My guest is Matt Vickers, Chief Executive and Chief Ombudsman of Ombudsman Services. Matt and I discuss the role that front line execution plays in purpose, what it takes to build trust in markets, and why that is important to us all. He shares what an ombudsman really does and how he came to be one. He also describes how they are going beyond resolving consumer conflicts to helping companies avoid them in the first place.
Ombudsman Services runs the UK’s Energy and Telecommunications ombudsman services and administers the POPLA scheme for appeals about private parking charges.
They play a significant role in developing trust in key markets by making decisions on almost 200,000 complaints each year. The organisation has added capabilities in data, tech and insights to its knowledge of consumer behaviour. It engages with industry, regulators and civil society to build more proactive, predictive and preventative approaches to tackling consumer detriment. A focus on delivering fairer and more inclusive outcomes through better execution and behavioural intelligence is at the heart of the mission.
From 2012- 15, Matt was Chief Executive at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, a non-departmental public body accountable to the Scottish Parliament. Before that he worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, serving as British Consul in the Canary Islands and later in Madrid. The first ten years of his career were in FMCG and retailing.
Matt is a member of the Independent Expert Panel at the House of Commons- a body responsible for hearing appeals and deciding sanctions for MPs in bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct cases. He is Chair-Designate of the charity Human Rights at Sea, a Director of the Ombudsman Association, President of NEON (the European Energy Ombudsman association) and a member of the Institute of Directors Sustainability Expert Panel. He holds a doctorate in the history of Liverpool and its civic image from the University of Oxford.
Matt Vickers