Understanding Ombudsman Services with The Ombudsman Association

Episode Title: The Role of Ombudsman Services with Donal Galligan

Release Date: 27 Jan 25

Host(s):

• Adam Carter
• Louise Baxter MBE (LouBax)

Guest(s):

• Donal Galligan – Chief Executive of the Ombudsman Association

Episode Summary:

In this insightful episode of the Consumer Friend Podcast, Adam and Louise are joined by Donal Galligan, Chief Executive of the Ombudsman Association, to discuss the essential role of ombudsman services in providing fair redress for consumers.

Donal dives into the complexities of the consumer redress landscape, highlighting how ombudsman schemes work to resolve disputes, identify systemic issues, and improve service delivery across sectors. He also discusses the Guide to Ombudsman Offices in the UK, an essential resource designed to help consumers navigate the often-confusing world of redress and find the right service for their needs.

Whether you’ve encountered a tricky complaint, want to better understand ombudsman services, or are curious about the broader consumer landscape, this episode is packed with practical insights and advice.

Key Takeaways:

1. What Is an Ombudsman?
   Ombudsman services are independent organisations that investigate and resolve complaints between consumers and businesses. They offer a free, fair, and impartial alternative to court proceedings, focusing on what is reasonable and just.
2. The Role of the Ombudsman Association
   The Ombudsman Association sets the standards for ombudsman schemes in the UK and Ireland. It ensures members adhere to criteria like independence, fairness, and accountability, helping to maintain trust in the system.
3. Guide to Ombudsman Offices in the UK
   A valuable resource developed by the Ombudsman Association to help consumers and advisers find the right ombudsman service for their complaint. This guide is available online and simplifies access to contact details and key information.
4. The Importance of Consumer Awareness
   Raising awareness about ombudsman services is crucial. Many consumers don’t know these services exist or how to use them. The podcast explores ways to bridge this gap and empower consumers to seek redress confidently.

Resources & Links:

• Ombudsman Association Website
• Find an Ombudsman
• Guide to Ombudsman Offices in the UK
• Consumer Friend Website – Practical resources and tips for consumers

Please like, subscribe and rate to help increase the reach in the UK. You can also follow us on socials:

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• Website: Consumer Friend
• Twitter: @ConsumerFriendUK
• Instagram: @ConsumerFriendOfficial
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello everyone and welcome back to the

[00:00:10] Adam: Consumer Friend podcast where we tackle all things consumer rights with a bit of fun and some incredible guests. I'm your host Adam Carter joined as always by the brilliant Louise Baxter aka Lou Bax. Hi Lou, happy new year. How are you? 

[00:00:26] LouBax: I'm good. Thank you. Adam. 

[00:00:28] Adam: Did you have a good one? I 

[00:00:29] LouBax: think I, it was quite, the first week was really busy.

[00:00:32] LouBax: The second week was a bit more, I basically watched Yellowstone on Paramount for five days. So I came back to work and it was a bit of a shock because I'd been living on a ranch with a cowboy for a week and there's no, there are cowboys at work, but not the same sort of cowboy. 

[00:00:48] Adam: Oh, like it. Yeah. I did see what you did there.

[00:00:52] Adam: Have you got any New Year's resolutions? 

[00:00:56] LouBax: Uh, not to have New Year's resolutions. Yeah, that's 

[00:00:59] Adam: your New Year's [00:01:00] resolution to not Well I don't like You failed already. You failed at the beginning. The 

[00:01:03] LouBax: pressure makes me The pressure The pressure of them Makes me a bit doolally. So I did, I've set some, I've set some intentions, shall we say.

[00:01:11] LouBax: So things like, I want to get better at hockey. I wanna work less. So smart and not harder. 

[00:01:17] Adam: Okay. 

[00:01:17] LouBax: I haven't had a drink since New Year's Day. Well 

[00:01:19] Adam: done. That's pretty good. I know. That's pretty, pretty amazing. 

[00:01:22] LouBax: I'm not sure I'll manage the weekend, let's be real, I think I'm going out with your wife tonight, to be honest.

[00:01:29] LouBax: That's 

[00:01:29] Adam: the end of that then, isn't it? Okay, let's move on to our guest. So we're kicking off the new year with a fascinating episode featuring Donal Galligan from The Ombudsman Association, he is the chief executive there. Donal is a true expert in the field of dispute resolution, and we're thrilled to have him here to discuss what an ombudsman does, how they support consumers, and why raising awareness about ombudsman services is more important than ever.

