Frequently Asked Questions

Our staff have the skills, competencies and experience to investigate complaints about public services in Scotland. They are selected on the basis of these skills.  Previous experience of working in the sectors that fall within our jurisdiction can also be helpful to our investigations.  It means the SPSO team, including our advisers, have a knowledge of and understand the context of your complaint, which in turn means you can have confidence in the SPSO’s handling of your complaint.

We understand though, that this past experience may occasionally concern some people.  Past experience in the public sector is not automatically a conflict of interest but there are times when it might be. We recognise a potential conflict of interest may arise where one of our staff has previously worked with or knows, for other reasons, an individual involved in handling a complaint that is brought to SPSO.  As a general principle, members of staff don’t normally work on any complaints about a body in which they worked (or with which they worked very closely) in the four years before taking up their position with SPSO.  This is, however, at the discretion of the Ombudsman who may take a different view, depending on individual circumstances.  If this is the case we will explain why and make sure we consider your concerns.

We also have a Conduct and Behaviour Policy which requires all staff to formally disclose wherever a potential conflict of interest may arise within their employment.  This, together with our approach to quality checking the work we do demonstrates that we have robust measures in place to identify and manage any risk of a perception of bias, or indeed a conflict of interest.

It's really helpful if you send us your complaint on our complaints form.  You can complete it online or download a copy to fill in (PDF). You can also ask us to send you a paper copy by calling our Freephone number (0800 377 7330).  We need to see :

• your name, address and telephone number, and email address if you have one
• whether you are complaining on behalf of someone else (if so, we usually need them to say in writing that they want you to act for them - they can do that on the form)
• the organisation you are complaining about
• a short explanation of what led to the problem, saying who was involved, what happened and when, and why you think the situation is unfair or wrong
• what you've done to try to sort out the complaint and the result of that (including a copy of the letter from the organisation giving their final decision about your complaint)
• copies of other paper work that we need to see to understand the complaint (please only send the most relevant information, if we need more we'll ask for it)
• why you're unhappy with the response you have received and what you would like to happen as a result of your complaint to us.

You may find our leaflet How to complain to the SPSO helpful - it gives some advice about complaining to us.

Visits to our office are by appointment only. You can arrange an appointment by phoning 0800 377 7330 or using our online contact form. We will not accept visitors without an appointment. We are open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 9am-5pm; Tuesday 10am-5pm.

Yes. We do not normally investigate complaints if you have known about the problem for more than 12 months before complaining.  We may, however, decide to look at the complaint if certain circumstances stopped you from making it earlier.

You can read our guidance about these time limits here.

Yes it is.

Our phone line is free (Freephone 0800 377 7330), and we can provide Freepost envelopes on request.   

We look at complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.  These include councils, the National Health Service, housing associations, water providers, prisons, the Scottish Government, colleges and universities and many other Scottish public organisations.

If after reading the list you aren't sure if we can look at a complaint about an organisation, please call us on our Freephone number above.

The law says that the SPSO must carry out investigations in private.  This means we cannot give any details to anyone who is not involved in the complaint about investigations that are in progress.

At the end of our investigations, when we publish reports on our website or in other forms of communication like newsletters, the media sometimes report them.  This happens in a small number of cases.  Before publication, we remove any information which could be used to identify anyone. In the event that there is press interest, our office will not provide any more information than is in the report.

We have a communications team who handle press enquiries.  If you think you are about to have a decision from us shortly and you would like to discuss any aspect of press coverage or publication, please contact us on 0131 240 8849 or by using our online contact form. 

At the end of our investigation we will tell you our decision. We will also send the decision to the organisation you complained about and we are likely to publish information about it. We do this in order to share learning from the complaint, to help public services improve. We publish our decisions in two types of report.

Public decision report

This is a summary of a decision letter. We send these reports to the Parliament and Scottish Ministers and publish them on our website and sometimes in other forms of communication like newsletters. We usually publish decision reports about six weeks after making our decision. In a small number of cases we do not publish decision reports, usually to prevent the possibility of someone being identified. For the same reason we sometimes we publish the report, and anonymise the organisation complained about (for example, we call the organisation A Council).

If you have requested a review of your decision, we will not publish the decision report until the review is complete.

