Britannia Radio

There can be no excuse whatsoever for this gross and deliberate
injustice, misleading statements, and unwarranted delays. Above all,
having been found out as perpetrators of such an injustice by
ignoring the findings of the parliamentary Ombudsman, to continue
wriggllng to avoid doing their duty is despicable.

This is using the power of the state blatantly to rob citizens of
their savings. Justice is clearly a foreign word to Brown, his
government and his mouthpiece on this shameful matter, Mrs Ed Balls,
alias Yvette Cooper.

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TELEGRAPH 30.1.09
Equitable Life: Government criticised by ombudsman over scandal
The Government has been criticised for the way it handled the
Equitable Life scandal by the Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham.

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent

Giving evidence before MPs, she accused ministers of "acting as judge
on its own behalf" for taking on the role of assessing how much
compensation to pay policy holders.

And she was scathing about the Government's rejection of parts of a
hard-hitting report she drew up into the Equitable scandal, saying
that proper reasons had been given for not accepting her findings of
maladministration and injustice.

Earlier this month, Yvette Cooper, [always remember that name! -cs]
the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, apologised to policyholders over
the failure to regulate the insurer and agreed to compensate some
investors, but rejected some of the findings of maladministration.

More than a million policy holders, many of them elderly, lost money
when Equitable Life collapsed nine years ago.

Mrs Abraham told the Public Administration Select Committee: "It
seems to me that overall this is an unsatisfactory response.
"I am disappointed to see the Government picking over and
reinterpreting my findings. We have been here before and I had hoped
we would not be here again.
"The response says I said something different from what I actually
said, and then says it disagrees with things I did not say.''

The Government rejected the Ombudsman's call to set up an independent
tribunal to calculate the compensation, instead appointing former
Appeal Court judge Sir John Chadwick to advise on what payments
should be made.

Mrs Abraham said the Government had given no detailed timetable in
which the process would take place, there was no definition of what
it meant by "disproportionate impact'', and while Sir John would
provide independent advice, there was no independent decision maker.

But the she did concede that the cost to the public purse of
compensating Equitable policyholders was a legitimate consideration
for the Government.
In July last year Mrs Abraham called on the Government to apologise
to Equitable policyholders and compensate them for any money they
lost as a result of its regulatory failure.

Her report on the issue found 10 instances of maladministration by
regulators and Whitehall officials in the period leading up to
December 2001.