[00:01:56] Adam: So like I say, Donal is the chief executive of the Ombudsman Association, [00:02:00] which serves as the membership body for ombudsman schemes across the UK and Ireland. With a career dedicated to public policy and governance, Donal is passionate about improving access to justice and ensuring vulnerable people don't fall through the cracks in the redress system.

[00:02:13] Adam: When he's not championing fairness, Donal is deeply invested in improving consumer awareness about ombudsman and advocating for reform within the sector. Under his leadership, the Ombudsman Association recently published its Guide to Ombudsman Offices in the UK, designed to help consumers navigate the often complex landscape of dispute resolution.

[00:02:31] Adam: Hi Donal, thank you for coming on our podcast. How are you? 

[00:02:35] Donal: I'm very good. Thank you for having me on and thank you for that absolutely fantastic introduction. I think we've peaked already. 

[00:02:43] Adam: Yeah, well, I, yeah, I tend to peak early. I'm going to edit that bit out. Uh, thank you so much for coming on. I guess, should we just start with who, who are you rather than just, just a name?

[00:02:57] Adam: Uh, and what is the Ombudsman Association? [00:03:00] 

[00:03:01] LouBax: Before we start ads, just, I just want to explain to the audience how much you practiced. Donal's name before we got onto the podcast, just to get it into your head. 

[00:03:09] Donal: I'm, I'm very grateful that I've, I've got a blog I could share with you about all the various different pronunciations I've got, but that's, that's perhaps a different podcast.

[00:03:18] Donal: It's 

[00:03:19] LouBax: going to amuse me all day. It's honestly going to amuse me all day because my name is Louise, which is this, you can't interpret that. And I quite often get called lousy, which Adam finds amazing. 

[00:03:31] Donal: Only by people who don't know you. 

[00:03:33] LouBax: Obviously. 

[00:03:36] Donal: Thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. Yeah.

[00:03:39] Donal: The Ombudsman Association, who on earth are we and why, why have you made some time for us today? So we're the membership body for, for ombudsman schemes. We set the criteria for how an ombudsman should be set up, their governance and what they should be doing. Um, in terms of geography, we cover the UK and Ireland and also the British Crown dependencies and the British overseas territories as well.[00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] Donal: So all our members have to meet our criteria, which are around things like independence and fairness and accountability. And that criteria is recognized as best practice in the UK, that's through cabinet office guidance to government departments. And also at Companies House, Ombudsman is what is called a sensitive term.

[00:04:20] Donal: So a business operating in the UK can only use the term ombudsman if they meet our criteria. So that's the thing about setting the standards and we try to inform and influence kind of policy making around where you should have an ombudsman and what standard it should be set at. And in the sense of what we do for our members, it's really trying to help them to share best practice.

[00:04:42] Donal: So it's a lot of kind of networking activities and facilitating them to share what are the challenges and how they're getting through them to provide a better service to the public. 

[00:04:52] Adam: Great. Thank you very much. And I'm just going to take it back ever so slightly. And just to say that, you know, an ombudsman is, is someone or some, or an organization that you [00:05:00] would go to if you have a problem with a particular business about a purchase that you've made and they haven't been able to resolve that, that problem.

[00:05:08] Donal: Absolutely. Yeah. I think it sometimes failed the plain language test on, on, on this. It's a slightly unusual word for some people. It's a Swedish word, but an ombudsman is a champion for fairness. So it's an independent service investigates and seeks to resolve complaints. As you said, it's an alternative to the courts.

[00:05:26] Donal: So an ombudsman makes decisions based on what is fair and reasonable. That's different to what is legal, which is the bar that would be applied elsewhere. They're free at the point of use for consumers. And as well as providing redress for an individual, they also identify systemic issues. We would say an ombudsman can drive systemic change.

[00:05:45] Donal: It can tackle injustice. And it can help organizations to perform more efficiently and 

[00:05:50] Adam: effectively. 

[00:05:52] LouBax: I like that for fairness. I like that that summarizes actually. I mean, cause in the, in the current consumer landscape, how many [00:06:00] ombudsman services have we got? 

[00:06:02] Donal: Yeah. So in, in the UK, there's 22 ombudsman schemes taking a broad interpretation of what a consumer is.

[00:06:08] Donal: So let's say, you know, a university student is a consumer. Someone using a care home is a consumer because they're paying for it. There's about 15 ombudsman schemes operating that consumer landscape. 

[00:06:18] LouBax: It's complicated, 

[00:06:20] Donal: it's complicated because 15 sounds like a lot and in some ways it's too many, but in many ways it's not enough because there's a lot of gaps and overlaps.

[00:06:27] Donal: As, as both of you know, the consumer landscape is, is confusing. And one of the reasons why we published this guide is to try and help people to navigate it and find a place. 

