Local Government

Summary

Mr C had experienced periods of homelessness in recent years and complained to us that the council had failed to offer him housing, although he had been in temporary accommodation for a number of months. He said that the council were not dealing with his homeless application properly.

In response to our investigation enquiry, the council advised us that they were in the process of making an offer to Mr C, and shortly afterwards, confirmed that he had been offered and accepted permanent housing. We considered this an appropriate resolution to Mr C's complaint.

Summary

Ms C complained to the council that her child's school did not follow procedures for dealing with bullying and did not respond to parents' concerns about her child being bullied. She said that the council did not ensure that anti-bullying policies and procedures were in place and being followed by the school. The council had not upheld her complaints about this and she also considered that the council had not responded to, or adequately investigated, these.

We upheld all Ms C's complaints. Our investigation found that the council had a comprehensive and detailed policy but had not ensured that the school were following this, as the school did not have their own policy as the council required. There was also little evidence of logging bullying incidents as required and, when the school revisited their decision about adopting a school policy, attempts to engage parents were not effective. We also found that, in handling the complaint, the council did not refer to the complaints handling procedure and its stages and did not record or communicate the outcomes of a meeting held with Ms C to investigate and resolve the complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise for failing to ensure that appropriate anti-bullying policy and procedures were followed by the school;
• consider how they monitor the implementation of the anti-bullying policy and take an active role in ensuring meaningful engagement with parents, pupils and staff on anti-bullying strategies; and
• apologise for not handling and investigating the complaint adequately.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council had unfairly prevented him from seeing his child during the school lunch hour and that their response to his complaint was confused and contradictory. Mr C said that this was particularly unfair as at the time this was his only opportunity to see his children as his estranged wife would not abide by the contact arrangements ordered by the court. Mr C also complained that the council’s response to his complaint contained a number of errors and that he had not been properly involved in the investigation of his complaint. He felt that this showed a lack of care by the council and that his complaint had not been properly investigated.

We carefully considered all the information provided, including the council’s policies about parental involvement in their children’s education when parents have separated. Our investigation found that the council did not have a clear policy covering requests by parents to visit their children during the school day in these circumstances. As a result, council and school staff had given Mr C confusing and contradictory advice.

Although there were typographical errors in the council’s response letter, these were relatively minor and did not affect the conclusion reached. We found the council’s response inadequate, as it failed to acknowledge or apologise for the contradictory advice that Mr C had received. The council had already explained to us that they intended to change their complaints policy after reflecting on this investigation. We upheld Mr C's complaint and made recommendations to address this.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise in writing for the inconsistent information provided;
• provide us with evidence that they have reviewed and updated their 'Policy on the Contact between Parents and Schools including non-resident parents' as advised to us;
• provide us with evidence that the updated policy on parental contact has been disseminated to all head teachers, highlighting the changes to the document; and
• apologise in writing for failing to respond adequately to Mr C's complaint.

Summary

Mr C attended a community consultation session about a town centre regeneration plan. He later complained that a council officer did not include his comments in a summary document. Mr C also questioned the motives behind the officer's decision not to include his comments. After complaining to the council, he approached us with his concerns about the length of time they took to respond to his complaint, the fact that they referred to his role as a newly elected member of the council and because in their final response they did not give him details of his right to bring his complaint to us. The council had explained to Mr C that the officer felt that the comments did not contribute to the consultation, either in a positive or negative way, and that this was why they were not included. Mr C pointed out that the council had included other comments which could also not be considered to contribute in any way to the exercise.

Our investigation reviewed the supporting documentation, and found no evidence to suggest that the council's decision not to include the comments was unreasonable. However, we did agree with Mr C that other comments which were included in the summary document could not be said to have contributed to the consultation and we noted that this could lead to a perception of bias. However, Mr C did not suffer any injustice in terms of having his views heard as his comments, in full, were presented to the planning committee, and he had further opportunities to comment before the planning application was considered. We did not, therefore, uphold this aspect of the complaint.

We did uphold his complaint about the time the council took to respond to his complaint, and their failure to provide referral rights to us. We noted, however, that the council were correct to point out that a change of status to councillor would change the relationship with the council and its officers, and would have an impact on how they examine a complaint such as this.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• write to Mr C to apologise for the delay in responding to his complaint.

Summary

Mr and Mrs C’s twin children attended a local primary school but were placed in separate classes. Mr and Mrs C considered that one of their children had been subjected to bullying by classmates over an extended period since late 2011. Unhappy about the way the head teacher of the school had handled the matter, they asked the council’s education service to intervene, and in early 2012 a council quality improvement officer chaired a meeting in the school. Subsequently, Mr and Mrs C reported various other incidents in the summer term and, dissatisfied with the education service’s handling of the matter, they complained to the service.

Mr and Mrs C made six complaints to us. We did not uphold two of these: that the education service unreasonably failed to follow disciplinary procedures to prevent the bullying of their child or that the education service unreasonably failed to implement agreed support measures to assist their child. We upheld the remaining four complaints, one of which was that the school unreasonably failed to return a phone call when Mr and Mrs C had taken the step of withdrawing their child from school. The other three complaints related to complaints handling and the sharing of information about the education service’s investigation and notes of two meetings Mr and Mrs C attended with officers during the investigation process.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise to Mr and Mrs C for the deficiencies in the handling of their complaints identified in our investigation.

Summary

Mr C complained that the council delayed carrying out an emergency repair on the window of the communal hallway at his home. He also complained that they failed to compensate him under the terms of the Right to Repair scheme for the delay in repairing the window and to comply with their responsibilities to regularly paint the communal stairway.

