Friday 16 October - Sunday 18 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

Statistics 2016-17

Introduction

In 2016-17, we received 5,586 complaints and enquiries, compared to 5,358 in the previous year, an increase of 4% in overall contact. We determined 5,508 complaints and enquiries, compared to 5,396 in the previous year. In 2016-17, 63% of the cases we investigated were about the health sector (up from 58% the previous year). These cases tend to be more complex because they often consist of multiple issues and may need specialist advice. We also began our new role as independent reviewer of Scottish Welfare Fund (SWF) decisions (these statistics will be reported separately on our SWF website).

Other key figures

We gave advice, support and provided signposting on 1,404enquiries.

3,299 complaints were decided following detailed consideration pre-investigation.

We fully investigated 805 complaints.

The overall rate of upheld complaints dropped from 54% to 52%.

We made 1,379 recommendations for redress and improvement to public service.

The proportion of complaints that reached us before completing the organisation's procedure (premature complaints) dropped, from 31% to 28% (though as we outline in our explanation of terms, we changed how we record premature enquiries and complaints between 2015-16 and 2016-17).