[00:06:36] LouBax: So, and so can you just explain, and I'm going to, like, as I said, I'm not going to look at Adam's questions because I never do it.

[00:06:42] LouBax: So I'm probably going way far ahead and he'll be like, No, it's fine. That was for later. Ombudsman is about effectively seeking fair redress. And now when I say that, so in a plain English perspective, it's about getting consumers some money back or some, or some, or a replacement or something, or something [00:07:00] in relation to something that's gone wrong, but you've also got redress schemes within the consumer landscape as well.

[00:07:06] LouBax: And a redress scheme is again, somewhere you can go to get. An alternative solution to court services as well. What differentiates an Ombudsman service? Why are they better, why are they different than just normal redress schemes? 

[00:07:19] Donal: Yeah, really, really good point. And, and one that is, is not well understood by, by policy makers un unfortunately, um, that that attraction of, as you call, you know, those alternative redress schemes is quite often about the speed in which they deliver a response.

[00:07:35] Donal: So they, they'll look at, Adam has said this. Lou has said that, right, I agree with Lou, of course, all the time. Um, and we'll say, right, she's right and we'll do that. That, that's a very quick response. You've got a quick thing and it solves that single dispute between the two of you. The value in an ombudsman is it's what we'd call inquisitorial.

[00:07:54] Donal: So it's going to start to look into things. Well, you know, what's missing from here. Hang on a minute. You said you told him that in an email. Well, can we have [00:08:00] a copy of that email, please? You know, you said there was a phone call. Oh, well, have you got a recording of that phone call then? So it goes a bit deeper, obviously to individuals, solving that individual dispute is absolutely key and that's what you have to do, but the value in an ombudsman is looking beyond that.

[00:08:14] Donal: What is, is there a systemic issue here? Is, is there something that this could have affected more than one person? So sometimes you'll get an ombudsman saying, yes, in, in this scenario, there was a problem and you should refund them that money or you should apologize or whatever it might be. But also we think there's potentially other people that have been affected by this as well.

[00:08:33] Donal: So you need to go out and find those people and you need to apply the same kind of redress that you have in this scenario. And it's that feedback loop. Whenever any of us buy anything, we're bombarded with surveys, aren't we, from companies about how did we do on this and how did you feel about that and the rest of it.

[00:08:50] Donal: And the value in the ombudsman system is it is that feedback loop. It's, it's, it's, it's done in private, as I say, it's inquisitorial. It's not meant to be adversarial. So we hope [00:09:00] that companies want to realize where they could provide a better service and feed it back. And in the terms of the types of redress, yes, obviously, you know, refunds, replacement sometimes, but that point about improvement and learning, sometimes the recommendation is going to be, you didn't explain that as well.

[00:09:15] Donal: So you need to change the language in that leaflet. Or your staff on the front line don't understand what they should be doing, what rights and responsibilities are. So you need to retrain them or you need to do that. So it's, it's, as I say, it's beyond that individual dispute trying to look at improvement across.

[00:09:30] Adam: Yeah. We, we, we do so much work with businesses about talking to them about providing inclusive services and using those. feedback loops, the complaints process to improve the service that they've got so that they can scoop up everyone. They can, you know, enhance and expand on their customer base because they're making a better, more inclusive service.

[00:09:49] Adam: And the ombudsman services that there are in the country help And they can add to that feedback service, can't they? 

[00:09:56] LouBax: It's, it's like the organisational blind spot. So I, I sit as, um, a [00:10:00] non exec director for the property ombudsman. Um, and again, that's 

[00:10:03] Adam: about 

[00:10:04] Donal: Sorry. 

[00:10:05] LouBax: I know, check me out with all my titles. 

[00:10:07] Donal: One at, one at one of our members.

[00:10:10] LouBax: Um, but it's, it's, um, you're such a knob sometimes Adam Carter. 

[00:10:15] Adam: Check you out. 

[00:10:18] LouBax: It's, it's about, so again, within property, you've got lots, you've got the property ombudsman, you've got the housing ombudsman, you've got the new homes ombudsman, and one deals with social housing. One deals with managing agents, one deals with new, new house builders, and then you're going to have the private rental ombudsman service coming into play, aren't you?

[00:10:37] LouBax: When the new renters write. No. Yeah. Renters rights bill. Renters. Yeah. It used to be, it was a rental reform, but 

[00:10:43] Donal: then now 

[00:10:44] LouBax: it's a renter's rights isn't it under the Labour government. So that coming into play there, but within say like, for example, for managing agents, you've got other organisations that are redressed that again, so the, the property ombudsman.

