Thank you to everybody who participated in the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) conference on 15 March 2017. Please find below the resources and materials from the event. 

Apologising when things have gone wrong is an important part of handling complaints effectively. It is often the first step to repairing a damaged relationship and, while apologising cannot change what has happened, it can help to restore dignity and trust. 

A number of networks of complaints handlers have been formed to help support the development and sharing of best practice. 

The remit of these groups include identifying, developing and evaluating best practice, supporting complaints handling practitioners and providing a forum for benchmarking complaints performance. The networks are used to help take forward the ongoing work of the Complaints Standards Authority (CSA) in areas such as developing standardised complaints recording categories and performance indicators. 

Spotlight on the impact of the Scottish Welfare Fund High Most Compelling priority rating

This report focuses on the application of the High Most Compelling (HMC) priority rating by some local authorities, which limits funding to individuals in severe crisis. 

Our Support and Intervention Policy sets out how we will use our statutory powers in a structured way to promote improvement by encouraging good practice or addressing poor performance by an organisation under our jurisdiction. It offers clarity to public bodies regarding what to expect from us, how and when. 

In short:

Since 2012 the SPSO's Complaints Standards Unit has worked closely with a range of partners and stakeholders to develop and implement Model Complaints Handling Procedures (MCHPs) for each public service sector.

One of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman's responsibilities is to set and monitor complaints handling standards for the public sector in Scotland. These standards are published as the Model Complaints Handling Procedures (MCHP) and define how we expect each public service sector to handle complaints quickly and simply, with local and early resolution by empowered and well trained staff. 

We put an emphasis on valuing complaints – recording all complaints, reporting key information and using the lessons learned to improve service delivery.

The SPSO Conference on Wednesday 19 November 2025 in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre is aimed at staff and representatives involved in complaint handling for public sector organisations in Scotland.  

Details of our Child Friendly Complaints Training, our Good complaints Handling (GCH) course and our Complaints Investigation Skills (CIS) course are below. Our registration form links are available below. Our training is SPSO accredited. We do not endorse other external complaints handling training as full SPSO accreditation.