First contact

We receive enquiries in our office via a variety of channels:

• 0800 free phone telephone number
• email and website contact form
• post.

Enquiries are received from:

• complainants seeking guidance on how to complain about a public service organisation or who are encountering difficulties in progressing through a complaints process
• complainants/advisors/advocates who are ready to send their complaint to the SPSO and require advice
• complainants/advisors/advocates who have a complaint being considered by our office and would like an update or to discuss it further
• organisations under our remit who are seeking advice about a range of complaint handling issues
• people and organisations who have a complaint or query about a matter that we cannot consider.

Where complainants require support in articulating and progressing their complaints, we signpost to Citizens Advice Bureaus, the Patient Advice and Support Service, and various advocacy services. This year we hosted a workshop for advisor and advocacy services during National Customer Service Week. We gathered suggestions on developing a specific page on our website with information that would be helpful for advisors and advocates to support their clients. This page will be launched in 2020-21.

We are committed to making our service as accessible as possible and continuously work to improve our customers’ experience. Further information on our work in this area can be found in Governance – Accessible service.

Work to improve our website and online complaint form has, this year, resulted in complaints made using our online complaint form rising from 1,782 in 2018- 19 to 1,885 in 2019-20.

We also saw a 10% increase in calls to our Freephone number:

2019-20	2018-19
16,152 calls	14,662 calls

We receive many enquiries about matters that we cannot help people with ourselves. Where other organisations are better placed to offer support we signpost them to other sources of information including expert helplines such as Shelter, Planning Aid, Age Scotland and Consumer Direct; our or other websites, and to other complaint handling organisations. This year we received 1,569 of these enquiries. This is a reduction on last year, but still significantly higher than three years ago.

Complaints overview

Caseload

Casework numbers inform our performance management measures and resource planning. We use this information to inform the approaches we take in working with organisations and sectors to help support and improve complaints handling at a local level, and to reduce the numbers which escalate to us. We also use it to inform how we design our own systems and measure effectiveness.

Percentage of cases carried forward:

Complaints at a glance

Premature complaints

This is a further drop of 1% on what has been a steadily decreasing figure over the years since designing, monitoring and promoting the Model Complaints Handling Procedures (MCHP), which are now embedded within Scottish public bodies under the SPSO’s jurisdiction.

This year marked a significant milestone, as this is the first year where the overall premature rate has dropped to below 20%. Within this figure, there are variations across sectors, which will be covered more fully in the Learning from complaints chapter. The overall picture is one of continuous improvement both for public bodies in effectively handling complaints locally, and for SPSO in not having to intervene as a result of poor complaints handling where customers seek SPSO intervention before the local process has been exhausted.

Complaints received by sector

Local arrangements for the provision of health and social care services vary across Scotland, making it difficult to make direct comparisons between geographic regions but nationally across health boards, local authorities and health and social care partnerships we can see that there has been an overall uplift in complaints of 5%.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Responding to complaints in a timely manner is a priority for us. In 2019-20, we worked towards two different targets. For the first half of the year we met or exceeded PI-1and PI-3.

In October 2020, we adopted a new set of performance indicators. These took account of a number of factors including the changing profile of cases that come to us as well as a change to our process as follows:

• there are now more complaints that come to SPSO ready to be considered by us than in the past (i.e. a fall in the premature rate)
• our casework involves increasingly complex cases as public bodies get better at following the MCHP to handle more straightforward complaints
• linked to this increasing complexity; the extension of SPSO’s jurisdiction to allow for considering professional judgement in social work cases (these now account for around 9% of SPSO investigations, compared to only 3% in 2017-18, when we initially took on this new power, and only 1% in the year prior to this extension)
• a process change to issuing of provisional decisions on all investigation cases which adds time to the investigation process but provides service users with a greater opportunity to comment on decisions
• static investigative resourcing levels for an increasing volume of cases.

We aim to be realistic in our targets and measures, but equally we recognise they need to be both ambitious and reflect what we should be aspiring to achieve.

Original SPSO KPIs (from 1 April 2019 – 30 September 2019)

Revised SPSO KPIs (from 1 October 2019 onwards)

We were aware that during the transition from one set of targets to another, and as a result of changes to our process, we were unlikely to achieve all of these targets in the six months they were in place, but felt it important to introduce them as the baseline.

The number of days taken for PI-3 has not been altered in the new performance indicators, but the target has been reduced from 95% to 85% in recognition of the changes to our process, most notably to the provisional decision process. The opportunity for organisations and complainants to comment on the provisional decision is now built into our timescales. We recognise it adds to the time taken overall, but it is very much driven by our values by making decision-making more transparent and people-centred.

PI-2 was most heavily impacted throughout the year, both under the original and revised PI as a result of the number of days it took to allocate a complaint because of rising volumes. Delays in allocating cases were as a result of rising caseloads and a static investigative resource in the face of rising numbers meant there was more work coming in than we had investigative resource to handle.

The revised PI-3 was the target most impacted by COVID-19. Although actual lockdown occurred in the final weeks of the year, business days were lost in the run-up as we prepared for lockdown during the period we usually close a significant number of cases. COVID-19 also began impacting on public bodies and their ability to respond to our enquiries.

Complaints assessment

We tell people as soon as we can what action we can and will take on a complaint. We explain whether their case can be resolved, is something that we can legally look into, and whether an SPSO investigation is beneficial to them. We call this stage assessment.

Proportionality decisions

‘Proportionality decisions’ is the blanket term for cases we make decisions about early on, where we may have made some enquiries but not carried out a full ‘investigation’. This happens for a variety of reasons:

Unallocated cases

Increasing caseloads and complaints numbers meant we were unable to allocate complaints to complaints reviewers as they came in. We recognised that we had to have a system of managing these proactively to ensure fairness to all service users. Putting a system in place meant we were able to give service users more accurate timescales of when their case was likely to be allocated, and protect our caseworkers from overload/ burnout that comes from managing too large a caseload. It has also enabled us to reduce the administration involved in tracking these cases.

Complaints investigation

Investigations completed

Changes to our caseload and how we handle it, mean that we are making significantly more decisions early on, without the need for long, more in-depth investigation. This a better use of our resources and means complainants and public bodies are receiving outcomes sooner.