[00:10:56] LouBax: And again, I hope I've got this right because I sit on their board. It would be embarrassing if I haven't [00:11:00] again, that is that policy piece, isn't it? Again, it's also highlighting things to the government going, actually, we've got a real issue in. damper mold for example which came out of social housing and that review because of that poor young lad that sadly got massively affected didn't he by the damper mold and then passed away so again it's those bigger pieces of work isn't it that come into play that i think people miss From the ombudsman that so all the complaints that consumers make feed into that bigger picture so that we can affect change nationally to make it better for everyone.

[00:11:29] Donal: Absolutely. And to do that, you need to have broad coverage. So you mentioned there about the complexity in that kind of homes and housing landscape. That's without even mentioning, you know, the other redress bodies that you have around ADR, but also there's a property tribunal. So it's very confusing for people as to where to go.

[00:11:46] Donal: And sometimes, you know, it's it's split for you. Absolutely. One problem, but actually for, for the powers that be, it's two slightly different problems. You need to go to two slightly different places. If, if a body doesn't, if an ombudsman doesn't [00:12:00] have that holistic oversight. It's, it's, it's missing something in that feedback, the intelligence that it provides to regulators or to policymakers to move things forward.

[00:12:09] Donal: So, so it's one of those issues about, yes, do you have a normalism to begin with? Has it got, you know, universal coverage? Is it mandatory? And, and when, when you get that kind of, you know, perfect thing, that's when you hit the Goldilocks spot. And that's when you can get the most value. 

[00:12:22] LouBax: And these are going to sound like.

[00:12:25] LouBax: And they probably are criticisms to be honest of, of ombudsman services is one when adjudications are made. And this is from, I work with the, we work with the financial ombudsman service as well. And I've been supporting some consumers. There's that lazy English again, Adam, I'm not sounding my teeth now, which is what he said.

[00:12:41] LouBax: Supporting. Louise, honestly, you need to sort it out. You're 

[00:12:45] Adam: amongst 

[00:12:45] LouBax: friends. You're 

[00:12:46] Donal: amongst friends. It's fine. We'll get 

[00:12:48] Adam: you some education lessons. It's okay. 

[00:12:51] LouBax: Thank you. We'll send you to finishing school. I don't think they'll keep me for very long. 

[00:12:56] Adam: We'll send you to starting school. I 

[00:12:58] LouBax: think I'm getting [00:13:00] expelled from finishing school.

[00:13:01] LouBax: Um, so supporting some consumers with cases with the Financial Ombudsman Service in relation to Scams and fraud and then trying to get their money back from their financial institution. The language that the responses that I've seen are and these are what I would consider to be people that are situationally vulnerable.

[00:13:18] LouBax: So they're in a position where the situation that the scam or the crime that's happened to them has caused them significant vulnerabilities and a massive knock on effect to their well being and their mental health. It really has the stress that it's causing. The language that the Ombudsman Service is in relation to their adjudications.

[00:13:33] LouBax: It's too long and too complicated and, and sometimes because of the intimacy of the written word, there's a lack of consideration of how that information is going to be read. And it's like a punch in the face. So is there work going on to standardize that, support that vulnerability? What, what does that look like from a consumer perspective?

[00:13:54] Donal: Yeah, it's, it's a really fair point that you're, you're making, and I suppose the immediate [00:14:00] reassurance is to say, you know, this is not a surprise, this is something that gets discussed often. I mentioned about the, how we help facilitate conversations and sharing of good practice between our members. We have something that we call networks, so we'll have a network for, for all of the communication staff.

[00:14:15] Donal: We'll have a network for all of the casework staff and the rest, and these conversations do take place. I think. It's that point about, I think the average reading age in the UK is meant to be that of a nine year old. 

[00:14:25] LouBax: Nine to twelve, yeah. Nine 

[00:14:26] Donal: to twelve, well, but quite often, or at least let's say the stereotype of a user of an ombudsman service is that they are more likely to be white, male, middle aged, middle class, professionally.

[00:14:38] Donal: Now, why is that? So some things you might say, well, when it comes to financial products, they're more likely, you know, to, to, to have a mortgage or, or, or to have insurance and to have a pension. But a lot of the time when we look at the barriers to people accessing things, it's if you have a busy lifestyle.

[00:14:54] Donal: You are less likely to pursue a complaint and especially if it starts to get a bit complicated, [00:15:00] so it starts to take out everyone, you know, single parents or, you know, parents in general or people with care and responsibilities and the rest. So I guess it's fair that the ombudsman sector have recognized that over the years.

