Monday 19 October: Complaint form offline

The supplier of our case management system has confirmed that they are experiencing a significant technical issue.

At present, we have no access to the case management system and we are currently unable to take new Public Service Complaints or provide updates on cases. We are planning on the basis that this could continue for a period of time including next week.

Please be assured we are doing all we can and will provide updates on our website.

For an all service update: Service update | SPSO

Decision report 201003746

  • Case ref:
    201003746
  • Date:
    October 2011
  • Body:
    Education Scotland
  • Sector:
    Scottish Government and Devolved Administration
  • Outcome:
    Some upheld, recommendations
  • Subject:
    policy/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.
 

Updated: March 13, 2018