SPSO
The SPSO cannot normally look at complaints:
In order to access the SPSO the Complainant must have made a complaint to the organisation first
The SPSO cannot consider complaints about employment, personnel or most contractual matters or that have been taken to court or a tribunal.
When first receiving a complaint the SPSO will carry out a number of checks to sift ineligible complaints or matters outside their remit.
Is it about a subject and organisation that they can look at?
Has it gone through the right complaints process?
Has it been made within 12 months deadline?
If the complaint passes these tests, the Complaints reviewer contacts complainer
Investigation:
The Investigator will start looking at the complaint paperwork such as the complaint form or letters. They will continue by asking questions, getting copies of documents and taking expert advice if they need to.
Once they have come to a decision they will notify all parties of the decision and any recommendations to put things right.
If the Complainant is unhappy with decision can request a review on the basis that they made their decision based on important evidence that contains facts that were not accurate, and you can show this using readily available information.
You can also request a review if you feel you have new and relevant information that was not previously available and that affects the decision they made. In this case, SPSO may share the new information with the organisation you complained about. They do this to give them the chance to consider it before the Ombudsman makes a decision on your review request.
You have three weeks to notify the Ombudsman of your wish to review and a further three weeks to submit the review
The SPSO can be contacted on the details below.
Care Inspectorate
The Care Inspectorate are the independent scrutiny and improvement body for social care and social work across Scotland. They regulate, inspect and support improvement of care services for the benefit of the people who use them.
They have a statutory duty to deal with complaints made to them about registered care services.
Complaints that they are able to deal with may relate to:
They are not able to deal with complaints that fall under the remit of other organisations, including:
As a first step they will assess whether the issue raised can be defined as a complaint
If so they will begin their complaints procedure within three working days of receipt of the complaint
They will contact the complainer to discuss the details of the complaint and then the Complaints inspector determines the appropriate action for dealing with the complaint based on a risk assessment. The options available to them are:
1. Use the information as intelligence
2. Frontline resolution
3. Investigation by service
4. Investigation by inspectorate
Timescales