[00:15:13] Donal: That the way they were producing reports, the way they were explaining things was probably a bit too technical, probably was a bit too, cause they were aiming towards that audience that they already had. There is work going on about that, about using plain language, about breaking things down. You know, what, what's the way that people want to be communicated with?

[00:15:32] Donal: Actually, do they want to be communicated via email? Do they want to be communicated over the phone? It's a requirement, the criteria for our membership. is that members do have a reasonable adjustment policy. So, no, I'm not going to claim that they've all completely cracked it and it's all perfect now, but it's certainly something that's on their radar.

[00:15:49] Donal: It's something that they're trying to work through. And as I say, the, the benefit of it sounds like I'm, I'm trying to sell something now, but the benefit of what the OA provides for our members is when someone does think that they've had a [00:16:00] bit of a breakthrough, that they, they've improved something, they can then share it with other ombudsman schemes.

[00:16:05] Adam: Yeah, I, I think I would. argue about the demographic and the reasons why that demographic engages with the ombudsman services. I think it's because that demographic, the, the, the country society has been kind to those, those people, and would therefore more likely to engage in the system. Whereas those that are struggling with the system that are living in poverty and aren't educated to that level have disengaged with the system because it hasn't been kind to them.

[00:16:33] Adam: I would argue that there's a bit there, but that's just me being. An armchair sociologist, would that be, I guess? I don't know. 

[00:16:41] Donal: No, I think that's a really good point as well, because one, one of the, one of the real focuses at the moment for the sector is about raising awareness. I think nearly all of our members, when we did a survey of our members, you know, what's your key priority for the next few years?

[00:16:54] Donal: Awareness was, was a big thing. And you know, those statistics that, that you have, they're always [00:17:00] interesting, those polls, because obviously it entirely depends on what cohort of people you ask and then you extrapolate. Out, but there's some, there's a real variation around that. I think there was a u gov poll for a few years ago that suggested that 69% of people aware of the Financial Ombudsman, but only 17% of that same cohort were aware of the local government social care ombudsman.

[00:17:20] Donal: So you have this thing about awareness, but I think the point you make there, Adam, awareness is one battle. And, and again, I think another stat from that report was that 46% said they were not confident of what Anonymous does. And that rose to 70 percent for 18 to 29 year olds. But just because you even know it exists or you can name it, or you say, well, I know there's an independent body, but I'm not quite sure what it's called.

[00:17:44] Donal: That doesn't mean that you'll use it. And again, in, in that, in that survey, there was, I think of the people who. said that they had a problem with the service but didn't complain. It was something like 45%. The reason they didn't complain is because they had a perception that nothing would change. And, and [00:18:00] yes, it can be overlapping issues, but it's exactly that point you make Adam of when people don't understand what an ombudsman is, when they don't understand the independence, when they don't understand that champion for fairness line.

[00:18:11] Donal: They think, Oh, well, you're just another one of that elite, you know, I've already had a problem with, with the system, you're the establishment, you're exactly the, the, the same. So yes, awareness is one thing that we need. We need to just raise people understanding the term and what it means and the rest, but actually they then need to trust.

[00:18:30] Donal: The organization as, as, as well. And that is obviously a slightly different issue. 

[00:18:35] LouBax: People give up as well. This is the other thing as well, because you, like Adam was saying, armchair sociologist. I like that. Is that, is that, I don't know if that's the right term. I don't know whether he's made that up. It's a thing 

[00:18:45] Donal: now.

[00:18:48] LouBax: We'll all quote it and then someone else will write it down and then we can quote it back. It'd be fine. People give up because again, people, if people are communicated in a way that they don't understand, you automatically exclude them from the system because [00:19:00] nobody really wants to go, I don't get that, put their hand up or be made to feel stupid.

[00:19:04] LouBax: And that's, that's the problem with a, with a lot of this stuff is, is the language we use. Because we work with people of a similar educational level as ourselves, and because we work in that industry, there's so much assumed knowledge, and I challenge myself on this all the time, and I know that I've got assumed knowledge, and I sometimes, and Adam will go, you're talking in, like, It's limericks at the minute to people.

[00:19:27] LouBax: I'm like, yeah, I know we have used the 

[00:19:30] Adam: acronym ADR in this a couple of times now, and we haven't explained it. But it's, it's, it's, it's exactly what we do. We all do what 

[00:19:39] LouBax: we're saying. So then what you'll do is say like people don't go. And once you've gone so far down a track, people don't then, then can't row it back.

[00:19:47] LouBax: Can you? I always use this on our training. It's like when you're in a nightclub now, we haven't met in person. I'm fourth at nine. So I'm really small. People, if you're in a busy pub or a club, which we don't do these days because we're too old for it and that would just be [00:20:00] a worry, but bending down to whisper to say something to you.

