Scottish Government and Devolved Administration

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.
 

Summary
Mr C is an immigrant to the UK, who is studying here and who also has a job. When he applied for an allowance for 2010/11 for living costs support (payable to migrant workers) this was refused, although he had received the allowance the year before. He complained that, in advising him of the outcome of his application, the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) did not explain their reasons for deciding that his employment was marginal and ancillary, and that his studies were his predominant activity. We reviewed the information SAAS gave Mr C and decided they had followed both their own procedures and relevant Scottish Government guidance. SAAS did explain, as far as was possible, why they decided to refuse Mr C's application. The SAAS chief executive also offered to meet Mr C to discuss his situation if that would be helpful to him.

Summary
Mr C complained that funds received by the Sheriff Court, and ultimately due to him, were not placed in an interest bearing account immediately. He said that this meant he was deprived of interest on the money. When we investigated, we found that the Scottish Court Serice passed the funds to the bank well within the ten days required by law. Any delay after that was not on the part of the SCS and so was not something that we could consider. Although we did not uphold Mr C's complaint about SCS we found that they had not handled it well. We therefore recommended that they apologise to Mr C for this, and take steps to ensure that their staff are aware of the complaints procedure.

Recommendations
We recommend that Scottish Court Service:
• apologise to Mr C for the way they handled his complaint; and
• take steps to ensure that all staff are fully aware of the SCS complaints procedure, and that staff provide information about escalation to the next step and the Ombudsman appropriately.

Summary
Mr C was unhappy about a report prepared by an inspector from HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) for the Registrar of Independent Schools (the Registrar) and complained that HMIE unfairly refused to discuss the report with him. We found that the Registrar had asked HMIE to prepare the report so that he could respond to a complaint from Mr C's solicitor about an independent school. The HMIE report therefore was considered to be 'professional advice' to the Registrar and, in our view, Mr C's complaint lay firmly with the Registrar and not with HMIE. We found that Mr C was still in discussion with the Registrar about his original complaint, and told him that it was part of the Registrar's role to consider any complaints Mr C made about the HMIE report and respond to them. We pointed out to Mr C that the Registrar would only consider his complaints about the HMIE report if they were in connection with important evidence, relied upon by the Registrar, which he could provide evidence to show was incorrect. If he had new and relevant information that was not previously available, they would also consider that.