Public detailed investigation report

This is a detailed report, usually where a case has a wider public interest. We send these reports to the Parliament and Scottish Ministers and publish them on our website and in other forms of communication like newsletters. We publish these reports at the same time as giving them to the people involved in the complaint. 

You can complain if you think that we have not met our service standards.  See our Customer Service Standards page for more information.

Yes they can.  You will have to give them permission to do that, which you can give on our complaint form or in a letter.  We can send you the complaint form or a letter to sign if you contact us. You should be aware that if you ask someone to represent you, that we will share information about you with them. If your complaint involves health or social work data, we may also need to confirm that you understand we may need to access and share that data. If you have any questions about what we may access and share with a representative, please ask and we can provide more detail.

We aim to be accessible to all, and will make reasonable adjustments to assist you wherever possible, if you tell us what you need us to do.  You can read more information here about how we may be able to help you access our service.

The SPSO operates on the Scottish Government’s IT network. The two main reasons for this are that it allows us to conduct our business in a secure IT environment with an exceptional level of online protection, and because sharing services with other publicly-funded organisations is highly cost-effective. Using this network in no way impinges on our independence or the confidentiality of our communications and we have strict agreements with all parties involved in supporting and maintaining our IT services to ensure this.

We usually make recommendations where we find that something has gone wrong, to help put things right and to try to stop the same thing happening to someone else. We always follow these up to make sure that they are carried out. You can search our reports and recommendations here.

Where possible, we work collaboratively with customers and organisations to help resolve complaints, in cases where it could result in a better or quicker outcome for a customer or learning for an organisation without the need for investigation – of course, this always depends on the individual circumstances of each case.

Yes. If no-one complains, other people may share the same experience and things may not improve.

When we make a decision on a complaint, we may make recommendations.  We expect organisations to carry these out and we check to make sure they do.  These are real outcomes for the people concerned, and so our complaints investigations can lead to wider improvement across a council, health board etc and sometimes across a whole sector.  You can search the reports of our investigations here, and you can find more information about how we put things right here.

Where possible, we work collaboratively with customers and organisations to help resolve complaints, in cases where it could result in a better or quicker outcome for a customer or learning for an organisation without the need for investigation – of course, this always depends on the individual circumstances of each case.

When we finish an investigation, we send our decision to the complainant and to the organisation that has been complained about.  We also lay reports of investigations or decisions before the Parliament, and send them to Scottish Ministers.  Laying documents before the Parliament means that we send them to the Parliament, who hold a copy in their permanent reference collection and place a notification of receipt in the Business Bulletin which includes details of current, future and past business of the Parliament. When documents are laid before the Parliament they become public documents and we publish them on our website and in other forms of communication like newsletters.

No.  We do not name the person who made the complaint, and usually refer to them as Mr/Mrs/Ms C.

More information about how we investigate and report on complaints.

Approach the organisation that you are unhappy with and ask them to sort out the problem.   They should have a complaints procedure and we normally expect you to have used all the stages of that procedure before we consider a complaint.  This is so that the organisation has the chance to put things right for you.  

Find out more about making a complaint to a public organisation.

We can take complaints about schools. You will need to complete the local complaints process first and it is also important that you know there are some restrictions on what we can look at.

We can take complaints from children who are old enough to understand the process and, if your child is over 12 years old, we will ask you to show you have their consent if you are taking the complaint forward on their behalf. Our complaint form includes a section that lets you do this easily. If you have any questions about this, please contact us.

In terms of restrictions our Act says that we can’t look at '… action concerning the giving of instruction, whether secular or religious, or conduct, curriculum or discipline.’ So we can’t look directly at what’s taught, how it’s taught, or how/if a child has been disciplined at school.

We can look at whether the school applied policies and procedures properly, such as those on bullying, or whether they have proper policies and procedures about something. We publish decisions of most of the complaints we’ve looked at and you can see and search for examples of what we do in the “our findings” section.

