Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
This page contains information about the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, including:
What it does
Advantages and disadvantages
Which complaints are eligible and which are not?
Cost
Timescale
Procedure
Outcomes
Satisfaction levels
What it does
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) provides a 'one-stop-shop' for making complaints about organisations providing public services in Scotland. The SPSO deals with complaints about councils, housing associations, the National Health Service, the Scottish Government and its agencies and departments, colleges and universities and most Scottish public authorities. A full list is available on the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman website.
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Advantages
- it is independent of the bodies that are the subject of the complaints it handles
- individual complainants are not identified
- it is free
- it can put pressure on a public body to resolve a complaint
- a wide range of remedies is possible
- it can influence good practice and procedures within departments and public bodies
Disadvantages
- it can’t usually investigate something about which an appeal could be made to a Minister or a Tribunal or for which a remedy could be sought in the courts
- it can’t make a ruling on points of law
- it can take a long time for a full investigation
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Which complaints are eligible and which are not?
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman generally looks at complaints about the way a decision was made or an action was taken by a public body. It can consider complaints if the body has:
- provided a poor service
- delivered a service badly
- failed to provide a service
The ombudsman can consider complaints related to:
- Scottish Parliament and government departments
- NHS provision in Scotland, including NHS hospital staff, GPs, dentists and other health professionals
- local government, including housing, planning and education
- further and higher education providers in Scotland (but not complaints about the curriculum or about academic judgement)
- housing associations
From October 2010 the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman will take on complaints about prisons, which were formerly dealt with by the Scottish Prisons Complaints Commissioner.
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman can’t consider complaints about the merits of a decision itself if the decision was properly made. In other words, not liking the decision that a public body made is not enough. It also cannot consider complaints about:
- personnel matters
- most commercial and contractual matters
- services by non-NHS providers unless paid for by the NHS
- UK government departments
If the complaint has already been to court or to a tribunal, or if it would be possible to try to resolve the dispute this way, then the ombudsman cannot take on the investigation.
Complaints must be taken to the ombudsman within a year from the date the problem occurred or the complainant became aware of the problem. This can be extended but only in limited circumstances.
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Cost
The scheme is free to use.
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Timescale
All complaints go through three stages:
- Initial consideration, where the ombudsman staff make a preliminary assessment about whether the case is one that they can deal with
- Further consideration, where they look at the case in more detail, and make a decision about whether they can investigate fully
- Investigation
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman now places a greater emphasis on early resolution of complaints and is revising its procedures to provide more opportunities for complaints to be resolved without full investigation.
In 2009-10 the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman resolved 3,524 complaints. Its target timescales are:
- 80% of cases that are not formally reported (to Parliament) to be closed within four months
- 90% of cases that are formally reported closed within twelve months
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Procedure
As with all ombudsman schemes, you must first complain to the public body directly, and give them an opportunity to resolve the complaint using their internal complaints procedure. If you are dissatisfied with the outcome after this, you can take the case to the ombudsman. If there is a delay in the internal complaints procedure, you can still go to the ombudsman, who can make a decision about whether to take on the case, or might put pressure on the organisation to respond more promptly.
You can make a complaint by:
- visiting the ombudsman’s office in Edinburgh
- phoning
- faxing
- texting
- emailing
- writing a letter
- filling in the online complaints form
All these contact details are on the ombudsman's website. There is a link at the bottom of this page.
Once a complaint has been accepted for investigation, the investigating officer may try to resolve the complaint informally at an early stage. If this is not possible, the ombudsman has the same powers as the Court of Session to require people to require people to give evidence or produce documents. Both the complainant and the body complained about will be kept informed at all stages of the investigation.
At the end of the investigation, a draft report will set out details of:
- the complaint
- the investigation process
- the key facts
- the ombudsman’s conclusions
- any recommendations that the ombudsman intends to make
Both parties have the chance to comment on the report before it is published. The complainant, and the individual complaint about, are not normally named in the report.
A full investigation can take a year or more, so this is not a speedy dispute resolution process; it is, however, a thorough one.
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Outcomes
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman publishes case digests on its website, which give an idea of the kind of issues which are investigated, and the likely outcomes. There are also up-to-date statistics about the number of complaints received, the bodies most complained about, and the proportion of complaints upheld.
In 2009-10, 143 complaints were investigated. Of these:
- 46 were fully upheld
- 65 were partially upheld
- 14 were not upheld
- 9 were not upheld but recommendations were made
- 9 were discontinued or withdrawn
The ombudsman will also follow up reports to check whether the public body has carried out his recommendations. If they do not, the ombudsman has the power to lay a special report before the Scottish Parliament highlighting his concerns.
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Satisfaction levels
Complainant satisfaction with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has increased over the past few years, and independent surveys published in 2008 and 2009 show that the speed with which the service considers complaints is improving. More than a third of complaints taken to the ombudsman are not accepted for formal investigation, and many of these complainants are disappointed to find that the ombudsman cannot help them. In this sense expectations of what the ombudsman can and cannot consider may be unrealistic. Among those who did receive a full investigation, however, high levels of dissatisfaction remain regarding the thoroughness of the report and the impartiality of the investigation. The survey results published in 2008 indicate that
- 45% of complainants were dissatisfied with the thoroughness of the report
- 48% dissatisfied with the impartiality of the investigation
- 53% dissatisfied with the explanation for the decision
- 57% dissatisfied with the redress proposed or recommendations made
The survey published in September 2009 indicates a slight improvement in that only 42% were dissatisfied with the thoroughness of the investigation.
As is to be expected, dissatisfaction with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman is higher among those whose complaints were not upheld than among those whose complaints were upheld.
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June 2010
