We aim to close 95% of our cases within 12 months of receiving the complaint, although many are completed in less time. 

It is difficult to predict how long an individual investigation will take, as each case is different.  Generally, they take longer where they are complex, involve a lot of written material, where we need to make detailed enquiries, or if we need to get professional advice.  We will contact you and the organisation regularly, to update you on progress.

When we finish an investigation, we send our decision to the complainant and to the organisation that has been complained about.  We also lay reports of investigations or decisions before the Parliament, and send them to Scottish Ministers.  Laying documents before the Parliament means that we send them to the Parliament, who hold a co

The SPSO operates on the Scottish Government’s IT network. The two main reasons for this are that it allows us to conduct our business in a secure IT environment with an exceptional level of online protection, and because sharing services with other publicly-funded organisations is highly cost-effective. Using this network in no way impinges on our independence or the confidentiality of our communications and we have strict agreements with all parties involved in supporting and maintaining our IT services to ensure this.

We can take complaints about schools. You will need to complete the local complaints process first and it is also important that you know there are some restrictions on what we can look at.

We can take complaints from children who are old enough to understand the process and, if your child is over 12 years old, we will ask you to show you have their consent if you are taking the complaint forward on their behalf. Our complaint form includes a section that lets you do this easily. If you have any questions about this, please contact us.

The law says that the SPSO must carry out investigations in private.  This means we cannot give any details to anyone who is not involved in the complaint about investigations that are in progress.

At the end of our investigation we will tell you our decision. We will also send the decision to the organisation you complained about and we are likely to publish information about it. We do this in order to share learning from the complaint, to help public services improve. We publish our decisions in two types of report.

Public decision report

We aim to be accessible to all, and will make reasonable adjustments to assist you wherever possible, if you tell us what you need us to do.  You can read more information here about how we may be able to help you access our service.

Yes they can.  You will have to give them permission to do that, which you can give on our complaint form or in a letter.  We can send you the complaint form or a letter to sign if you contact us.  If your complaint is about the National Health Service, we may also ask for your permission to access your health records.

While the SPSO Act does not give a definition of maladministration, we use the following as examples of the kind of failings that come under the heading of maladministration:

We look at complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.  These include councils, the National Health Service, housing associations, water providers, prisons, the Scottish Government, colleges and universities and many other Scottish public organisations. This list provides information about who we can look at complaints about (PDF 32KB).