After an assessment of the evidence you have provided on your case, we may decide to investigate further in order to reach an investigation decision. Once we decide to do this, we’ll discuss with you the wording of the complaint that we will ask the organisation about. The wording will be clear, so that everyone understands what we will, and will not, be issuing a decision on. We may summarise a number of issues and it’s possible that some issues you raise with us will not be included in this wording. In exceptional cases, if we cannot reach an agreement with you about this, we will either have the final say where we are clear about your complaint, or close it without making a decision.
Investigation decisions
We make our decisions by taking into account relevant evidence of what happened, any independent specialist advice, and the views and opinions of both the person making the complaint and the organisation being complained about. It is then for us to weigh up the evidence we have and make a decision. Before we make our final decision on your complaint, we will either send you and the organisation our provisional decision or share a draft of our public investigation report.
This is your opportunity to tell us if you think we have relied on inaccurate information, or if you have new information that you think changes our provisional views. We will then make a final decision taking into account any comments. Your complaint may be upheld in full, some upheld, or not upheld.
Recommendations
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.
Here are some things we might recommend:
- A proper written apology
- Review a decision
- Change a process
- Put in place a procedure they should have had
- Comply with their complaints process
If we make recommendations, we’ll follow them up to make sure they have been carried out.
Publishing our decisions
We publish our decisions to tell other people about what we find and what we’ve asked organisations to do to put things right. Our investigations and recommendations can lead to
improvements in public services as a whole, not just in the organisation you have complained about.
Decision reports
When we investigate a complaint, we usually report our findings and conclusions in what we
call a decision letter. These findings are published as decision reports.
Investigation reports
In some cases that meet our public interest criteria, we lay the full report of the investigation before the Scottish Parliament and publish it online as an investigation report.
We keep all complaints private. Before we publish our decisions we remove any information that could be used to identify you or other people. We usually name the organisation involved but we won’t name you. We will not name anyone else, unless we have good reasons. We may not publish a decision at all if we think what it says may identify someone. Every month, we send reports of our decisions to the Scottish Parliament and to Ministers in the Scottish Government. We also publish the reports on our website and in other communications, like newsletters. The media sometimes report our decisions.
You can read all our public decisions on Our Findings page.