Council told to apologise to complainer

Perth and Kinross Council has been told to apologise to a woman who complained its staff failed to fully investigate her concerns about a local school.

The Scottish Public Service Ombudsman (SPSO) ruled this month the council failed to change anything about the way the school in question was being run despite its staff identifying“certain failings”during an investigation prompted by her concerns.

Subsequently the SPSO has instructed the local authority to provide the woman, identified in its decision report only as Mrs C, with“additional detail and appropriate explanations in relation to how they plan to address certain failings identified by their investigation.”

In addition it has recommended the council ensure its staff review their complaints handling procedure as well as “confirm they understand it.”

“We found that the council had delayed in commencing their investigations and that, whilst it was reasonable that the investigations took more than 20 working days, it was unreasonable that the council failed to keep Mrs C updated on their progress or seek to agree reasonable timeframes by which they would provide their response,”the Ombudsman’s decision report said.

“In addition, the council’s complaints response was overly complex, hard to understand and failed to clearly state the elements of the complaint they had upheld, and what actions were identified to address the failings.

“We also considered that the council had failed to provide clear explanations of the actions they had taken with respect to certain failings identified.”

Separately, the Ombudsman did not uphold a second complaint the council should have insisted a developer lodge a“change of use”planning application.

“We concluded that there was no requirement that the council explicitly state that a change of use had been applied for,”it decided.“We also concluded that the council had considered the original application as a change of use application.”