Our investigation found that the repair did not qualify for compensation under the Right to Repair scheme as it was a repair to a communal area. We also found that although the original tenancy agreement indicated that the council would paint the stairway every five years, they had since signed the Scottish Secure Tenancy agreement, and that stair painting could now only be carried out when agreement was reached with all owners. The council demonstrated to us that they had tried to get other residents to agree to this work. However, we did find that, as the council accepted that the broken window had affected their tenant and carried out the repair, they should have done so when it was first brought to their attention. For this reason, and because their joiner failed to properly board up the window, we upheld this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• write to Mr C to apologise for the delay in repairing the window.

Summary

Mrs C lives in an area served by a passenger ferry service. Mrs C and a number of other users were concerned about the re-tendering exercise for this service. This was carried out by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) who were responsible for subsidising the service. Mrs C complained that SPT failed to provide adequate specification in the tender documents that the vessel to be deployed should be of modern public transport quality, and awarded the contract to the successful bidder primarily with regard to savings in costs and not on passenger safety and comfort. She also said that SPT had not fully responded to questions that she and others raised.

We did not uphold Mrs C's complaints. Our investigation found that the tender documents had specified a size and class of vessel, and required that the vessel deployed should be licensed by the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for safety and seaworthiness purposes. The successful bidder was not required to supply a new or modern vessel. The incumbent operators, who had been using a vessel built in 2007, were unsuccessful in their bid by a substantial margin. We also noted that the award of the contract had been examined separately by Audit Scotland, who had made no criticism of SPT's procurement process.

In response to considerable public interest in the tendering process, SPT had published a question and answer sheet, and had updated this when further questions arose. On balance, we did not uphold this complaint as we found that only two of the six specific questions raised by Mrs C in her correspondence had not received an answer. This was because one was treated as a comment because of the way Mrs C had written it, and the other was a matter for the MCA rather than SPT.

Summary

Mr C was refused planning permission for an extension to his house and the erection of garages and a shed. He asked for a review of the decision, and this was carried out by the local review board at a site visit. The board decided to uphold the decision to refuse the planning permission. They said this was because the proposal did not comply with the local development plan. The decision notice explained that Mr C had a right of appeal to the Court of Session if he wished to question the decision. Mr C complained to us that there had been procedural fault at the local review board, and that there was delay and failure to handle his complaint in accordance with the council's complaints procedure.

During our investigation we found that some of Mr C's complaints had not been through the councils' complaints procedures. In others, we saw no evidence of fault in the council's handling of the matter. He had complained that the local review board failed to discuss relevant information about his development and were inconsistent in their decision to refuse his application, but we found that the council had investigated and responded to this complaint. In terms of his concerns about the decision, the council said that they considered these were matters for appeal to the Court of Session. We are unable to investigate where there is a right of appeal or recourse to the courts.

We found that there was no delay by the council in responding to Mr C's complaint, and that it was handled properly under the council's complaints procedure.

Summary

Miss C, who lived with her partner, complained when she unexpectedly received a retrospective bill for council tax when the council removed a single occupancy discount from the account. Miss C said the council should not have applied a single occupancy discount when her partner had not applied for it. She said the council should have known that he was no longer a single occupant because he was a council tenant and they had attended the council's housing office together to enter into a joint tenancy. Miss C complained because she said that when they went to the council an officer had told them that they did not have to do anything more, and that their rent and council tax payments would stay the same. Miss C also complained that she had been caused a great deal of frustration by the council's poor handling of her initial enquiry and complaint.

The council said they could not be sure what advice was given to Miss C and her partner when they went to the council office to sign the new tenancy agreement. They said there was no agreement in place to exchange information between the housing team and the revenues team administering council tax. They said that they would consider whether such an agreement would be useful in future.

We did not uphold Miss C's complaint. Our investigation found that the council sent revised council tax notices after the joint tenancy had been entered into, as well as a new council tax notice at the start of each new financial year. These clearly indicated that a discount had been applied on the basis of sole occupancy. This was clearly incorrect and Miss C and her partner should have brought this to the attention of the council.

We did, however, find shortcomings in the council's handling of Miss C's initial enquiries and complaint. Officers had not taken ownership of the issues, and unreasonably referred Miss C back to the council's contact centre when it was clear she was dissatisfied and had a complaint. The contact centre had not passed details of Miss C's enquiries to the relevant officers. In responding to our investigation, the council themselves identified a number of shortcomings in their handling of the matter and said they were taking steps to establish what improvements could be made in light of Miss C's complaints to avoid this happening again.

Summary

Mrs C complained that after she experienced sewage flooding into her garden, the council's environmental health and building control departments failed to take sufficient action. She alleged that as a consequence, the health of her family had been compromised. She was also unhappy that the council had allowed the owner of the property causing the problem to live in his house without having had a completion certificate provided. Mrs C said that after she complained formally about these matters, the council failed to respond properly to her concerns and did not deal with her formal complaint in terms of their own complaints process.

We investigated the complaint and took all the information provided by the council and Mrs C into account. This included the complaints files, internal emails, water testing results and inspection notes, together with drainage plans and the relevant environmental health and building legislation. Our investigation found that, while the council took appropriate action after a meeting, for about five months beforehand there had been no plan or impetus to resolve the matter, and so we upheld this part of the complaint. After the meeting, environmental health and building standards departments worked with the neighbour to find a resolution to the problem. There were some delays, but these were caused by the neighbour. The council took the view that in both this matter and that of the completion certificate, they would rather work with the neighbour's cooperation than take enforcement action against him. We found that this was a decision they were entitled to take. In terms of complaints handling, after Mrs C complained, the council found her correspondence challenging to deal with because of the amount that she sent them. Nevertheless, after tracking all the documentation as part of this investigation, we found that, overall, they dealt with Mrs C's complaint appropriately.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise for the initial delay; and
• apologise for their failure in this matter.