in the ICO’s dodgy Decision Notice that our case maybe ‘unsubstantiated or malicious’. The collegiate ‘closing of ranks’ routine.
For instance the Director of UNCAGED Dr Lyon is renowned for his integrity in pursuing the Home Office and Parliamentary Ombudsman wrongdoing, he is well qualified to take on parliamentary charlatans, as is shown in his academic attainments. The learned and honest Dr Lyon was awarded the Walter Bagehot prize by the Political Studies Association for his thesis on ‘Government and Public Administration’ the PSA academic praised his integrity?
I having been corruptly handled by the Ombudsman and the Revenue/VOA, being a war pensioner an ex front-line soldier, feel peeved at the Cenotaph that such approval of corrupt officials has belittled my fight for freedom and supposed democracy.
My wife and I have put our minds to disclosing as much corruption by the public sector as we can find, especially as handed out to citizens by civil servants, ombudsman and adjudicators and parliaments ‘stonewalling’ fraternity.
We are hopeful that the Public Administration Select Committee might one-day break away from the shackles imposed by its unwarranted commitment to the ombudsman. At the moment it seems a case of the PASC allowing the ombudsman office to eradicate its critics by ‘unjust bureaucracy’. It can be seen that ombudsman and adjudicators and the ‘acquiescing’ political class are a bulwark that defends deceitful governments actions - that the putting down of untold thousands of complaints throughout the public sector enables governments to pretend that they have very few critics – trying to convince everyone that all is in good order – pure Orwellian.
Disgruntled members of the electorate with genuine grievances are at the mercy of ombudsman, and that such ombudsman abuse is condoned by Parliament?
Sincerely
AW & I Tanner
Copies to all interested in political corruption.