Overview
The complainant (Mr C) was aggrieved that the Scottish Prisons Complaints Commission (SPCC) failed to properly investigate his complaint that he was being kept unnecessarily in segregation by the Scottish Prison Service (SPS). He complained that, having decided to re-investigate his complaint, the SPCC later dropped it because he had been moved to another prison.
Specific complaint and conclusions
The complaints which have been investigated are that:
- (a) the decision by the SPCC to suspend Mr C's complaint when a new Interim Commissioner was appointed in July 2008 was unreasonable and caused him injustice (upheld);
- (b) the decision by the SPCC to re-investigate Mr C's complaint was flawed and caused him hardship and injustice given that the previous Commissioner had already made recommendations to the Executive Committee for the Management of Difficult Prisoners (ECMDP) (upheld);
- (c) the SPCC misinterpreted Mr C's complaint concerning a specific prison, and as a result dropped it (upheld);
- (d) the decision by the SPCC to drop Mr C's complaint entirely was flawed and based on insufficient, or untested, evidence that the SPS were managing his case (upheld);
- (e) there were unreasonable delays by the SPCC in dealing with Mr C's complaint (upheld); and (f) the administrative handling and service quality of Mr C's complaint was poor (upheld).
Redress and recommendations
The Ombudsman recommends that the SPCC:
- (i) apologise to Mr C for the shortcomings and failings identified in this report;
- (ii) go back to the SPS and urgently establish if there is a long-term management plan and/or reintegration plan in place for Mr C and provide evidence of the plan to this office;
- (iii) give proper consideration to the need for impact assessments when introducing service changes;
- (iv) in future, carefully consider a complainant's original complaint, and all the circumstances surrounding it, as well as consulting fully with the complainant to ensure that they understand the complaint and his/her point of view before deciding to drop any of the heads of complaint;
- (v) take steps to introduce their internal timescale targets as quickly as possible and include them in their complaints leaflet so that complainants are aware of what they can expect from the SPCC; and
- (vi) review their complaints handling processes and systems with a view to improving their communication with complainants. In addition, they should consider putting in place better information gathering techniques and improve their file management procedures.