Our role
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has a wide remit, covering a variety of functions and services. The Ombudsman’s powers and duties come (predominantly) from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002, which gives her four distinct statutory functions:
- the final stage for complaints about most devolved public services in Scotland including councils, the health service, prisons, water and sewerage providers, Scottish Government, universities and colleges
- specific powers and responsibilities to publish complaints handling procedures, and monitor and support best practice in complaints handling. Please visit our web pages 'For organisation' for further information.
- independent review service for the Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) with the power to overturn and substitute decisions made by councils on Community Care and Crisis Grant applications. Please visit our SWF website for further information.
- Independent National Whistleblowing Officer for the NHS in Scotland (INWO) – from 1 April 2021 – final stage for complaints about how the NHS considers whistleblowing disclosures and the treatment of individuals concerned. Please visit our INWO website for further information.
All of the SPSO's services are free and independent.
Our vision
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman puts people and learning at the heart of what we do. We achieve the best outcomes for people and drive efficiency in public services through the impact of shared learning from complaints oversight.
Our strategic themes
We will live our values through four strategic themes that drive our activity and annual business plans. You can click below to see our objectives within each Strategic Theme.
Access to justice through everyday rights
- 1. We will develop and adopt rights-based approaches to complaints handling; updating and monitoring Model Complaints Handling Procedures and Model National Whistleblowing Standards to ensure rights are reflected in accessibility to public bodies complaints handling.
- 2. We will make our own services as accessible, and rights based as they can be, promoting awareness of the right to complain.
- 3. We will continue to develop stakeholder relationships to contribute to development of fair, accessible Scottish public services, and wider access to justice environment.
- 4. We will continue to develop relationships with our stakeholders to both learn from and to contribute to fair, accessible Scottish public services.
- 5. We will build and maintain our capacity, financial, human and infrastructure, to implement and deliver our statutory functions, taking an agile and flexible approach.
- 6. We will be acknowledged for having well-trained, properly supported people, who have the tools they need to deliver our services.
- 7. We will review and develop the support, guidance and training we offer to public bodies, complainants, and whistleblowers to enable them to develop their own capacity, to handle service complaints, whistleblowing concerns and applications to the Scottish Welfare Fund.
- 8. We will monitor Scottish public bodies’ complaint handling, Scottish Welfare Fund applications and whistleblowing handling, holding them to account for poor performance and giving credit for good performance.
- 9. We will review the Model Complaints Handling Procedures and National Whistleblowing Standards, to ensure they remain fit for purpose.
- 10. We will contribute to the development and/ or review of other standards and guidance to ensure they deliver services to the standards required.
- 11. We will develop our capacity to gather and share information and data to enable us to make efficient and impactful interventions when complaint, and Scottish Welfare Fund services handling falls below accepted standards.
- 12. We will promote good practice to drive efficiency in public sector complaints and Scottish Welfare Fund applications handling, to ensure learning is captured and applied to service delivery improvements.
- 13. We will manage the organisation to deliver our statutory functions within budget in line with legislative requirements, our published customer service standards, and our performance targets.
- 14. We will keep our approach under review to drive efficiency and ensure business continuity, taking an agile and open-minded approach to business and process development.
Our values
We are committed to living our values to deliver our functions efficiently, effectively and economically. While our remit is wide, and expanding, we aspire to deliver our business coherently and consistently across all functions. We strive to continue to give great service to all who come to us; whether to make a complaint about a public body, seek our advice and support, ask for a review of a Scottish Welfare Fund decision or complain about how the NHS has handled a whistleblowing concern.
At SPSO, we have a great team; dedicated and committed, driven by deep-rooted values of being people centred, fair, independent and learning & improving.
How we live our values can be seen in the diagram here.