[00:20:03] LouBax: The first time you go, what? The second time you go, what? The third time you just go, yeah, because you get embarrassed about asking the third time, don't you? So again, it's that sort of, so you could agree to anything at that point. At that point in the evening, you've just agreed to like, looking after someone's children for a week.

[00:20:18] Adam: I 

[00:20:20] LouBax: don't actually know what you've agreed to. But it's that sort of, so we, we create these barriers as organizations, don't we? And actually it's really simple and not to, not to do us out of expertise or a job, Adam, in relation to this stuff. But it's just simplify, just make, like speaking shorter sentences, speaking common language.

[00:20:37] LouBax: Let's not try to, we, we, we're so British and I would have said this about a billion times on this podcast. We think that if we speak in big words and we speak in clever language, it makes us clever. 

[00:20:47] Donal: Maybe throw in a bit of Latin, maybe. Yeah. 

[00:20:50] LouBax: Like it's just locutor or like caveat emptor, all that legal stuff that we learn.

[00:20:55] LouBax: Bye, beware. 

[00:20:57] Adam: Bye, beware. Don't know. [00:21:00] I, I think. What we're basically saying is we need to, we're quite British and we don't complain very much, but we, we need to build up those complaints and we need to drive those complaints processes. And we need to understand about where to go if a business can't deal with your problem.

[00:21:19] Adam: So, What, what does the Ombudsman Association do to, to raise awareness to, to, to, I mean, obviously you're on, on the podcast, but what else does the Ombudsman Association do to, to help raise awareness of, of, of, uh, of ombudsmans? 

[00:21:35] Donal: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And, and it's, so what, one of the things was, and you mentioned it, um, uh, earlier on was this, uh, guide.

[00:21:43] Donal: That we've now produced. So we've pulled together a guide to ombudsman offices in the UK. We said about the fact that there's, you know, not enough, but also too many, and it can be very confusing. It's quite a simple document, but we we've had good response to it so far. So [00:22:00] it's something that we've, we've put out there that the public can access, but also perhaps a bit of a tool for those working in the advice and advocacy sector who are, you know, pressed for time and really trying to.

[00:22:10] Donal: Trying to do really good work to, to, to help people and point them in the right direction. So it's a simple document. It explains a little bit of the things that we've touched on in the sense of what is an ombudsman, what's the kind of thing that you can expect when you go to it. And then just having a page for each one, which sets out that the area of complaints that they, they deal with.

[00:22:29] Donal: And just having their contact details, you know, having the, the, and, and all of them are kind of contacting in slightly different ways. But, you know, for example, having phone numbers, you know, having email addresses, a lot of them will have, uh, online complaint forms. So kind of pointing you towards that.

[00:22:44] Donal: And we're really trying our, our best to coordinate. Obviously all of our members will do their own awareness raising activities, but we're trying to put it together at that, that more basic level. And we, again, we we've talked about the term. Ombudsman and the fact [00:23:00] that it can, it can seem a bit alien. One of the points that I probably make too often, but I like to make, is that no, when you get that challenge of what on earth does it mean?

[00:23:11] Donal: Well, no one's born knowing what a doctor is, or a police officer, 

[00:23:17] LouBax: judge, lawyer, 

[00:23:19] Donal: civil servant, prime minister. What on earth do these words mean? No one knows what these words mean when you are first born, but as a society we teach children about these things because we think they're important. And we should be doing the same thing in terms of ombudsman.

[00:23:35] Donal: Now not just in terms of ombudsman, also about regulators, tribunals, you know, so write some and it always comes with responsibilities, doesn't it? But write some responsibilities and we need to do more of that at a younger age and educate people there. They don't need to know actually the phone number.

[00:23:54] Donal: They don't need to know the website. Potentially you don't need to know the name. That point that you were making, Lou, about kind of [00:24:00] assumed knowledge, I know there's also some, some research that was done last year, you know, when you ask those prompted questions or unprompted questions. And so for some of our members, when they said, you know, do you know if there is a independent, you know, body, let's say for rail complaints, um, when you ask it in that way, I think about 53 percent said, yes, there is one.

[00:24:23] Donal: Well, that's great. If you ask a question in a different way and said, what is it? I think only 2 percent could name that it was the rail ombudsman. Now we could take, and that was similar across the board actually for most of our members. Now you could interpret that quite depressingly and go, Oh my God, only 2 percent can name or only 12 percent can name the financial ombudsman, whatever it might be.