Even with this, the number of investigations completed was lower than predicted because of the impact of COVID-19. Historically, many of our investigations are completed in the final quarter of the year. This year, COVID-19 and the run-up to lockdown had a significant impact on numbers of cases closed because of the hiatus in delivering our services and the impact on staff resources.

Public reports

We issued fewer public reports in 2019- 20. This in part reflects the increasing additional work public bodies are doing, through thorough and robust investigations (as required of the MCHP) to try to resolve complaints before they come to the SPSO.

Cases that are not published in full as a public investigation report are usually published as decision summaries. Public reports and decision summaries can be found on our website.

Uphold rate

For the third year in a row, the uphold rate has remained stable. In 2019-20, we continued to develop our approach to the proportionate investigation of cases. We do not consider it fair to complainants or public bodies to carry out in-depth investigations where we have evidence that the public body has already carried out a thorough investigation and/or taken appropriate action in response to complaints. We do not simply take this on face value, and will take action as needed to ensure commitments given by public bodies are delivered.

Independent advice

Closed cases requiring independent advice, by type

We use independent professional advisers to inform our decision-making on some complaints; this includes health, social work, local authority planning, water services, equalities and environmental health cases.

Closed cases requiring multiple independent advice

Overall, the number of requests for advice has fallen, but this is not an indication that we are seeking less advice. The fall in overall numbers reflects the reduction in the number of cases closed, or the increased time taken due to complexity, particularly in the final quarter. As cases remained open or open longer, new cases requiring advice were not being progressed as quickly.

What has changed significantly is the proportion of cases where only one piece of advice was requested. In 2019-20, this was 75% of requests, an increase of 6% on the year before and 8% since 2017-18. This is because of an increase in the number of social work cases requiring advice. Although, typically, only one adviser is required, the level of advice that is required can be significant and complex.

Provisional decisions

Following a successful pilot in early 2019, provisional decisions are now embedded within our process. Although the provisional decision process has extended the amount of time it takes to process our investigations (on average around five to six working weeks) we believe it is a more transparent and inclusive process that very much reflects our values. We also believe this leads to better outcomes for both members of the public and public bodies.

Communicating our decisions

At the beginning of October 2019, we changed how we communicate decisions not closed as public reports. We introduced ‘decision notices’ that are issued to each party with a covering letter.

Decision notices are anonymised. They are issued at provisional decision stage, and finalised taking into account any comments received.

The new decision notices:

• outline the background and context
• the complaint we accepted for investigation
• a description of our investigation
• set out the evidence on which we relied, including where appropriate, independent professional advice, and relevant policies and guidance
• our conclusions, findings and recommendations in relation to each head of complaint

The introduction of decision notices also supports our duties under Data Protection legislation in relation to ‘privacy by design’. Anonymised decisions remove personal data from the decision itself, reducing the risk of inadvertently disclosing personal data.

Complaints reviews

Requests for review

In line with SPSO’s values to work fairly, be people-centred and to learn and improve, we operate a review process whereby the complainant or public body can ask for a review of a complaint decision (not closed by public report where the process is slightly different). Reviews are a valuable source of learning, and are considered personally by the Ombudsman, with support from Executive Case Officers, who had no part in the original investigation or decision.

In 2019-20, we received 247 requests for reviews and the Ombudsman responded to all 247 requests. This represents 10% of all decisions made this year.

The outcome of the reviews is broken down as follows:

• the decision stood in 220 cases
• ten decisions were changed or amended (i.e. where we either change the outcome by issuing a fresh decision, or amend the decision reasons to give more robust or clearer explanations)
• seven cases were reopened in light of new information
• in two cases, the recommendation was amended and feedback given to the public body
• in six cases the review was withdrawn
• in two cases the review was ineligible

Reasons for revised decision

In three out of 10 cases where we revised the decision, the outcome was unchanged but we concluded our reasoning could have been more robust or clearer. In the remaining seven cases, the outcome was changed. Reasons why the decisions were amended included:

• misinterpretation of the applicable rules
• failure to address a material point within the complaint
• misunderstanding of the timeline of events
• failure to correctly apply SPSO guidance
• failure to take into account material evidence
• misinterpretation of the outcome sought by the complainant.

Through targeted quality assurance and training, and revision to our internal guidance, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of cases changed or amended over the year.

This is a welcome and significant achievement. We consider it reflects the introduction of provisional decisions, which give greater opportunity for questions, and new information to be provided before a final decision is made.

Performance against KPI Indicator Indicator

Quality Assurance

In line with SPSO’s value to learn and improve, the SPSO operates a Quality Assurance (QA) programme specifically designed to meet our commitment to improve quality and consistency. The QA programme is a mix of risk-based and standardised assessments carried out independently of the case handling teams.

In 2019-20, the QA programme specifically considered the following areas:

• a risk-based assessment of our identification and progression of ‘heads of complaint’, including whether the scope of our subsequent investigation was appropriate and in line with what was agreed
• a risk-based assessment of the implementation of amended internal guidance
• a general assessment of casework
• a general assessment of the Scottish Welfare Fund decisions
• a general assessment of the professional advice received

To embed the learning we identified through the QA process, the findings of the QA (including the identification and highlighting of good practice) were discussed with the individuals involved and relayed to their respective managers. The findings, including any recommendations for improvement (such as training or guidance changes), were also reported to the SPSO leadership team to inform wider learning and improvement, and thereafter fed back through the relevant internal performance meetings.

In 2019-20, we did not amend any decisions as a result of QA.

Scottish Welfare Fund independent review service

Contacts

Our Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) team were contacted by 1,859 people during 2019-20, which is a 19% increase from the previous year. This included increases both in signposting enquiries (for instance, queries where we would send people back to the council or redirect them to another organisation) and review application requests.

Enquiries

As in previous years, the majority of signposting enquiries were people contacting us in error instead of their local council (634), and we subsequently signposted them appropriately. We also continued to receive a number of contacts (84) from applicants who did not have telephone credit to contact their local council. As highlighted previously, it remains a concern in terms of accessibility that very few councils have Freephone contact numbers.

Towards the end of 2019, we started to record enquiries from council staff who were contacting us for general, non-case specific advice about the SWF guidance and our processes. We recorded 24 instances of general advice being given to council decision makers and we will continue to track this form of enquiry going forward.