In some situations, we are not the only option and there may be other options better for you. If you bring a complaint to us and we think there is a more appropriate route for you, we will let you know and direct you to that option. For example, there are specific processes in place if you think that your child hasn’t been provided with appropriate additional support for learning. This includes difficulties with getting an assessment. If we think your complaint raises such concerns, we will direct you to those options. You can find more about the options around additional support by contacting Enquire http://enquire.org.uk/ (the Scottish advice centre for additional support for learning). There is also more information on the Scottish Government's website.

We will look at your complaint to see whether it can and should be investigated. See 'How we handle complaints' for more detailed information.

While the SPSO Act does not give a definition of maladministration, we use the following as examples of the kind of failings that come under the heading of maladministration:

• unreasonable delay
• rudeness
• failure to apply the law or rules properly.

There may be other failings that are also ‘maladministration’ – the most quoted definition is that of a Cabinet Minister, Richard Crossman, who in 1967 who listed 'bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude and so on'.  However, as a judge - Lord Denning - noted in 1979 'and so on would be a long and interesting list, clearly open-ended, covering the manner in which a decision is reached or discretion is exercised ...'.

For further advice, please contact our Assessment and Guidance team

We aim to close 95% of our cases within 12 months of receiving the complaint, however, we are currently experiencing delays to our service and this may affect the time taken to investigate your complaint.

It is difficult to predict how long an individual investigation will take, as each case is different.  Generally, they take longer where they are complex, involve a lot of written material, where we need to make detailed enquiries, or if we need to get professional advice.  We will contact you and the organisation regularly, to update you on progress.

You normally need to complain to us in writing.  You can do so using our online form or by post.

There's an online complaint form on this website or you can print off a complaints form.

If you need advice or have difficulty with the forms or with access to our website, please tell us.  Our contact us section will help you get in touch with our advice team and our accessibility section has information about what you can do if you have any special needs.

We sometimes receive multiple complaints about a council's decision to close a school or public facilities, or where members of a local community strongly oppose a planning application.  If we decide to investigate how such a decision was made, we're very likely to take one generally representative complaint, investigate that and let the other complainants know the outcome.

For an example of this, please see our decision summary about the closure of leisure facilities in South Ayrshire which is typical of this kind of complaint.

No - we treat each complaint on its own merits. And our Act does not allow us to accept petitions or other broad based community representations.

We take the view that a single complaint made by an individual carries just as much weight as a group of people making a complaint. So when we get a large number of complaints about a particular issue, such as building a school or the closure of public facilities, we don’t treat the subject matter any differently from when someone brings us a complaint that only affects them.

You can ask the Ombudsman to review the decision. How to do this, and what the review process covers are set out under our decision review page; the Ombudsman’s review is the final, independent stage of the public service complaints and whistleblowing processes, and once she has made a final decision there are no further stages.

In some situations, judicial review may be open to you. The judicial review process is a legal way to challenge the decisions of a public body in court. It is different to the SPSO’s internal review process. Time limits apply to the judicial review process which means you should act quickly if you are considering this. As judicial review is a legal process, the SPSO cannot advise you, so you may need to consider taking independent legal advice.

We will look at your complaint to see whether it can and should be investigated. See 'How we handle complaints' for more detailed information.

We use independent professional advisers when looking at some of our complaints. 

Our professional advisers provide us with independent advice on health matters, including specialist advisers in: medicine, midwifery, mental health, obstetrics and gynaecology, dentistry, nursing, psychiatry and GP services. There are also advisers who specialise in social work, planning, equalities, environmental health and water services.

Our advisers are experienced professionals with relevant and current expertise in their field of practice. They are all registered with their professional body or regulator and are selected on the basis of their knowledge and skills. Advisers receive induction and training for their role from us. and attend an annual seminar as part of their continuing professional development. The advice they provide is subject to quality assurance checks.

Most of our advisers are based in Scotland. The benefit of this is that they are fully aware of the Scottish context, which can be different from other parts of the UK. It also allows us to get advice directly and quickly.  In health cases, we also sometimes use the English Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s panel of clinical advisers, most usually where we don’t have an adviser with a particular specialism.

Advisers provide us with independent expert advice on what, in their professional judgement, it was reasonable to expect in the circumstances of a case. They explain technical terms and information and point us to relevant guidance and legislation. 

The Ombudsman (and her investigators acting on her authority) are responsible for making decisions about complaints.  We will take the advice we receive from our advisers into account along with all other relevant evidence and information.

