INDEPENDENT ASSESSOR JOANNA WALLACE opinion Ombudsman services.

1. Page 1 of 5
JOANNA WALLACE
INDEPENDENT ASSESSOR
The Independent Assessor
PO Box 1024
The Brew House
Warrington
WA4 9FG
Mrs
16h
December 2015
Dear Mrs ,
I have now completed my investigation into your complaint against Ombudsman
Services (OS), which I have laid out below.
1.0 Summary of Complaint
I agreed to consider the following two elements of complaint for you:
a) Delay - specifically that other cases were considered ahead of yours (868779)
creating a delay of around a year; and
b) That Gill Tyrer’s explanations of the delay (as being due to volume of
complaints) were untrue.
2.0 My review of your case
I have reviewed the record of your case 868779 on the OS Peppermint system.
Your case was accepted for investigation on 3rd
January 2013 following exchange of
documents between you and OS to confirm the scope of your complaint. Documents
were requested of Eon on the 4th
January and were received by OS on 19th
January.
Your case was assigned to Investigation Officer Gill Tyrer on 25th
January 2013. On
4th
February she emailed you with her investigation findings addressing the
elements of your complaint (as you are aware my terms of reference do not cover my

2. Page 2 of 5
consideration of those or the remedies suggested). I note that she said in that email
that “had E.ON not already proposed a £30 payment as a gesture of goodwill, we
would not be recommending that it make this payment to you and our proposed
remedy would be for no further action.”
She emailed you for a response on 6th
and 8th
February. You replied on 11th
February
and queried the meter reading databases that OS has access to. Gill replied the same
day and confirmed which they were, but said this did not influence her findings.
Her report was sent to you and to Eon on 13th
February 2013 and she chased both
you and Eon on 6th
March 2013 for responses. Eon replied and accepted the report on
7th
March, you replied on 16th
March with representations against the proposed
remedy – you asked for Ombudsman review of your case. This was acknowledged
on 18th
March and you were told your case would go for Ombudsman review.
There was no action on your case that I can see in April or May 2013 although it was
flagged as requiring action on a number of occasions and on 20th
May there is a note
from a team manager asking that the case be progressed (most likely as there had
been no action on it for some time).
You emailed on 6th
June 2013 to ask when you might hear from the Ombudsman on
your case. Gill Tyrer responded on 25th
June to say this was delayed “due to the
number of complaints we are currently handling.”
There was no further action on your case until 12th
and 24th
July when there were
case-checking calls and emails with Eon and with the Ombudsman by Gill Tyrer. On
1st
August 2013 the draft final report is logged for Ombudsman review and sign off.
There is then no further activity on the case until December 2013 when it appears
Chris Gill the Independent Assessor in place at that time became involved,
presumably at your instigation. On 16th
December Gill Tyrer emailed a letter saying
she hoped you would receive a final decision within the next four weeks and again
that the delay was due to the volume of cases. A similar email was sent to Eon on the
same day with the same explanation.
You emailed on 3rd
January 2014 and asked if the delay in getting a final decision
was due to the nature of your case, that it was waiting for a specific ombudsman or
whether it was queued in an “orderly fashion” with all other cases. Gill responded
on 9th
January and again said that it was due to the volume of cases; she emailed her
team leader a few days later to say that you were chasing the final decision on your
case. Your case was still awaiting Ombudsman review at this time.
On 10th
February Eon got in touch with OS to ask if the final decision was ready.

3. Page 3 of 5
On 14th
February the final decision from the Ombudsman was sent to you and to
Eon. On 7th
March 2014 Gill Tyrer sent you a letter chasing a decision on whether
you accepted the report or not. The report was re-sent at your request on 21st
March
2014. On 7th
April a form for accepting the Ombudsman Decision was sent to you at
your request with a reminder that it was due in 7 days. You responded seeking a
response to another email you had sent on another topic/case. You accepted the
remedy on 15th
April and the following day Eon emailed to say that the £30 cheque
had been raised.
A letter was emailed on 20th
May 2014 addressing the questions you had raised
about missing responses to messages you had sent.
Your case then remained closed for just over 8 months, when on 4th
February 2014
you raised a service complaint about the delay in your case and specifically the
explanation given for that. This was acknowledged by Gill Gibson from Customer
Relations the same day and a response promised within 10 days.
On 16th
February 2014 Alison Fearns responded and said that she could see no
evidence that Gill Tyrer’s explanations were untrue – she also acknowledged that
correspondence had not always been complete when sent to you and she offered an
apology and consolatory payment of £35 in recognition of this.
On 8th April 2015 you emailed and rejected that offer and asked your complaint be
escalated to Simon Morris, deputy Chief Executive and he replied to you on 24th
April 2015. He agreed that there had been a 12 month delay in your case and
apologised that this was excessive. He confirmed that this was due to the volume of
complaints they had received, and that different Ombudsmen have different case
loads which might speak to why another case was considered within 2 months,
around the same time in 2013, much more quickly than this one. He re-offered the
£35 that Alison had offered to you earlier.
You brought your complaint to me on 23rd
July, one day before the 3 month deadline
to bring a complaint to the Independent Assessors. We exchanged emails about the
scope of your complaint and my terms of reference until 23rd
November when we
finalised your case for my consideration.
3.0 Findings
a) Delay - specifically that other cases were considered ahead of yours (868779)
creating a delay of around a year;

4. Page 4 of 5
It is clear there was significant delay in your case and both Alison Fearns from
Customer Relations and Simon Morris acknowledged this in their service complaint
responses to you. The consolatory payment offer of £35 acknowledged this (and
some incomplete correspondence sent to you). Whilst the delay was long I consider
this amount appropriate in the circumstances of the case, as there was no financial
loss to you because of it. Your Eon complaint remedy was the same at the end of the
process as it had been at the beginning; Eon had offered you this amount and OS
said they would not have done so had it been left to them to find remedy. As such I
find this element of complaint to be justified.
b) That Gill Tyrer’s explanations of the delay (as being due to volume of
complaints) were untrue.
There were two periods of inactivity in your case, the first in April, May and June of
2013. There were flags and prompts on the case for it to be worked at regular
intervals during that period and you yourself made an enquiry during that time
with regard to progress. I can therefore conclude that your case had not simply been
overlooked, as such interventions typically prompt action on a case. Rather it
appears that the IO just did not have time to give to it, which would only have been
due to the volume of other work she had.
There was a second and much longer period of delay, waiting for the Ombudsman
to review your case between August 2013 and February 2014. The case was flagged
as awaiting Ombudsman review and sign off on August 1st
2013 and was finally
signed off by him in February 2014, almost seven months later. There were chasing
emails from you (twice, once via the IA) and Eon during that time, and apologies for
delay sent to both parties. I am persuaded that the case was not simply overlooked
as there was chasing action on it, which as I noted above typically prompts action if
that is the case.
I can see no evidence that Gill Tyrer’s explanations of the cause of the delay were
untrue and as such I do not uphold your complaint
4.0 Recommendations
You were offered £35 by Simon Morris in recognition of the shortcomings in
handling your case which I consider fair and appropriate. I recommend that offer
remains open to you.
5.0 Next Steps
Please confirm with Ombudsman Services whether you accept my consolatory
payment recommendation.

5. Page 5 of 5
By email to Customer-relations@ombudsman-services.org
By post
Customer Relations Manager
Ombudsman Services
The Brew House
Wilderspool Park
Greenall’s Avenue
Warrington, WA14 6HL
I have asked Ombudsman Services to complete my recommendation within 28
working days, if you choose to accept.
This letter concludes my review of your service complaint and brings my
involvement with your case to an end – my terms of reference do not provide for any
appeal of my decisions, which are final. I do not enter into correspondence following
a decision, therefore it only remains for me to thank you for asking me to consider
your complaint.
Yours sincerely
Joanna Wallace
Independent Assessor