Impact of increase in applications

The number of review applications received increased steadily in the initial years of the SWF review service between 2016 and 2019. However, this year’s increase of 29% was the most substantial increase in casework to date, and created significant resourcing challenges for the team of six, who cover the whole of Scotland.

In spite of this, the team rose to the challenge and exceeded their efficiency and quality targets to ensure that they maintained an excellent level of service for applicants. This was achieved largely through changing processes to increase efficiency, and by drawing resources from the management team and from other teams within SPSO. It was recognised, however, that utilising resources from outwith the compliment of case reviewers was not sustainable on a long-term basis. We are therefore pleased to confirm that we successfully secured resources for an additional case reviewer for 2020-21.

Review applications received

Review applications handled

Although we did not have any additional permanent resource to support this, as an interim measure, staff from other parts of the office were trained to provide ad hoc support when caseloads became too great for the regular SWF team. This reflects our commitment to providing access and support to vulnerable people, by making sure we don’t take any longer than we have to make SWF review decisions.

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

PI-1 and PI-2 were set following a public consultation. PI-3 is a voluntary quality indicator we set for ourselves.

Review application outcomes

Community care grants

Crisis grants

Uphold rates indicate the proportion of cases in which we have changed councils’ decisions. The 5% fall in the uphold rate for crisis grants is encouraging. This, in our view, is partly linked to an increase in the number of applicants who are contacting us as repeat applicants to the fund. In these cases, applicants had already received three awards or more in the previous 12 month period, and the circumstances therefore needed to be exceptional to be eligible for further assistance. In many cases, as the reasons for the crisis were similar to previous applications, or the applicant was assessed as having some responsibility for their crisis situation, we agreed that the circumstances were not exceptional in line with the statutory guidance definition.

The 2% increase in the uphold rate for community care grants is comparable to last year’s results and means that we continue to disagree with councils’ decisions in over half of these applications. Only a very small proportion of total applications that are made to the fund ask for an independent review; therefore, we cannot assume that these are typical of all decision-making. However, this does indicate a need for learning in respect of the applications that have reached independent review.

Model Complaints Handling Procedure

Monitoring compliance with the Model Complaints Handling Procedure

With the Model Complaints Handling Procedure (MCHP) now fully adopted across Scottish public bodies under SPSO’s jurisdiction, much of our focus is on monitoring compliance and supporting improvement. We monitor in various ways, for example through environmental scanning, the self-assessment of organisation’s complaints procedures, issues identified from the complaints made to SPSO, and working directly with organisations to share and support good practice in complaints handling.

Advice and guidance provided by SPSO for authorities includes:

• sharing tools and guidance for effective complaints handling
• reviewing and providing feedback about draft complaints handling procedures
• contributing to complaints handling network events for key sectors
• clarification on how to apply the MCHP to real-life (non-case specific) situations
• delivering presentations and workshops on good complaints handling

Requests for advice or support 2019-20

Types of advice requests

Overall, the total number of requests is consistent with last year, but as can be seen, the nature of those requests has shifted. There:

• were significant falls in relation to general enquiries and requests for comment/input. We see this as positive, and a reflection of increased familiarity with MCHP and work we have done on our website.
• was an increase in the volume of contacts about compliance. We anticipate a further temporary rise for the next year or two, as organisations begin to introduce the revised version of the MCHP published in January 2020.

Advice requests by sector

We saw no particular reason for these shifts.

Supporting the complaint handling community

In addition to our support work with organisations under jurisdiction, we also hosted visits from a variety of organisations hoping to find out more about the MCHP and Scotland’s approach to complaints handling. We are always pleased to share what we have learned from the introduction of the MCHP over the years and share some of the good practice that we see across the sectors. This year we met with visitors from across the UK, Europe and wider.

MCHP review

This year we completed a review of the MCHP across all sectors (except the NHS). This was the first full review since 2012, when the original MCHPs were published.

Our consultation work began in 2018 and continued throughout 2019 where we sought direct feedback from all organisations within SPSO’s jurisdiction, and other external stakeholders. Towards the end of 2019, we shared the revised draft procedure with bodies under SPSO’s jurisdiction and external stakeholders for comment. We also presented on the findings of our work to sector complaints networks. In response to the feedback received, we updated the draft before its publication in January 20203. In listening to the sectors and responding positively to the required timescales for implementation, we agreed that public bodies should fully implement the revised procedure by no later than 1 April 2021. 3 www.spso.org.uk/the-model-complaints-handling-procedures

The revised procedures provide:

• a standardised core text across all of Scotland’s public services
• updated content in line with:
  • feedback from organisations under SPSO’s jurisdiction
  • issues identified from our casework
  • recent research and good practice in relation to using alternative resolution approaches, promoting positive complaint behaviours and improving access to complaints for vulnerable persons

We published a revised MCHP for each sector with additional guidance and sector specific examples. Each MCHP includes direct links to SPSO tools and online resources under the relevant areas.

The previous MCHPs for local authorities and social work have now been merged into a single MCHP, taking into account stakeholder views expressed through our public consultation. Therefore, once local authorities have implemented the revised procedure there will no longer be a standalone Social Work MCHP.

Learning from complaints

We work continuously with our stakeholders to promote learning and drive improvements to ensure that complainants have their rights respected, and to avoid a future repeat of the problem for others. Integral to this is the making of recommendations resulting from investigations.

Premature complaints by sector

SPSO uphold rates by sector

The most significant changes were in relation to the Scottish Prison Service and Higher Education. The reasons for this are not apparent and our ability to look into this further is hampered by lockdown.

Overview of SPSO recommendations

We are most likely to ask for a specific action to be taken in relation to individual remedies. With complaint handling, and learning and improvement, we take a slightly different approach and focus on the outcomes we require and the evidence that they have been achieved. This, we believe, promotes more sustainable and embedded learning and improvement.

Recommendations made in 2019-20

Recommendations in 2019-20 – by sector

Feedback to organisations – 2019-20 by sector

We give feedback to organisations if during the course of an investigation we identify either a matter of concern that in itself is not the subject of the complaint, but is related to the general matter under investigation, or if we recognise good practice. Such feedback ranges from comments on the organisation’s complaint handling or interaction with SPSO, to alerting the public body to key points within our decision, like comments by an adviser.