[00:24:42] Donal: But you just need to have the awareness. If you have the awareness that you have rights, and if you have awareness that there are some kind of independent bodies that could help you, I think you're more likely to go down that journey. And in that case, you know, the internet. All your friends down the pub, citizens [00:25:00] advice, your own website, whatever it might be, can then potentially point you in the right place.

[00:25:04] Donal: So you mentioned about, you know, my passion, I do have a passion there about, we need to improve that. Now we've got most of the population are above school age, so we need to do some retrofitting here about, about knowledge and explaining things there, but actually let's get ahead of the game. Let's explain to people when they are young, when they're paying attention, um, that you've got these rights and whether it's about, you know, molding in your bedroom or a faulty product or whatever it might be, you know, maybe there's an organization out there that could help you and maybe it's set out on your journey and then either our guide or the great stuff that you do or the stuff that our members do.

[00:25:39] Donal: That will hopefully, you know, help them move in the right direction. 

[00:25:42] Adam: I think there's such, 

[00:25:43] LouBax: there's such a call for 

[00:25:45] Adam: financial literacy in, in, in 

[00:25:47] LouBax: schools because Financial literacy, consumer literacy. Let's, let's, let's start a new consumer 

[00:25:53] Donal: literacy. 

[00:25:54] Adam: Oh 

[00:25:54] LouBax: my god. I'm on 

[00:25:57] Donal: board. I'm in, I'm in at the ground, ground [00:26:00] floor on that one.

[00:26:00] LouBax: But we could do that. That's something we could really do though. Consumer literacy, which covers financial and media literacy and consumer rights literacy. 

[00:26:08] Donal: And we know teachers are, you know, pressed for time, pressed for resources and the rest of it. And we also know that they're the most passionate people in trying to educate our children and prepare them for the world.

[00:26:24] Donal: Let's help them. You know, what resources can we give them? 

[00:26:28] LouBax: isn't it? It's key life skills. 

[00:26:29] Adam: Right. We are sadly coming to an end of our podcast. I've got one question, then you can have a question and then we'll, we'll, we'll, 

[00:26:41] LouBax: why am I saying thank you? I don't know, but you should say thank you. That's right.

[00:26:47] Adam: You 

[00:26:47] LouBax: just managed me then, Adam. You managed me. 

[00:26:51] Adam: My question is really for the consumer is, is how can the consumer find the right ombudsman for the complaint or the problem that they have? 

[00:26:59] Donal: Yeah. [00:27:00] Well, look, first of all, Always complain to the business that provided the product or service to begin with.

[00:27:06] Donal: That's where you should go first and you know, let's be clear. Most issues can or should be sorted at that point. If you are then unhappy with that final response. That's when you can then go to an ombudsman in sectors where it's mandated. So for example, we mentioned about the financial sector and legal sector would be similar as well.

[00:27:27] Donal: The business itself should be saying in that final letter, and if you're not happy, you can go to the financial ombudsman and the legal ombudsman might be. Unfortunately, we mentioned about the fact that it's a complicated. landscape, it's not mandatory in some sectors to use any redress body. We talked about those, those other bodies potentially, you know, less independent or less robust than an ombudsman.

[00:27:47] Donal: Um, in some sectors, you don't have to use any kind of redress at all. So it starts to get a bit tricky and that's when you need a bit of advice. I would, you would expect me to say, look, come, come to our website, you know, [00:28:00] sticking on business association into an internet engine, you know, find, uh, um, that, that guide that I was talking about.

[00:28:06] Donal: But again, look for that advice, citizens advice, which yourselves, Martin Lewis, you know, they all have pages around this. So yes, you do need to have, unfortunately, you do need to have a little bit of resilience to kind of move forward with these things sometimes, but go, go to the company first. See if they can sort it, then Google ombudsman, you know, Google it with whatever the, you know, trains, you know, new car lawyer, lawyer's advice, you know, mortgage, whatever it might be stick ombudsman next to it.

[00:28:36] Donal: And hopefully you'll, you'll find the right place to go from there. And all of our members, once you find that website, once you find them. They'll all have advice on there about the process you need to go through, the kind of information you need to provide, and, and will it will assist you in, as I say, you know, reasonable adjustments where that's required.

[00:28:53] Adam: They will help as much as they can. 

[00:28:56] Donal: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, they're independent. They aren't there. As I said, they're a champion for [00:29:00] fairness. They're not a champion for consumers, but don't see that as a negative. That's, that's a good thing. That's what you want. You want someone who's independent and impartial.

[00:29:09] Adam: Louise, you have 

[00:29:09] LouBax: a question. That's going to be the. I do. But also just to say that the guide is going to be hosted on our website. Mine, mine is not like a really serious question. My last question would be like, so if you, what's your favorite Christmas film, but your, what's your favorite cheese? That as well.

