Decision Report 202202301

Summary

C complained to the council about the way that their child’s school had responded to an incident of bullying in the playground. C also complained about the way this matter had been communicated to them as a parent of some of the children involved.

We found that the council had responded to the incident in keeping with their policies and procedures and we did not uphold this part of C’s complaint.

In relation to the school's communication with C about the incident, we found that there were inconsistencies within the councils own records about the point at which they became aware of C’s child being involved in the incident, and in relation to the school’s position on whether or not there was an area of the playground that was known to be difficult to supervise. Given the discrepancies within the council’s records, we upheld this part of C’s complaint.

Recommendations

What we asked the organisation to do in this case:

• Apologise to C that the complaint response about the playground incident was not supported by the evidence/ the school’s documentation of the incident. The apology should meet the standards set out in the SPSO guidelines on apology available at www.spso.org.uk/information-leaflets.

In relation to complaints handling, we recommended:

• Complaint responses should be accurate and supported by the evidence. Comments on complaints provided to the SPSO should be consistent with the documentation of the incident being investigated.
• Complaint responses should be accurate and supported by the evidence.

We have asked the organisation to provide us with evidence that they have implemented the recommendations we have made on this case by the deadline we set.