Our office will be closed for the festive period from 25 December 2025 and will reopen on Monday 5 January 2026. Our phone line will close at 11am on 24 December 2025.
You can still submit your complaint via our online form but this will not be processed until we reopen.
SPSO has produced 'Why do complaints matter to board members?', a briefing note that will help board members fulfil their responsibility to ensure that complaints are considered as part of their organisation’s governance and assurance arrangements.
We will be holding our 2017 Learning and Improvement Conference on 15 March in Edinburgh.
The conference will provide:
Today we laid 75 decisions before the Scottish Parliament.
Download the Ombudsman's overview (PDF, 171KB) or read it online.
Media enquiries can be made by email or by calling 0131 240 2990.
The Scottish Parliament has nominated Rosemary Agnew as the new Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. She is expected to take up post on 1st May 2017.
Read more on the Scottish Parliament website.
Today we laid 73 decisions before the Scottish Parliament.
Download the Ombudsman's overview (PDF, 170KB) or read it online.
Media enquiries can be made by email or by calling 0131 240 2990.
We are publishing our first ever thematic report today. Our focus is on medical consent, a recurring theme in the complaints people bring us, and a particularly topical subject in light of significant and ongoing changes in the law and policy underpinning consent.
The March 2017 update is the third in a series of bulletins from SPSO about changes to the social work complaints procedure.
It includes information on the new complaints procedure and our extended role within social work complaints.
Download the March bulletin (PDF, 132KB) or read the bulletin online.
Today we laid 69 decisions before the Scottish Parliament.
Download the Ombudsman's overview (PDF, 168KB) or read it online.
Media enquiries can be made by email or by calling 0131 240 2990.
Over the past year, SPSO staff have refreshed our vision statement and reviewed our values. Our staff surveys have demonstrated a clear sense of engagement, a values culture in the organisation and a shared belief that we uphold ‘core values’. However, we wanted to clearly define and promote those values, and to clearly set out in a vision statement what we want to achieve as an organisation. Through a combination of informal workshops and structured team feedback, our staff have developed the following vision and values.
Today we laid 107 decisions before the Scottish Parliament.
Download the Ombudsman's overview (PDF, 406KB) or read it online.
Media enquiries can be made by email or by calling 0131 240 2990.