Compliance with recommendations

We set a deadline for implementation of recommendations and follow them all up until we are satisfied that they have been implemented.

Timescales for compliance with SPSO recommendations

Support and Intervention Policy

This year we introduced our Support and Intervention Policy (S&IP). This policy formalises the mechanisms we already used to offer support to organisations and take intervention when required.

It helps us to focus our resources on public bodies who require support in order to help them improve their practice or address poor performance, or where intervention action is more appropriate to ensure the public body takes specific action to improve performance in relation to complaints handling, handling of Scottish Welfare Fund reviews or engagement with SPSO.

It also informs public bodies of what they can expect from us.

There are five levels of intervention, level 1 being the most informal, and level 5 being the application of legal powers. There is more information about this on our website.

Activity under the S&IP might be as straightforward as further contact from one of our Complaints Reviewers chasing up overdue information or, in situations of continued non-compliance or repeated difficulties, the Ombudsman may ultimately decide to issue a report to Parliament drawing their attention to the problem. By logging and monitoring these additional and further contacts, we can build a better overall picture of how organisations are responding to complaints as well as identifying problems in their interactions with us.

The commonest S&IP intervention this year was further contact from one of our Complaints Reviewers. This successfully resolved most issues.

On seven occasions, however, matters were not resolved at this first stage on the procedure, and a member of our leadership team made contact with the Chief Executive of the public body concerned to highlight the particular issues, referring to our S&IP and offering our support in resolving matters without necessitating further escalation.

Common examples of level 1 interventions were:

• issuing a reminder to an organisation about an overdue enquiry or recommendation (officer to officer)
• escalating a level 1 to an SPSO team manager to make an approach to the Chief Executive to make them aware of a potential issue
• gathering intelligence from our early stage assessment of cases which point to a potential issue and following this up through our Improvement, Standards and Engagement team

We are pleased to report that our interventions have been successful and resulted in positive outcomes. We see the S&IP as an opportunity to engage constructively with public bodies to drive better outcomes for complainants.

Sharing learning from complaint outcomes

In 2019-20, we shared our findings and learning with organisations and the wider public through:

• summaries of all our decisions published on our website
• a monthly e-newsletter which signposts to our decision summaries and highlights trends and learning
• working with a variety of stakeholders such as Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), sharing anonymised data to inform a wider view of public service delivery across Scotland
• publication of SWF case studies on our website

Stakeholder engagement

Through our Improvement, Standards and Engagement team, we engaged with a range of stakeholders and organisations to provide support and advice, drive improvements in standards of complaints handling and contribute to public sector improvement.

The team participated in 85 meetings and events this year. This is in addition to the events and meetings in which the Ombudsman was personally involved. This compares to 76 in 2018-19 and 66 in 2017-18.

Engagements included:

• complaints handlers’ network groups
• local government benchmarking sub- group
• Scottish Government openness and learning event
• Patient Advice and Support Service (PASS)/NHS Complaints Personnel Association Scotland (NCPAS) events
• direct contact with:
  • NHS boards to discuss local complaints handling arrangements
  • Regulators to discuss business related complaints arrangements

We also welcomed numerous visitors to our office wanting to learn more about our work and the Scottish approach. These included: The Protector of Citizens of the Republic of Serbia, the John Smith Trust (a fellow from Azerbaijan), the University of Groningen (study association for constitutional and public law), NHS England (particularly our work in sharing intelligence and providing support in complaints handling matters to boards in Scotland), and the Public Service Ombudsman for Wales and the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman in relation to our training courses.

We are a member of a number of sector, interest and working groups, including:

• Health Improvement Scotland Sharing Intelligence Group, working with partner scrutiny agencies to share intelligence in relation to different health boards on a regular basis
• Scottish Water Output Monitoring Group
• Our Director is a member of the Administrative Justice Council (AJC) and Administrative Justice Council Steering Group (AJCSG). During the year, she attended three group meetings and she and/or the Ombudsman attended three AJC meetings.

SPSO training

Our training unit provides both direct delivery and online training. We delivered 45 training courses across all sectors, an increase of 22% on the previous year’s total of 37.

Our direct delivery training courses are available to a broad range of public sector organisations. They provide practical good complaints handling, and are flexible in their approach to meet the needs of the attendees. For example, we can adapt training content for organisations who have specific outcomes they wish to achieve, or where there are particular sectoral challenges.

The breakdown of courses delivered was:

• 25 Complaint Investigation Skills courses
• 12 Good Complaint Handling courses
• 8 Managing Difficult Behaviour courses.

Unfortunately, seven direct delivery training courses that were scheduled to be delivered in March 2020 were cancelled as a result of COVID-19.

In 2020-21, our training unit will focus on developing new training products to support the updated MCHP and the introduction of the INWO function. This, and the impact that we have experienced as a result of COVID-19, will result in fewer direct delivery courses being delivered in the first half of the business year.

For more information about the training we offer, please visit our website.

Complaints Improvement Conference

In February 2020, we hosted our bi-annual complaints improvement conference at Tynecastle Park, Edinburgh. This year’s theme was the launch of the updated MCHP. We welcomed 180 attendees, and several guest speakers to the event.

The conference was opened by the Ombudsman, who delivered the keynote address. Throughout the day, we had speakers and held workshops covering a range of issues, including the revision to the MCHP, the new approach to ‘resolution’, the use of mediation as an alternative approach to dispute resolution, supporting vulnerable people through the complaints process, developing policies to support staff and dealing with challenging behaviours.

Feedback from attendees indicated that the event had added value in the way that complaints are handled and investigated. We are extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to and supported the delivery of this year’s conference; in particular the expert and knowledgeable contributions from Hirstworks, the Scottish Mediation Network, the University of Glasgow, Queen Margaret University, Anderson Strathern legal services, Tynecastle and, of course, the input and organisation provided by our own committed team and colleagues.

Scottish Welfare Fund engagements

Our SWF team also engaged with stakeholders during 2019-20 by:

• delivering workshops to two local authorities following requests for some guidance in response to findings
• visiting a large local authority to meet with their new management team and to discuss recurrent findings
• delivering training to the MS Society
• participating in the customer service week event for third-sector advisors
• presenting at an event for welfare rights officers
• attending a Practitioners’ Forum for SWF decision makers
• attending a meeting of the Ombudsman Association First Contact group, to share a new efficiency initiative.

