Which Ombudsman?

JamesMckk

I'm not sure which ombudsman service to approach and may need to send this to two services so I'm seeking some guidance first. 

I was a member of a trade union and paid a monthly subscription.  I required their help during a grievance with an employer and found the service to be appalling. 
I had to take this through 5 union reps during the grievance procedure. Each time I had to contact the union myself in order to get a new rep as my case was not passed on. One rep was sorted out the day before the grievance meeting.
Another rep cancelled their attendance to the appeal meeting over email to my HR department without informing me first. I was not provided with the help that was required, that I had been paying for. It was highly embarrassing and delayed the whole grievance procedure.
Would I take this to a consumer ombudsman? Do they deal with unions?

The union owns a legal subsidiary that I was free to use as part of being a paying union member. The assessor was a named employment law locum but their emails were sent under a different named email account so I was never sure who I was dealing with.
The assessment of my case was said to have no chance of success in a tribunal but their reasoning did not follow the evidence I had provided.  It was said to be out of time but the tribunal had already accepted my claims and was booked for a 6-day hearing by the judge
After this, I applied for legal aid but the legal aid agency would not even look into my case as they said the union would have sufficiently assessed it.
I'm not a solicitor but their assessment was very sloppy and quite ambiguous in parts.  I was forced to take my claims to a tribunal myself but reached a settlement before the court date and was awarded a substantial amount of money of around a year's salary which clearly shows merit to my claims.
I'm guessing to take this to the legal ombudsman but wanted to check as this is one big complaint that splits into a consumer (?) and then a legal matter. Or would it all come under as consumer as I had been paying the monthly subscription for the union and their legal subsidiary?

I've submitted,  followed and exhausted the complaints procedures with both but need to know which ombudsman service to use and if this should/ can be split into two ombudsman services, the consumer (?) and legal ombudsman. 

MorningcoffeeIV

JamesMckk said:

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Would I take this to a consumer ombudsman? Do they deal with unions?

No.

They deal with consumer issues. Credit cards, broken toasters, dodgy sofas, gas bills.

Manxman_in_exile

There is no such thing as "the consumer ombudsman" so far as I know.  I don't think anybody oversees the activities of trade unions.

You could try the legal ombudsman in respect of the law firm, but who was the client?  You or your union?

Have you tried seeking advice from CAB?

born_again

If there is any ombudsman it would be listed on their final response or on the unions website covering complaints.

user1977

What exactly is the "legal subsidiary"? If it's regulated by the SRA (e.g. a firm of solicitors) then there's an ombudsman avenue there - but you'd first have to exhaust their internal complaints procedure.

Undervalued

JamesMckk said:

I'm not sure which ombudsman service to approach and may need to send this to two services so I'm seeking some guidance first. 

I was a member of a trade union and paid a monthly subscription.  I required their help during a grievance with an employer and found the service to be appalling. 
I had to take this through 5 union reps during the grievance procedure. Each time I had to contact the union myself in order to get a new rep as my case was not passed on. One rep was sorted out the day before the grievance meeting.
Another rep cancelled their attendance to the appeal meeting over email to my HR department without informing me first. I was not provided with the help that was required, that I had been paying for. It was highly embarrassing and delayed the whole grievance procedure.
Would I take this to a consumer ombudsman? Do they deal with unions?

The union owns a legal subsidiary that I was free to use as part of being a paying union member. The assessor was a named employment law locum but their emails were sent under a different named email account so I was never sure who I was dealing with.
The assessment of my case was said to have no chance of success in a tribunal but their reasoning did not follow the evidence I had provided.  It was said to be out of time but the tribunal had already accepted my claims and was booked for a 6-day hearing by the judge
After this, I applied for legal aid but the legal aid agency would not even look into my case as they said the union would have sufficiently assessed it.
I'm not a solicitor but their assessment was very sloppy and quite ambiguous in parts.  I was forced to take my claims to a tribunal myself but reached a settlement before the court date and was awarded a substantial amount of money of around a year's salary which clearly shows merit to my claims.
I'm guessing to take this to the legal ombudsman but wanted to check as this is one big complaint that splits into a consumer (?) and then a legal matter. Or would it all come under as consumer as I had been paying the monthly subscription for the union and their legal subsidiary?

