Ombudsman’s Report 4 TPO has been resolving consumer disputes against property agents for 27 years. As the UK’s largest Government-approved property redress scheme, we have built a highly skilled workforce who understand the industry they work in, and who have the highest commitment to customer service of any organisation I know. •  Our customer service team provide detailed, expert advice and signposting to guide consumers to the right place •  Our evaluation and dispute resolution advisors help to bring things to an early resolution •  Our adjudicators are highly skilled in looking at the evidence when things go wrong, and where possible put things right without the cost, expense and stress of going to court My thanks go to each and every one of them for the patient, expert work that they do. My Deputy, Jane Erskine and I have taken TPO out onto the road as much as possible in 2017 – see pages 16 and 17, and we intend to extend our reach going forward through videos and webinars. We will continue to do all we can to inform and educate, providing feedback through our National Conference (on 13th June 2018) our Annual Reports, our case studies, the primary advice we offer with Propertymark, our masterclasses and now, with an added dimension of on-line training for front line staff to understand the consumer protection regulations. Innovating to meet the needs of consumers and the industry We do not share the view that existing redress arrangements are broken but we acknowledge that there are significant gaps within the property sector that need to be addressed. Throughout 2017, we looked carefully at how we could improve, expand and create capacity through innovation, modernisation and renewal. Innovation has come with the introduction of Yomdel, which is an on-line chat facility available all hours of the day and night. Yomdel have worked with us to focus on the nature of complaints and provide early information to help consumers decide for themselves whether they need to lodge a complaint against a service provider. THE PROPERTY OMBUDSMAN ANNUAL REPORT 2017 “We believe a single Ombudsman is better placed to set best practice, which will raise standards in the industry,clarifythepositionforconsumers,andprovide value and quality decision making against single codes of practice.”