Parliamentary appearances and public consultations

The scope of our remit gives us a unique perspective on the delivery of Scottish public services. We continue to share the learning from investigations and complaint handling monitoring through our responses to inquiries and consultations undertaken by the Scottish Parliament and Government and others.

In 2019-20, our contributions included responses to the Scottish Government’s consultations ‘Legal Aid Reform in Scotland’ and ‘Environmental Principles and Governance in Scotland’; and the Health and Sport Committee’s inquiry ‘What should primary care look like for the next generation?’.

We also gave evidence and provided responses to Parliament and the Health and Sport Committee in relation to the Independent National Whistleblowing Officer role, the draft Whistleblowing Principles and Standards, and the draft whistleblowing order.

Further information is available on our website.

Additionally, we gave written evidence to the Petitions committee in connection with a petition on higher education and on complaints handling where we supported aspects of the petition which sought to allow us to take complaints in any format.

We also had our regular annual appearance before Parliament on 29 January 2020 and followed up by letter regarding changes to our legislation.

Customer service

We are committed to providing high- quality services that meet or exceed our customer service standards11. The Standards set out our service delivery commitments and what can be expected from us. We review feedback we receive continually; this includes information from user satisfaction survey responses, customer service complaints, compliments and unsolicited feedback.

Customer service complaints

We hold ourselves to the same high standards as we hold public bodies. Our customer service complaints (CSC) process is the same as the MCHP, except instead of signposting to the Ombudsman, we have a contract in place with an independent customer complaints reviewer to whom we signpost complainants.

We identify and record complaints about our service, and are committed to learning from them to put things right or drive improvement where needed.

Annual statistics for customer service complaints 2019-20

Customer service complaints – total (all stages)

Customer service complaints – 2019-20 breakdown

Where a difference exists in the number of cases received in the year and the number of cases closed in the year (as is the case in 2018-19 and 2019-20), this is due to cases being received in the previous year, but closed in the following year.

This year we held a number of awareness sessions with our staff to raise the profile of our service standards and to encourage all expressions of dissatisfaction about the way we provide our service, to be recorded as service complaints. We also empowered our staff to handle and work to resolve these complaints as close to the point of service delivery as possible. In taking these steps, we anticipated that the number of service complaints we recorded this year would increase. We consider this to be a positive outcome in response to increasing awareness, demonstrating that we value complaints and holding ourselves to high customer service standards.

Customer service complaints outcomes during the year 2019-20

Timescales

We aim to respond to complaints in line with the timescales set out in the MCHP. The timescales to close complaints are:

• 5 working days at stage 1
• 20 working days at stage 2
• 20 working days for ‘escalated’ complaints

Performance against the timescales in 2019-20

Complaints response times set out in the MCHP

Summary of complaints outcomes and service failures

The two main reasons we upheld CSCs were delays in progressing work (particularly complaints about public bodies), and a failure to communicate effectively. These are issues that we are now looking into, to understand the specific causes so we can put in place improvement measures where possible. They also inform resource levels and planning, as what was evident is many of the delays were the result of lack of resources to progress work.

Independent Customer Complaints Reviewer

Where a customer remains unhappy with either the decision we make on their CSC or the way we handled it, they can ask the Independent Customer Complaints Reviewer (ICCR) to review our handling of the complaint and the decision(s) we made.

During the year, 19 service complaints were sent to the ICCR. Fourteen were determined and closed, two customers withdrew their complaint, and three were still being considered at the end of the year.

One of these was upheld, that had not previously been upheld by the SPSO. There were four elements to the upheld complaint, three of which were upheld and for which we apologised. In the other complaints, the ICCR found no evidence of a service failure by SPSO, or a failure by SPSO to handle the service complaint effectively.

In July 2019 and January 2020 the ICCR also reviewed two random samples of CSCs. These samples consisted of 20 CSCs handled by SPSO but not escalated by the customers to the ICCR.

The findings from these random reviews of service complaints closed by SPSO concluded:

• there is continuous improvement in SPSO customer service file management that the ICCR could see from their random reviews to date
• SPSO customer service communications randomly reviewed came across as accurate, plain and clear
• SPSO’s customer service decisions were fairly handled by SPSO

The ICCR’s annual report can be read on our website.

Managing the organisation: openness and transparency

Freedom of information and environmental information

Overall, we continue to see high request numbers (with a notable reduction in quarter 4). From the information available on the Scottish Information Commissioner’s statistics database, in comparison to the 89 other public bodies in the same sector as the SPSO (others e.g. non-departmental public bodies) that submitted data we received:

• the third highest number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
• the tenth highest number of Environmental Information Requests (EIR).

Outcomes

• We carried out nine FOI reviews, and one EIR review, where we upheld our original decisions. A further two FOI requests for review were invalid or withdrawn
• We received three decisions from the Scottish Information Commissioner (SIC) relating to:
  1. our failure to respond to a request for review where we had no record of having received the request for review email (upheld by the SIC).
  2. a request for the name of an adviser on a case. The SIC decided that we were entitled to withhold the information on the basis that disclosure was prohibited by other legislation.
  3. refusal of a request due to excessive cost where the SIC decided we were entitled to do so.
• 98% of FOI requests and 100% of FOI review requests were responded to within the statutory timescale
• 99% of FOI requests were responded to within 30 working days
• 100% of EIR requests were responded to within the statutory timescale.

Publication scheme

The SPSO reviews our Publication Scheme to ensure that we are publishing information in line with the SIC’s Model Publication Scheme and guidance.

Data protection

We continually review our approach to ensure we meet data protection best practice and to support all staff. Where we identify a need we take action to improve procedures. All of our staff receive regular data protection training.

Our data protection officer, who is independent of the SPSO, is assured, and provides us with assurance, that we continue to provide robust data protection compliance measures, in line with data protection requirements.

Subject Access Requests (SARs)

We continue to see high request numbers (with a notable reduction in quarter 4). From the information available on the SIC’s statistics database, in comparison to the 89 other public bodies in the same sector as the SPSO (others e.g. non-departmental public bodies) that submitted data, we received the second highest number of SARs.