I've submitted,  followed and exhausted the complaints procedures with both but need to know which ombudsman service to use and if this should/ can be split into two ombudsman services, the consumer (?) and legal ombudsman. 

Sorry but it doesn't show the merit of your claim. Nor were you "awarded" anything, the parties agreed a settlement.

More cases are settled than reach tribunal or the civil courts. Settlements are reached for all kinds of reasons, particularly in employment claims, where it is most unusual for any costs to be awarded. So, it can often be far cheaper for an employer to settle a case even if they have a good chance of winning.

You may have had a very good case but given that it wasn't tested before a judge we will never know.

However, given that you were "awarded" a substantial amount of money, what losses are you seeking to recover? The union may have provided a poor service, which is of course annoying, but it is difficult to see you getting anything else beyond perhaps a nominal amount for "distress and inconvenience".

DullGreyGuy

Manxman_in_exile said:

There is no such thing as "the consumer ombudsman" so far as I know.  

There used to be the "retail ombudsman" which is as close a name as I can think of however they were ordered to stop calling themselves an ombudsman.

There are two types of ombudsman... one created under statute which typically have reasonable powers and automatically cover all relevant companies. There are then others which are just setup as an ADR company, their membership is optional and their powers come from contracts between them and their voluntary members. 

For most things there is neither type of ombudsman, its really only heavily regulated activities like financial services, energy, water etc where there is a statutory ombudsman. The voluntary ones have a clear conflict of interests... rule against your member too often and they'll just cancel their membership but this is why there are standards they must reach and why the Retail Ombudsman were ordered to rename. 

There is no ombudsman for trade unions, the correct complaint process is per https://www.gov.uk/complain-trade-union 

JamesMckk

Manxman_in_exile said:

There is no such thing as "the consumer ombudsman" so far as I know.  I don't think anybody oversees the activities of trade unions.

You could try the legal ombudsman in respect of the law firm, but who was the client?  You or your union?

Have you tried seeking advice from CAB?

Yes,  I've tried CAB. They advised me to contact the certification officer, who is responsible for the actions of the unions.
Unfortunately, they do not deal with an individual's case and would only be for such things as corruption within the union. 

JamesMckk

born_again said:

If there is any ombudsman it would be listed on their final response or on the unions website covering complaints.

Nope,  their final response ended with. "On that basis, I hope this concludes your complaint and again I can only apologise if you feel the service you received was not in line with your expectation."

There was no mention of being able to take this further.

I've checked the website and gone through their rule book.
The rulebook mentions a complaints procedure and shows a complaint will be heard and thrown out if scandalous, vexatious, etc. This is all that is mentioned.  All other mentions of complaints are about the union's elections. 

JamesMckk

user1977 said:

What exactly is the "legal subsidiary"? If it's regulated by the SRA (e.g. a firm of solicitors) then there's an ombudsman avenue there - but you'd first have to exhaust their internal complaints procedure.

The union formed a legal company. It was created to provide legal services to union members.

I have exhausted their complaints procedure (and exhausted myself). They are unwilling to reassess my case as I had already reached a settlement with my employers.  I hadn't actually asked for a reassessment, I was complaining about where their assessments failed despite being given all the information and evidence to support my claims.   It's like they didn't even read some of the crucial documents. If the whole thing needed to be reassessed, well, they should do just that.

As I called their assessments to be negligent, they would not take my complaints any further as we are conflicted in opinions.

They suggested seeking independent legal advice and said I can also refer my complaint to the legal ombudsman.

This ended by stating that " It is for both parties to agree to use ADR and I can confirm that, as you have access to Legal Ombudsman, this firm does not use the ADR process.

 

powerful_Rogue

What are you actually seeking? What outcome are you looking to achieve?