We aim to close 95% of our cases within 12 months of receiving the complaint, however, we are currently experiencing delays to our service and this may affect the time taken to investigate your complaint.

It is difficult to predict how long an individual investigation will take, as each case is different.  Generally, they take longer where they are complex, involve a lot of written material, where we need to make detailed enquiries, or if we need to get professional advice.  We will contact you and the organisation regularly, to update you on progress.

Organisations usually comply with our recommendations, and we always follow up rigorously to make sure this happens.  However, if an organisation did not comply, the Ombudsman can take action to draw attention to this.

Section 16 of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 says that we can lay a special report before the Scottish Parliament when an investigation report finds that someone suffered injustice or hardship because of maladministration or service failure, and this has not been, or will not be, remedied.

Since the SPSO was set up in 2002, we have not needed to issue a special report.  If we did do so, it would be for Parliament to decide what, if any, action to take.

You can search our reports here.

Our legislation says that we must carry out our investigations in private. We cannot comment on ongoing investigations and when we make reports public at the end of an investigation, we take care to anonymise individuals.

We put reports on our website to make the learning from complaints available to as wide an audience as possible. The aim is to help organisations pick up good practice from one another, and to decide whether they need to take action that may prevent the same issue from arising elsewhere. This also helps members of the public understand what we can and cannot look at, and the kind of recommendations we make.

We publish a small number of investigation reports in full (these are complaints that meet our public interest criteria) and we also publish the outcomes of 70-80 decisions a month (decision reports). These are on the our findings section of our website and can be searched by sector, organisation, subject and so on. We usually publish decision reports about six weeks after the complainant and the organisation concerned have received the final decision from our office.

We sometimes receive multiple complaints about a council's decision to close a school or public facilities, or where members of a local community strongly oppose a planning application.  If we decide to investigate how such a decision was made, we're very likely to take one generally representative complaint, investigate that and let the other complainants know the outcome.

For an example of this, please see our decision summary about the closure of leisure facilities in South Ayrshire which is typical of this kind of complaint.

No - we treat each complaint on its own merits. And our Act does not allow us to accept petitions or other broad based community representations.

We take the view that a single complaint made by an individual carries just as much weight as a group of people making a complaint. So when we get a large number of complaints about a particular issue, such as building a school or the closure of public facilities, we don’t treat the subject matter any differently from when someone brings us a complaint that only affects them.

We cannot accept complaints from community councils on their own behalf.  Section 5 of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 defines a ‘member of the public’.  We took legal advice on this, and were advised that a community council is not a member of the public under the terms of the Act.   A Scottish Parliamentary committee has also looked at this and confirmed that a community council cannot complain directly to us.

So we do not accept complaints made directly by community councils, although they may act on behalf of a member of the public or help a person complain to us. In that case, we simply need the person's written consent for the community council to act on their behalf.

Any person or organisation who is a member of the public for the purposes of Section 5 (6) of the SPSO Act 2002.  This excludes a number of public authorities, including local authorities.  We can, however, take complaints from any customer of a licensed water or sewerage provider within our jurisdiction.

You can make a complaint on your own, or jointly with someone else but we investigate  specific individual complaints, not petitions or general representations from groups.  We can't take complaints from community councils.

If you want to, you can ask an independent advocate or adviser, an MSP or MP, a friend, relative or neighbour to bring your complaint to us. If you do that, we'll need your written confirmation or consent that you want them to do so.  You can confirm this on our complaint form (online).

Anonymous complaints
It is very unlikely that we could act on an anonymous complaint.  If you are concerned about the implications of making a complaint and want to discuss this with us please contact us.

Ombudsmen deal with complaints from ordinary citizens about certain public bodies or organisations providing services on their behalf.

The SPSO looks into complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.  Our job is to give an independent and impartial decision on complaints and we also have a statutory role in improving complaints handling by organisations under our remit.

Most of the work of considering complaints is done by SPSO staff called Complaints Reviewers.  We receive around 4000 complaints every year. The SPSO Act 2002 allows the Ombudsman to delegate functions, which means that she can ask other people to do things on his behalf, such as look at complaints.

