SPSO

If you remain dissatisfied after a final response from the organisation you can ask the SPSO to look at your complaint

The SPSO cannot normally look at complaints:

• where the Complainant has not exhausted the council's complaints handling procedure
• more than 12 months after the Complainant became aware of the matter complained about, or
• that have been or are being considered in court.

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? 

• Has it enough detail to get to work on it?

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:

• inadequate standards of care
• failure to uphold the rights of a person using a service, or their relatives or carers
• a care service’s failure to follow appropriate safe care practices.
• the practice of staff, including treatment by, or conduct of, a member of staff, fitness of staff,
• inadequate staff training and staff numbers or deployment

They are not able to deal with complaints that fall under the remit of other organisations, including:

• a request for compensation
• issues that are in court or have already been heard by a court or tribunal
• a complaint that has already been upheld by the care service and action taken to change/improve  practice
• staff employment issues that are covered by contract, grievance and employment conditions
• issues that are not within the remit of the care service
• complaints about social work decisions or contracting with a care service (can complain to LA/SPSO
• an attempt to reopen a previously concluded complaint or to have a complaint reconsidered where they  have already given final decision
• child and adult protection issues
• criminal offences

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

• Contact within 10 working days to tell what they will be investigating.
• Aim to give full response as soon as possible but no later than 40 working days from the time decide can investigate
• Can extend time if necessary