Outcomes

• we reviewed three SARs where we upheld our original decisions
• there were no decisions from the UK Information Commissioner Office (ICO)
• 85% of SARs were responded to within the statutory timescale in 2019-20
• 91% within 40 calendar days

Higher numbers, complexity, increased public body requests to redact staff information, and lack of resources continue to impact on our ability to meet targets.

Data security

We reported one personal data security breach to the ICO regarding the accidental disclosure of a complainant’s personal information. The ICO decided that they did not need to take any action.

We have clear guidelines governing how we handle data. There is an established, mandatory process for recording and investigating actual and potential breaches in data security, and any identified risks are mitigated as far as possible.

Our Information Governance handbook is available online.

Managing the organisation: our team

Our objective is to be acknowledged for having well trained, properly supported people, who have the tools they need to deliver our services. We strive to have the capacity, financial, human and infrastructure, to implement and deliver our statutory functions.

In 2019-20 we:

• maintained Living Wage Employer accreditation
• re-established our organisational values (also see Our vision, values and strategic aims)
• commenced a review of our competency and behavioural framework underpinned by our values
• began preparation for the Independent National Whistleblowing Officer function with the development of new roles and recruitment for the team
• reviewed our organisation structure to meet the increased requirements of an extended jurisdiction
• supported colleagues to work flexibly so they can balance their working lives with their other responsibilities
• encouraged and supported our colleagues to learn and develop their skills and leadership through a structured learning and development programme
• continued to invest in the resilience and flexibility of our digital services
• maintained our Investors in People gold status

Our people

Our workforce was an average of 64 FTE for 2019-20. We have been growing with each new jurisdiction added to the Ombudsman’s statutory responsibility. Our current recruitment drive for 2020 is to prepare for Scotland’s new Independent National Whistleblowing Officer function.

A focus of our recruitment in the past year was on intern placements, working with Inclusion Scotland. We continue to monitor our approach to recruitment so that it follows good practice across all diversity and equality strands.

On 31 March 2020, the ratio of females to males in the organisation is 75:25 FTE (not including seconded and temporary staff). Two of the three members of our leadership team and 87.5% of our management team are female.

Training and development

We continued to meet the people development needs of the organisation through a range of activities. Learning and development activities were delivered around key areas including:

• mandatory training (e.g. Health and Safety, GDPR, Cyber security)
• specific subject matter learning events (e.g. investigation skills, vulnerability, wellbeing)
• in response to the development needs identified as part of individual personal development plans and as learning opportunities.

Investors in People accreditation

SPSO achieved Investors in People (IIP) accreditation recognition in 2011and has maintained a gold accreditation status since February 2017. Accreditation status is reviewed on a three-year basis, with a formal activity undertaken on an annual basis. SPSO’s formal reaccreditation took place in March 2020.

Findings indicate that there is a stringent but supportive recruitment process and once people are recruited to the organisation they are clear about their roles and responsibilities; they receive a strong foundation and support through the induction process through to employment policies, procedures, performance management process and structured learning and development that supports individual and organisational needs.

People have a clear and consistent understanding of the SPSO vision, values, aims and objectives, developed through the involvement of all in the business planning activities and the introduction of Communities of Practice groups providing people with an additional opportunity to make a positive contribution to the SPSO aims, objectives and long-term sustainability.

People recognised the effectiveness of change management with the success of the office move being cited as a key example of this.

Recommendations for ongoing improvement included aligning our values, behaviours and management capabilities, and additional measurement of the impact of learning and development and people management practices on organisational objectives and performance indicators.

Staff survey

The SPSO conducts an annual staff survey and the summary reports are published on our website.

Highlights:

• the response rate was 84%
• scores improved in 10 out of 59 comparable questions
• the most improved scores were under the theme of management
• the majority of scores were over 70% positive.

Each year the staff survey results, along with our IIP assessment findings, are combined to create an annual action plan to ensure we maintain our focus on commitment to building a people-centred organisation.

Communities of Practice and working together

A number of staff-led, cross-team working groups were set up over the last year to promote and support interaction, cooperation and knowledge sharing across the organisation. The groups established include Communities of Practice, Health and Wellbeing, Internal Communications, Charities and Climate Change groups.

Community, social and human rights

Many of our staff are involved in community and social rights engagement activities outside of work, including, for instance, volunteering for:

• the Children’s Panel
• the Law Society of Scotland’s Regulatory committee
• Education Appeal Committee, Midlothian Council
• Fresh Start, a charity helping previously homeless people who have been offered a tenancy assistance to move into their new home

International Women’s Day

For the third year running, we celebrated International Women’s Day in March 2020. We invited three excellent, interesting and engaging speakers to talk to us: Arancha Arnal, Associate Engineer, Blyth & Blyth; Elaine Morrison, Owner, Brochan Café; and Gabriela White, SPSO Inclusion Scotland Intern.

Our colleagues chose several nominated charities to support:

• Kids Love Clothes
• Mental Health Foundation
• Families Outside
• Homeless Period Edinburgh
• Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust

So far, we have donated clothing, toys, period products and raised £450 in bake sales and direct donations.

Many colleagues also took part in a team distance walking competition for National Walking Month and Climate Awareness Week.

Managing the organisation: governance

Governance and risk

As Accountable Officer, the Ombudsman has responsibility for maintaining a sound system of governance and internal control that supports the achievement of organisational policies, aims, and objectives, whilst safeguarding public funds and the organisation’s assets for which she is responsible. The Scheme of Control outlines the arrangements in place to assure good governance practices are followed. This is published in our finance handbook.

The Ombudsman is supported by the Advisory Audit Board (AAB), which provides advice about risk, assurance, audit quality and governance. The committee receives internal and external audit reports and the annual accounts. Our external auditors are appointed by Audit Scotland.

Risk is managed actively through a risk management policy that sets out the approach to risk management for the delivery of strategic aims. The most significant strategic risk to the organisation in 2019-20 remained the adequacy of resources to provide a quality service that delivers our statutory functions, in particular our complaint handling and SWF review services, within an acceptable timescale. The majority of the SPSO’s workload is demand-led. Consequently, the number and complexity of complaints, enquiries, and SWF review applications received is outside our control and fluctuates. The leadership team monitor this closely and focus carefully on financial and workforce planning.

Further details on the SPSO governance arrangements can be read in our full accountability report.

Quality Assurance

We ensure quality by having systems of management checks in place and through a quality assurance (QA) programme carried out by the corporate services team, independently of the case handling teams. We quality assure our complaints, SWF work and the professional advice we receive from our advisers. All QA findings are fed back to individuals, teams and managers to share learning and make improvements where needed.

Bridgeside House accommodation

After we relocated to Bridgeside House, Edinburgh in December 2018, we settled fully into our new accommodation this year. The office move enabled us to enter into a co-location arrangement with the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) and the Children and Young People Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS), providing the opportunity to share common space areas such as the boardroom and training facilities as well as to share some staffing and other resourcing costs.

Environmental and sustainable development

We continue to reduce our level of carbon emissions year-on-year. We have reduced our carbon footprint by 35% against our 2015-16 baseline, and by more than 45% since 2009-10 (85.3 CO2 T).

Within the Bridgeside House shared accommodation arrangement, SPSO have responsibility for reporting on the waste and energy carbon emissions for all three organisations. We also report the emissions from business travel for SPSO. The new facilities have enabled us to continue to reduce the total emissions for all three organisations, even when compared with SPSO sole output in previous years. These equate to less than 0.55 (tCO2e) per FTE employee or 0.01(tCO2e) per square metre (m2) floor space we occupy.

Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the scope 3 figures for 2019-20 do not include emissions from business car travel for SPSO. In previous years, emissions from car travel accounted for approximately one to 2% of SPSO’s total carbon emissions. The figures will be adjusted when 2019-20 business car emissions can be calculated.

Further details of these reductions are in our sustainability reports on our website.

Biodiversity

The Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 places a statutory duty on all public sector bodies in Scotland to further the conservation of biodiversity and the Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2011by introducing a requirement for all public bodies to make a report publicly available on their compliance with biodiversity duty. Biodiversity duty reports are required every three years. We report on biodiversity bi-annually.

SPSO does not own or manage land and therefore has limited opportunity to carry out activities for biodiversity than organisations that own or manage land. We support biodiversity through:

• reducing our carbon footprint
• minimising waste and reducing waste to landfill through recycling
• reducing the total kilometres we travel on business and choosing more sustainable travel options
• raising awareness of biodiversity and sustainability issues.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and cyber security

Digital technologies are an important tool underpinning our service, and we manage these closely to protect the personal data and sensitive information we hold and use, and ensure our systems are robust and resilient. Continued cyber- attacks on organisations have highlighted the importance of, and reliance on, digital systems. Digital technology offers transformational opportunities, but also increases dependence on digital services for the delivery of our work.

The importance of cyber resilience has never been greater, and in 2019-20, we continued implementing the Cyber Resilience Public Sector Action Plan, achieving Cyber Essentials accreditation in November 2019. SPSO utilise SCOTS Connect to host our network services to provide a safe and secure digital environment. SCOTS is the name for the Scottish Government’s range of managed IT services and products that hold Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation. Our emails are sent over the secure Public Services Network (PSN) and all traffic is scanned for inappropriate or harmful content, which protects our systems, people and data.

In 2019-20, we undertook major improvements to our ICT infrastructure to ensure we continue to operate in an efficient and secure IT environment. We moved our non-casework electronic documentation to a new electronic records and document management system, which includes functionality for secure sharing of electronic information with external partners. We also moved our casework management system to a secure cloud platform, which brings additional flexibility and resilience.

During the 2020 pandemic lockdown, a combination of secure portable devices and remote access to our casework management system meant that SPSO staff were able to continue working effectively and securely from home while the office was closed.

Accessible service

We strive to make our service as accessible as possible for all users and make regular improvements to ensure we operate according to best practice in accessibility.

IDEA group

Last year we established a Community of Practice, which aims specifically to look at accessibility issues, called the IDEA Group (Inclusion, Diversity, Equalities and Accessibility); it is made up of staff from across the organisation.

This year the group developed guidance to support us in considering complaints from complainants with vulnerabilities. As an organisation, we are committed to ensuring that all service users have an equal opportunity to access our services. We recognise our duties under the Equality Act 2010 to promote equality of opportunity for all. As such, it is important that we identify and take into account equality and diversity considerations when designing our processes and undertaking casework. We know we have a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments for complainants for whom communication may be a barrier, and want to make sure we comply with this, and where possible go beyond it.

This year, we made reasonable adjustments in 130 cases, mainly relating to the mode of communication, requests for large print materials and translations into other languages, and additional time for responses by the complainant.

Over and above considerations of equality and diversity matters, we are mindful of a complainant’s vulnerabilities. Types and levels of vulnerability can vary from person to person and may be influenced by situational circumstances linked to the complaint. This ties in directly to our customer services standards, in particular our commitment to communicate effectively with the people who use our service.

Actions we can take in individual cases where vulnerabilities exist may include, but are not limited to:

• fast tracking individual cases
• prioritising individual cases within our own caseloads
• managing expectations clearly from the outset
• identifying and signposting to sources of support
• changing how we communicate with someone, for example how we contact them and how often.

Our Complainants with vulnerabilities guidance is available on our website.

In recognition that our service users’ needs and circumstances can change while considering or investigating their complaint, the IDEA group also reviewed customer communication touch points. A number of improvements were made to leaflets and letters that we issue to ensure that we are reminding people that we can make adaptions to how we communicate at any point.

Inclusion Scotland internships

This year we recruited two interns via the Inclusion Scotland We Can Work scheme, which provides disabled people with valuable paid work experience to help them develop their careers, by offering increased flexibility and support in the workplace. One intern was employed in our Assessment and Guidance team in an administrative role. The other, a graduate intern, in our Communications team, who conducted a research project reviewing the entire communications journey that a complainant would go through when accessing the SPSO complaints handling service, and making recommendations on how to improve our communications according to best practice principles. The findings from this study will be evaluated and implemented in 2020-21.

Apart from the benefits that the We Can Work scheme offered to our interns and from the valuable work they produced on behalf of SPSO, this was also an excellent opportunity for all our staff to learn from the lived experiences of disabled people in Scotland.

We are grateful to both our interns for their excellent contributions.

British Sign Language (BSL) plan

After having published our first BSL plan last year, we continued on its implementation in 2019-20. We produced our first video content and had staff attend further video production training to enable us to scale this up in the coming year.

