THE WORK OF THE OMBUDSMAN

Published date01 January 1992
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb024747
Date01 January 1992
Pages18-28
AuthorSIMON DENISON
Subject MatterAccounting & finance
THE WORK OF THE OMBUDSMAN
Received (in revised form): 2nd September, 1992.
SIMON
DENISON
SIMON DENISON
IS A FREELANCE JOURNALIST, WRITING FOR
THE INDEPENDENT AND DAILY TELEGRAPH
NEWSPAPERS.
ABSTRACT
Britain's nine ombudsmen provide an
informal and inexpensive mechanism for
resolving disputes and grievances that
arise between individual members of the
public and organisations participating in
the ombudsmen's schemes. They have been
criticised,
however,
for being at times slow,
limited,
and ineffective. An ombudsman is
defined as an adjudicator who is indepen-
dent of the organisations he supervises and
who is entitled to award compensation to
complainants.
In this
paper,
the scope of each scheme,
and its strengths and weaknesses, are indi-
vidually
surveyed.
Awareness and use of
the ombudsmen among members of the
public is very low, but whether they would
be able to cope with an increased demand
for their
services
without structural change
is
doubted.
INTRODUCTION
The first ombudsman was estab-
lished in Britain in 1967, and since
then a further eight schemes have
been set up at an accelerating rate
three have come into being since
September 1990.1 The increasing
tendency of professions to establish
such schemes should be seen as part
of a wider trend in society towards
the establishment of more informal
ways of revolving civil disputes,2
which give rise to the benefits at
least in theory of a greater user-
friendliness for the complainant, and
a somewhat quicker and very much
cheaper access to justice for both
parties, than exists by recourse to
the county courts. Recent reports by
consumer-protection bodies3 have
judged that the ombudsmen per-
form adequately in these respects,
and should, by and large, be seen as
a positive addition to the repertoire
of redress mechanisms available to
the aggrieved individual.
The consumer-protection bodies
judged, however, that there was con-
18

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT