Ombudsmen

• The parliamentary, local authority and health service ombudsman
• The Adjudicator’s Office
• The Financial Ombudsman Service
• Energy Ombudsman

If the administration of debt collection by the state is poor and results in individuals experiencing hardship, a complaint can be made to the relevant ombudsman. Ombudsmen are not regulators and their primary role is to help resolve individual cases. They expect the client to give the creditor the opportunity to investigate their complaint and resolve the matter before referring the case to them.

The parliamentary, local authority and health service ombudsman

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) is the final stage for complaints about councils, the NHS, housing associations, colleges and universities, prisons, most water providers, the Scottish government and its agencies and departments and most Scottish authorities.

Information on how to complain can be found on the SPSO website.1spso.org.uk

 

1     spso.org.uk »

The Adjudicator’s Office

The Adjudicator’s Office deals with complaints about the way things have been handled by HMRC (but not about the amount of tax or VAT the client has been asked to pay).

The Financial Ombudsman Service

The Financial Ombudsman Service handles complaints between clients and finance firms (including banks and building societies), complaints about firms with a consumer credit licence (including debt collectors and sub-prime lenders) and with complaints about debt advice providers (including not-for-profit providers and those that charge a fee).

Energy Ombudsman

For energy services, first make a complaint to the supplier and ask it to put the account on hold while it deals with the complaint. If, after 10 days, there has been either no response or an unsatisfactory response, the complaint should be escalated through the supplier’s complaints procedure. Refer to its code of practice for details of how to do this. The case can be referred to the Energy Ombudsman either eight weeks after the complaint was made or after the supplier has issued a ‘deadlock letter’ – ie, negotiations have broken down and neither party will reconsider its position. The complaint must be referred to the Energy Ombudsman within 12 months of the deadlock letter being issued. Sometimes, the ombudsman can investigate an older complaint if the client has not received a deadlock letter.