Equalities

When people make complaints, we ask them to complete a form that helps us monitor if there are groups of people who are under-represented among our complainants. This year, as has been the case for some years now, our analysis of this data showed that there has been little significant change in the people who come to us.

This means that complainants remain broadly representative of the population in terms of ethnicity; although this year we received complaints from marginally more men than women (that proportion varies slightly every year). The demographic profile of our users remains older than the country’s population because few children or young people bring complaints to us directly. A significant proportion of those who complain to us are in the 40—60 years age range, and this reflects that we often see people bringing issues to us that are not only about services they have received themselves, but on behalf of those for whom they have caring responsibilities.

For the last couple of years, the evidence from our monitoring work has consistently shown that we have a higher proportion of people reporting they have a disability that affects them long-term. At over 40%, this is a relatively significant proportion of our users and that is reflected in the work we do to ensure we take a proactive approach to accessibility, as described above.

While we cannot determine whether or not an individual’s rights under equalities legislation have been formally breached, we can comment on the appropriate consideration of such rights if we find failures while investigating complaints. Two examples of this work, which we publicly reported on in 2019- 20, demonstrated the need for public organisations to ensure that they implement adjustments properly when they agree these are needed:

• Decision report 20170043019
• Decision report 20180622420

Gender-neutral drafting

In 2019-20, we adopted the Government’s recommendations on gender-neutral drafting and started writing our decisions in gender-neutral style where possible. Removing gender specific titles and pronouns contributes to our ‘privacy by design’ approach, further protecting the privacy of the complainant and anyone involved in a complaint. While our complaints reviewers exercise discretion when issuing decisions (for instance, if a case is too complex and involved various people), the gender-neutral writing will be applied consistently across decision summaries from next year 2020-21.

Financial position

Sources of funding

Total funding received was £5,001K. This included:

Expenditure

Review of financial performance

We are required to produce annual accounts detailing the resources acquired, held or disposed of during the financial year and the way in which they were used. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has been appointed as Accountable Officer and is responsible for the preparation of these accounts. The following notes provide a summary of our financial performance in 2019-20. For more information about how we managed our finances, please see our full financial statements.

Expenditure on SPSO activities were within 2% of the budget. People costs represent 80% of SPSO’s total operating expenditure. There was a £100K budget overspend of staffing, due mainly to statutory or contractual obligations for our people costs; including to meet the significant unknown past service pension costs associated with the McCloud judgement and Guaranteed Minimum Pension, pay alignment exercise to bring pay scale journey times into line with equalities obligations, and the cost of living pay award.

Fees and expenses paid to external firms were £104K less than budget, but the other operating expenditure was £13K more than budget. This was mainly due to increased expenditure on the production of documents for the new/revised Model Complaints Handling Procedures.

Bridgeside House shared accommodation costs were £41K over the allocated budget. This is primarily due to it being the first full year in the building, therefore, there were council tax increases following revaluation, and a service charge adjustment which could not have been foreseen.

The increase in trade and payables was largely as a result of an increase in rent accrual of £173k (including an adjustment for VAT) following an initial 12 month rent free period that ended in December 2019, as part of a five year lease arrangement. In agreement with the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB), SPSO absorbed the £122K of the overspend by a planned reduction of its end of year cash balance to £7K. This was planned and agreed with SPCB direction.

Resources required for 2020-21

The 2020-21 budget was approved by the Scottish Parliament with revenue resources totalling £5,169K.

In addition, SPSO have agreed funding for INWO up to a maximum of £960K.

Independent National Whistleblowing Officer

We have made significant progress in preparing for the role of Independent National Whistleblowing Officer (INWO) for the NHS Scotland as set out in the timeline below.

Our team continues to work closely with our partners in the Scottish Government (SG), and we are now in a strong position for the Ombudsman to take on the role of INWO. We are currently focusing on establishing a go-live date and supporting the NHS to prepare.

There is, as a result of the impact of COVID-19, uncertainty about when the function will go-live, and we are ever mindful of the pressures on the NHS both as a result of COVID-19 and the need for them to prepare for the usual winter flu season.

Looking ahead

Little did we think that this year one of the things we would be looking forward to would be the same as last year; INWO. We recognise that COVID-19 and lockdown will have long- reaching impacts, not all of them foreseeable, but equally we remain committed to delivering our statutory functions.

Business plan

We have issued a 2020-21business plan, setting out how we aim to deliver our strategic aims. We took the decision to reflect what we knew at the time and could reasonably predict, but to still commit to trying to complete other work that adds value to our stakeholders and us. We are still focused on long-term outcomes, recognising that they may have to be delivered differently or we may have to change priorities, particularly in relation to resources. By setting out our intentions in our business plan, we have given ourselves a baseline to assess the actual impact of COVID-19.

Independent National Whistleblowing Officer

At the time of writing, we are confident the INWO will not go live as planned in July 2020. We have been consulting with the Scottish Government and other stakeholders about what would be the best time, recognising that there will be no ideal time. We are considering the impact on the NHS of lockdown easing, the impact of the usual winter flu season and the need to prepare for a possible second wave of COVID-19. We are equally mindful of the need to ensure that support to enable the NHS to adopt the new Whistleblowing Standards is in place.

A date has not yet been confirmed.

Lockdown easing, casework and performance management

Lockdown will impact on all areas of our business, for years to come, not just now. We recognise it is important not only to cope with lockdown and keep delivering our business but also to learn for the future in terms of how we investigate, how we work differently and how we keep our services accessible. For example:

• for SWF, we are gaining insight into how effective Scottish Government Statutory Guidance is, and how important it is to ensure there is a clear process to amending it in times of uncertainty and business interruption
• for public service complaints, we are looking specifically at what changes this will make to our workloads and whether there will be more complaints about single issues (such as delay to elective surgery) which we can investigate more proportionately and quicker
• for our Improvement, Standards and Engagement team, we are considering what support we can provide to public bodies, at the same time ensuring they continue to deliver their statutory complaint handling duties to an acceptable standard.

We will look for the opportunities lockdown has presented us with. Equally, we will ensure that our own emergence from lockdown remains supportive of staff wellbeing, manages risk and maintains output to an acceptable level.

We will continue to quality assure our work, review our own procedures and support public bodies in their own journeys out of lockdown. Underpinning all of this will be our commitment to our values of people- centred, fair, independent and learning and improvement.