Disciplinary & Standards Committee TPO’s governance structure ensures the Ombudsman’s independence. TPO has a Disciplinary & Standards Committee (DSC) which reports to Council and its members are also independent from the industry. The DSC’s primary purpose is to secure implementation of decisions made by the Ombudsman, but it also seeks to maintain the standards to which members subscribe. The DSC can impose various sanctions, including issuing warnings, fining agents and expelling them from TPO. The Codes of Practice set out clearly an agent’s responsibilities and simplify a complex legal and contractual landscape, which also benefits consumers. That means agents registered with TPO know what should be done and, where there have been shortcomings, pay an award on time and comply with any other recommendations made by the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman received 3,658 complaints in 2017, closing 3,622 complaints in the year. Of those, she made financial awards in 2,408 instances. However consumers and agents need to know that, when an agent has been judged to have acted unfairly but does not put it right, there may be action against them. In 2017, 55 new cases were referred to the DSC (as against 61 in 2016). These related to 30 different agencies out of 11,542 agents registered with TPO. Of those 55 referrals, 51 were for failure to pay an award or implement recommendations, and of these 15 were sales disputes and 36 concerned the actions of letting agents. DSC intervention led to 14 cases being successfully settled. However, of the remainder, the agent had already ceased trading in 8 cases. In another 18 the agent was no longer a member of TPO or any other redress scheme. Even though those 26 were unlikely to be resolved, DSC action ensured that the agent cannot easily re-register for redress at a later date unless those liabilities are addressed, thereby protecting the interests of consumers in the future. Altogether, 28 agents were expelled from membership, of which 11 were Sales and 17 were Lettings. Sales and letting agents must belong to an approved redress scheme and the memorandum of understanding with other redress schemes means an agent will not be able to join any scheme until an award has been paid. In addition, any decision to expel or exclude an agent is widely published, and the agent is reported to Trading Standards. If the agent is then found to be trading illegally without redress registration, there is a risk of a fine of up to £5,000. The remaining four DSC cases related to other membership compliance issues. In each case, the DSC decided that disciplinary action short of expulsion should be taken to mark the lapse in standards. Gillian Fleming DSC Chair Gillian Fleming DSC Chair Quick Stats 19 Sales Lettings of all TPO firms referred to DSC 0.5% had already ceased trading or left the scheme 47% fewer cases referred to DSC 10%