Scottish Government and Devolved Administration

Summary
The complainant, Mrs C, raised a large number of concerns about a review carried out by the Police Complaints Commissioner for Scotland (PCCS).

If a member of the public has concerns about the way a police force has dealt with a complaint they are entitled to ask the PCCS to carry out a review of the force's complaints handling.

Mrs C was concerned about a range of issues in relation to the review carried out by the PCCS including the factual accuracy of the PCCS report into her complaint, the accuracy of evidence considered by the PCCS, the procedure followed by the PCCS, communication by the PCCS and the interpretation of evidence and editing of the PCCS report.

A large number of the issues raised by Mrs C were outside our jurisdiction as they related to the evidence or information provided by the police, they questioned the merits of the decisions reached by the PCCS (without providing supporting evidence of administrative or service failure) or resulted from her misunderstanding of the processes followed by the PCCS.

We considered her remaining points and reached the view that the PCCS had properly considered the points she had raised. For this reason we did not uphold her remaining complaints.

Summary
Mr C made three complaints about the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service’s (COPFS) handling of his complaint about police officers.

On looking into the complaints, we found that of the three, two related to the investigation of crime and, therefore, fell outside our jurisdiction.

On investigating the third complaint we found that the COPFS had not failed to address issues raised by Mr C. We found that the COPFS explained what they had done to investigate Mr C's criminal allegations and that they concluded their investigations were adequate. We, therefore, did not uphold Mr C's complaint.

Summary
Mr C alleged that a registered housing support service was operating as an alcohol detox centre. His own organisation offered a detox service, he said, to a high degree of professionalism, whereas the organisation he complained of did not. He said it was being incorrectly marketed. He complained that, when he told the Care Inspectorate about this, they failed to properly investigate his complaint about the organisation and to take appropriate action, including liaising with other bodies.

Our investigation found that the registration of a care service is a legal matter and that the Care Inspectorate were obliged to follow appropriate legal guidelines. When considering an application to them for registration as a housing support service, therefore, the Care Inspectorate were under obligation to do only that. A housing support service is legally defined, so where it appeared, after inspection, that a provider met the required definition, the Inspectorate were obliged to confirm the status sought. In these circumstances, we did not uphold Mr C's complaint.
 

Summary
Ms C was dissatisfied with the handling of her request for travel expenses and disagreed with the decision taken by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) to restrict her travel expenses. She also complained about how the SAAS handled her appeal against their decision not to reimburse the expenses. We found that the SAAS had assessed her travel expenses in line with their policy. However, we also found that they had failed on a number of occasions to correct Ms C's misunderstanding that she was entitled to full travel expenses under the Disabled Student Allowance. When Ms C was advised of SAAS's decision to restrict her travel costs, she withdrew from her course.

We considered that, as a result of not having full information, Ms C was unable to make an informed choice about whether to start her university studies and, as a result, incurred travel costs that she was unable to afford. We upheld the complaint, although we did not uphold the further complaint that the SAAS had failed to investigate her appeal.

Recommendation
We recommended that SAAS:
• reimburse Ms C for the travel costs she incurred as a result of travelling by train to the university, excluding the amount already paid to her. This was to be offset against any outstanding debt.

Summary
Mr C lived in a sheltered housing with support services provided by a housing association which is regulated by Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (SCSWIS). He complained to SCSWIS that the housing association were seriously failing in their duty of care towards him by reinstating a member of staff, the housekeeper, who he said had been suspended following an earlier complaint made by him. Mr C complained that SCSWIS unreasonably said they had no remit to address his concerns about his safety and wellbeing at the hands of an employee at the complex where he lived.

We found that SCSWIS' responsibilities are set out in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010. The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011 set out the housing association's statutory obligations for the health, welfare and safety of service users. Our reading of both these documents confirmed SCSWIS' view that Mr C's complaint did not fall within their responsibility. SCSWIS' responsibility is to ensure that the housing association has a procedure by which a person, or someone acting on a person's behalf, may make complaints in relation to the provision of a care service, or about the provision of a care service generally. They can investigate complaints about the complaints procedure but not complaints of a contractual nature. There is, therefore, no responsibility for SCSWIS to investigate Mr C's complaint about the decision made by the housing association to reinstate one of their employees.
 