The How we handle complaints section of this website explains how we look into complaints.

The 2002 SPSO Act  provides for the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB - also referred to as the Parliamentary corporation) to pay the salary and expenses of the Ombudsman and any expenses incurred in the exercise of the Ombudsman’s function. 

The Ombudsman provides an estimate for funding for the next financial year to the SPCB, within a prescribed template. The SPCB is required to provide a provisional expenditure plan to the Parliament’s Finance Committee and the Scottish Government by 1 March each year and in the first week of November each year puts forward a further expenditure plan reflecting any changes. The Finance Committee will consider the SPCB’s provisional expenditure plans and produce a report for Parliament, which can be debated. The SPCB’s final expenditure proposals (including the Ombudsman’s budget) will then appear in the annual Budget Bill which will be voted upon by the Parliament.

No.  We do not name the person who made the complaint, and usually refer to them as Mr/Mrs/Ms C.

More information about how we investigate and report on complaints.

We can take complaints about schools. You will need to complete the local complaints process first and it is also important that you know there are some restrictions on what we can look at.

We can take complaints from children who are old enough to understand the process and, if your child is over 12 years old, we will ask you to show you have their consent if you are taking the complaint forward on their behalf. Our complaint form includes a section that lets you do this easily. If you have any questions about this, please contact us.

In terms of restrictions our Act says that we can’t look at '… action concerning the giving of instruction, whether secular or religious, or conduct, curriculum or discipline.’ So we can’t look directly at what’s taught, how it’s taught, or how/if a child has been disciplined at school.

We can look at whether the school applied policies and procedures properly, such as those on bullying, or whether they have proper policies and procedures about something. We publish decisions of most of the complaints we’ve looked at and you can see and search for examples of what we do in the “our findings” section.

In some situations, we are not the only option and there may be other options better for you. If you bring a complaint to us and we think there is a more appropriate route for you, we will let you know and direct you to that option. For example, there are specific processes in place if you think that your child hasn’t been provided with appropriate additional support for learning. This includes difficulties with getting an assessment. If we think your complaint raises such concerns, we will direct you to those options. You can find more about the options around additional support by contacting Enquire http://enquire.org.uk/ (the Scottish advice centre for additional support for learning). There is also more information on the Scottish Government's website.

While the SPSO Act does not give a definition of maladministration, we use the following as examples of the kind of failings that come under the heading of maladministration:

• unreasonable delay
• rudeness
• failure to apply the law or rules properly.

There may be other failings that are also ‘maladministration’ – the most quoted definition is that of a Cabinet Minister, Richard Crossman, who in 1967 who listed 'bias, neglect, inattention, delay, incompetence, ineptitude, perversity, turpitude and so on'.  However, as a judge - Lord Denning - noted in 1979 'and so on would be a long and interesting list, clearly open-ended, covering the manner in which a decision is reached or discretion is exercised ...'.

For further advice, please contact our Assessment and Guidance team

The Ombudsman's terms of appointment are in the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002.

The Ombudsman is nominated by the Scottish Parliament, and appointed by the King, for a period of no more than eight years.

The Ombudsman’s independence on decision-making and key statutory functions is an important aspect of their role and guaranteed by statute. They remain accountable to the Scottish Parliament for operations generally and are subject to many of the accountability structures that apply to Scottish public authorities.

The Ombudsman may be relieved of office by the King on request or following a resolution of Parliament which must be voted for by at least two thirds of members.

Organisations usually comply with our recommendations, and we always follow up rigorously to make sure this happens.  However, if an organisation did not comply, the Ombudsman can take action to draw attention to this.

Section 16 of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 says that we can lay a special report before the Scottish Parliament when an investigation report finds that someone suffered injustice or hardship because of maladministration or service failure, and this has not been, or will not be, remedied.

Since the SPSO was set up in 2002, we have not needed to issue a special report.  If we did do so, it would be for Parliament to decide what, if any, action to take.

You can search our reports here.

Our complaints reviewers always check with organisations to make sure that they have done as we recommended.   We expect to see firm evidence that our recommendations have been implemented.  If we find that they have not, we will go back to the organisation until we are satisfied that what we recommended has been done.

