We have laid our Annual Report for the year 2021-22 before the Scottish Parliament.
Highlights include:
- 3,665 public service complaints received and 3,492 closed
- 63% of all investigated public service complaints upheld
- 511 recommendations made to public bodies, 51% being about learning and improvement
- a 36.7% increase in Scottish Welfare Fund independent review applications received from the previous year
- 107 whistleblowing enquiries and cases considered, completing the first year of service for our Independent National Whistleblowing Officer function
- successful launch of three project work streams to review our own organisational learning and recommend improvements on future working arrangements, intelligence and learning from casework and internal communications.
Rosemary Agnew, Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, said:
"Since I took up office in 2017, my team has, year on year, taken on new functions and duties and had to cope with unprecedented change and challenges. We would have faced many of these irrespective of COVID-19.
We started 2021-22 in the knowledge we had high workloads and faced capacity and resourcing challenges. Despite uncertainty about lockdown and the ongoing impact of COVID-19, on ourselves and Scottish public services, we were, and remain, optimistic. We set ourselves an ambitious business plan, driven by our values and strategic aims and were successful in delivering many of these objectives.
We are committed to delivering the best service we can with the resources we have. Reducing the number of unallocated public service complaints, shortening the time taken to decide complaints, and increasing stakeholder engagement are top priorities for 2022-23. We also look forward to supporting the development of child friendly complaints procedures in anticipation of the incorporation of the United Nations Conference on the Rights of the Child (the UNCRC) developments."