[00:29:30] LouBax: It was squirrels. We go back to squirrels. Right. If you had one wish for today now, not just like being the Maldives, like one wish in relation to the ombudsman association. And it can be any wish for like this year, what would it be? 

[00:29:45] Donal: Oh gosh, I would like the UK government to recognise the needs and importance for ombudsmen in the sense of the role that they can play in bolstering consumer [00:30:00] confidence.

[00:30:00] Donal: You know, we hear a lot of things, everything has to be about economic growth, anything. You can't spend money on anything. You can't prioritize anything unless it's going to grow the economy. And I think there's a risk with that, that you, you too narrowly focus. And I think it would be great if the UK government could understand.

[00:30:16] Donal: The importance of the role of the consumer and consumer confidence in taking things forward. And one of the ways you can bolster consumer confidence is by reassuring them that if something goes wrong, they'll have those protections. So doing my, you know, when you get your three wishes from the genie, it's like, oh, what can I wish for everlasting wishes?

[00:30:34] Donal: More wishes. Can't wish for more wishes. Can't wish for more wishes. But, but my point about that, about, about trying to say that if they could understand that is because where that could lead you to. That could lead you to saying, do you know what, we really do need to create an ombudsman for the aviation sector.

[00:30:47] Donal: Do you know what, we really do need to reduce the nine different redress bodies in the gambling sector down to one ombudsman. And yes, we do need to plug those gaps. Yes, we do need to raise awareness. I think, I think if you could get that, that might be the tipping point to [00:31:00] then explore all of the things that yourselves, us and others are saying.

[00:31:03] Donal: This is what you really need to improve the redress and access to justice. 

[00:31:08] LouBax: That's a good wish. Good wish. Thank you. What's your wish? Literally, I chucked that at you as well. I like that. Lou, what's 

[00:31:14] Adam: your wish? 

[00:31:16] LouBax: Oh, my wish? What? In relation to what? 

[00:31:18] Adam: Well, how to protect consumers if we're going to go down that route.

[00:31:22] LouBax: Or if the genie popped out and said 

[00:31:25] Adam: one wish, what would it be? Without even thinking about consumers. 

[00:31:30] LouBax: What? So am I? Sorry, I'm really confused now. You want me to give you a consumer related wish? 

[00:31:35] Adam: I don't care, Lou, I'm editing this bit out.

[00:31:41] Adam: But I'm just interested now. What would you want to do for consumers and what would you want to do for you? Come on, just very quickly. I'd 

[00:31:46] LouBax: want it to be on the, I'd want it to be on, I'd want consumer, now I've decided because I've been like, now we've talked about it, consumer literacy, because I was going down the road of Financial literacy, consumer literacy to be on the national curriculum and taught in schools as a life skill.

[00:31:58] LouBax: And I want to write all the [00:32:00] materials for that. And I want to run it and I want to go and teach all the kids and the naughty kids particularly, and especially the special educational needs kids. Cause they're my, they're my jam. They're my people. 

[00:32:10] Donal: Seconded, I second that wish. 

[00:32:13] LouBax: That's what I want to do. I want to go back to doing that.

[00:32:15] LouBax: I love it. That's why I did my teaching qualification because it's where you make the most difference. And what it will do is it won't just mean that we've got consumers that consider all of the decisions they make. We won't have as many scam victims. We won't have as much debt. We will, I'll have more people to talk to 

[00:32:33] Adam: more importantly, I'm able to speak to more people.

[00:32:37] LouBax: People will think I'm a geek. They'll like my geek subjects, area specialism, and they'll want to talk to me about it. No, I just think it would solve a myriad. I say myriad because that's too complicated. So a massive amount of problems for consumers. 

[00:32:50] Adam: Lovely. 

[00:32:50] LouBax: And people. 

[00:32:51] Adam: Thank you very much, Louise. Well done.

[00:32:53] Adam: We are gonna call it a day there. Donal, thank you so much for coming on to our podcast. Uh, [00:33:00] as ever, no problem at all. As ever, Consumer Friend is here for all your consumer rights needs at consumerfriend. org. uk. Please like, subscribe, share, review, rate on whatever platform you listen to the podcast on. Uh, and thank you very much, Donal.

[00:33:16] Donal: Thank you. It's been brilliant to be on. Uh, hopefully you'll have me back again sometime soon. 

[00:33:20] Adam: Absolutely. We will. And thank you, Lou. 

[00:33:22] LouBax: Thank you. I've enjoyed myself today. Thank you. 

[00:33:24] Adam: Thank you. Bye bye. 

[00:33:27] LouBax: This is Consumer Friend.