Summary
Mr C lived in a sheltered housing with support services run by a housing association which is regulated by Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (SCSWIS). He complained to SCSWIS that the housing association had continuously and improperly refused to provide him with full details of allegations made against him by another resident until he received the outcome letter, which he believes deliberately 'framed' him. He said senior managers had displayed serious professional misconduct. SCSWIS told him they had no remit to investigate his complaint about the conclusion and decisions the housing association made.

We found that SCSWIS' responsibilities are set out in the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 . The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011 set out the housing association's statutory obligations for the health, welfare and safety of service users. Our reading of both these documents confirmed SCSWIS' view that Mr C's complaint does not fall within their responsibility. Their responsibility is to ensure that the housing association has a procedure by which a person, or someone acting on a person's behalf, may make complaints in relation to the provision of a care service, or about the provision of a care service generally. They can investigate complaints about the complaints procedure but not complaints about any conclusions and decisions made using the procedure. There was, therefore, no responsibility for SCSWIS to investigate Mr C's concerns and so we did not uphold his complaint.

Summary
Mrs C complained that her son's school did not ensure that support arrangements were in place for him during his Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) exams. The school, Mrs C and her son contacted the SQA about this. The SQA reviewed his examination papers and the alternative evidence provided by the school through their appeals process but decided not to increase the pupil’s grades. Mrs C complained that the SQA did not have procedures in place to allow them to compensate for the school's error.

In line with their appeals process, the SQA was unable to upgrade marks without evidence of attainment at the higher level. The SQA had looked at Mrs C's son's examination papers and evidence submitted by the school. They found that there was not evidence of attainment at a higher level than Mrs C's son achieved in his Higher examinations, and so they were unable to upgrade his marks.

A process which would deal with the circumstances if this case would be a process which would involve the SQA having to make a judgement on potential performance, without evidence of attainment at that level. It is important that the SQA are able to ensure the integrity of their awards and we understood that, if the SQA were to have a process which would allow them to upgrade awards based on potential performance, this would be subjective and possibly open to manipulation. While we appreciated Mrs C and her son's frustration at the situation, we did not uphold her complaint.
 

Summary
Mr C, a landlord holding a Housing in Multiple Ownership (HMO) licence, was aggrieved at the high level of licence fees imposed by a local authority which had allowed a considerable surplus to be built up and which had not been 'ring-fenced' for the purpose of HMO licensing.

He also complained about the actions of the local authority but we did not pursue that complaint. The council had introduced a system of banded fees from late September 2010. Mr C considered that Audit Scotland and the authority's external auditors should have picked up on the surplus accruing from 2008 and required the local authority to reimburse landlords who had paid exorbitant fees in earlier years.

Our investigation found no evidence of maladministration and we did not uphold the complaints.
 

Summary
Mr C taught at a school which was the subject of an HMIE inspection. Mr C had a number of issues with the outcome of the inspection and this resulted in him raising his concerns in writing with HMIE. His complaint to the Ombudsman stemmed from the way in which HMIE dealt with his complaint.

Although we did not uphold one aspect of Mr C's complaint, we did find that there was an unreasonable delay in HMIE arranging a face-to-face meeting to discuss the complaint, contrary to HMIE complaints procedure. We made recommendations to redress this failing.

Recommendations
We recommended that Education Scotland:
• apologise to the complainant, in the circumstances of this complaint; and
• remind relevant staff of the terms of the complaints process and that when responding to complainants all the issues raised should be addressed.
 

Summary
Miss C complained about Waterwatch Scotland's handling of her complaint to them about Scottish Water. We did not uphold the complaint because it was clear that Waterwatch Scotland had done a thorough investigation, considered the issues and sent Miss C helpful, detailed replies. These included detailed explanations about the law, about the separation of legal responsibility between Scottish Water's part of the system and a property owner's part of the system, and about the words used to describe the different parts of the system.