We usually make recommendations where we find that something has gone wrong, to help put things right and to try to stop the same thing happening to someone else. We always follow these up to make sure that they are carried out. You can search our reports and recommendations here.

Where possible, we work collaboratively with customers and organisations to help resolve complaints, in cases where it could result in a better or quicker outcome for a customer or learning for an organisation without the need for investigation – of course, this always depends on the individual circumstances of each case.

Yes. If no-one complains, other people may share the same experience and things may not improve.

When we make a decision on a complaint, we may make recommendations.  We expect organisations to carry these out and we check to make sure they do.  These are real outcomes for the people concerned, and so our complaints investigations can lead to wider improvement across a council, health board etc and sometimes across a whole sector.  You can search the reports of our investigations here, and you can find more information about how we put things right here.

Where possible, we work collaboratively with customers and organisations to help resolve complaints, in cases where it could result in a better or quicker outcome for a customer or learning for an organisation without the need for investigation – of course, this always depends on the individual circumstances of each case.

We may contact you in the early stages of our consideration when we are deciding whether or not to investigate to provide some specific comments/information to help us make that decision.  Quick responses to those requests help us to ensure we don’t take cases to investigation which we could deal with early in the process.

Where possible, we work collaboratively with customers and organisations to help resolve complaints, in cases where it could result in a better or quicker outcome for a customer or learning for an organisation without the need for investigation – of course, this always depends on the individual circumstances of each case.

When we decide to investigate, you will receive a letter, usually by email, which sets out clearly the information we are looking for and gives you an opportunity to comment.  We will also ask you to fill in a self-assessment form about how you handled the complaint. At this stage, we normally give organisations 20 working days to return the information and provide comments. We may be able to provide short extensions to that time limit, but you will need to give us good reasons for the delay and explain why you can’t meet the original limit.

During an investigation we may be in touch to ask for clarification or more information.  We will always give you a timescale for providing this and that is likely to be around 10 working days for these more detailed requests.

Following an investigation, if we have made recommendations, we will ask for evidence that they have been fulfilled.  We will let you know the type of evidence we will need, and the time we give for responding will reflect the recommendation we have made.

At the end of our investigation we will tell you our decision. We will also send the decision to the organisation you complained about and we are likely to publish information about it. We do this in order to share learning from the complaint, to help public services improve. We publish our decisions in two types of report.

Public decision report

This is a summary of a decision letter. We send these reports to the Parliament and Scottish Ministers and publish them on our website and sometimes in other forms of communication like newsletters. We usually publish decision reports about six weeks after making our decision. In a small number of cases we do not publish decision reports, usually to prevent the possibility of someone being identified. For the same reason we sometimes we publish the report, and anonymise the organisation complained about (for example, we call the organisation A Council).

If you have requested a review of your decision, we will not publish the decision report until the review is complete.

Public detailed investigation report

This is a detailed report, usually where a case has a wider public interest. We send these reports to the Parliament and Scottish Ministers and publish them on our website and in other forms of communication like newsletters. We publish these reports at the same time as giving them to the people involved in the complaint. 

When we publish our detailed investigation and decision reports, we normally identify the organisation involved. Where, however, we think that doing so could identify an individual, for example, in a small GP practice or in a complaint about school bullying, we are likely to anonymise the organisation. We also reserve the right to exempt some reports from publication, usually to prevent the possibility of someone being identified.

You must make arrangements for an investigation report to be publicly available for at least three weeks (unless the Ombudsman directs otherwise).  This is to allow any person to inspect it at any reasonable time, and to obtain a copy of it, or any part of it.  You must also publicise those arrangements.  In practice, this can simply mean publishing the report on your website and letting people know it is there.  It is, however, for you to decide how to publish these and you may use other relevant methods should you choose to do so.

Section 15(4) of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 sets out this requirement.

Every month we publish reports of our investigations.

We publish detailed sectoral complaints reports, an annual report and statistics.  We also publish annual letters to councils, health boards, water authorities, the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Housing Regulator.

There may be information about your organisation in any or all of our publications.

You can search our published investigation reports and decision reports here.

Please contact our communications team on 0131 240 8849 if you can't find what you're looking for.

Please visit our training web page to find out about our online training courses.