Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Reviews 

waste of time just side with the council whole process they are bias as hell pure waste of tax payers money

Noted that you ask for an honest opinion which I will give and in the interest of saving tax payers money I wholeheartedly agree with the many who have taken the time to voice concerns. What amazes me is that SPSO have done nothing to clean up their act. If SPSO was a private limited company it would have been dead and buried long ago. 1 star "bad review" does not give justice to the level of complaints when EXCEPTIONALLY BAD would be over generous!
My complaint is regarding the SPSO for having failed to properly investigate a complaint against five Aberdeenshire Council (AC) Officers and a few elected councilors, and to be fair, have to heap praise on only one councilor - SNP councilor Graeme Clark who spent days investigating my complaint, submitted a sworn Affidavit of his findings and reported in writing of a serious complaint against a fellow Conservative Councillor. Cllr Clark's stance deserves special recognition!
SPSO looked at some of my many concerns and believe it or not the SPSO chose only to interrogate with AC's Area Manager of whom the main complaint was about! SPSO disregarded a number of independent professional reports and a memory stick containing clear evidence of a serious risk to public safety which AC returned unseen because AC didn't know how the footage had been obtained - despite their own Councillor and the local police having seen the CCTV system and helping the police to deal with local investigations.
It is a sad reflection of the times that we live in that AC ignored their own elected representative and continue to ignore irrefutable evidence of extreme risks to public safety.
I am advised that I am close to the permitted number of words and conclude that I have more faith in my fellow man than non-elected Officers who never have to answer to the public by way of elections every four years or so and suggest that all complainants should seek redress via a collective Action via the Court of Public Opinion and would support any other complainant in promoting this idea. The SPSO would then have to shut down and as one of the other complainants has already stated Scotland would save a fortune!

This letter is written without prejudice to and under reservation of my rights and pleas and neither this letter or any copy of it nor its contents or attachments may be produced, exhibited, referred to or founded upon in any Court or in any other proceedings except with my express written consent.

I made a complaint to Perth Royal Infirmary who claimed "..CT scan was later carried out and identified a clot within the middle cerebral artery". I showed the CT Scan to another NHS radiologist who said NO sign of a clot so I escalated that complaint to SPSO in 2018 because obviously PRI misdiagnosed. Late in 2019 SPSO provided a decision and screenshot as proof of a clot in my CTScan...but I gave the SPSO's screenshot to four medical practitioners (3 radiologists and 1 doctor) who all said no sign of a clot. A neuroradiology specialist in NY, practicing for 24 years, provided a clear, concise radiology report regarding the whole of my CT Scan. His report included the following statement: “Normal brain anatomy with no evidence of acute process, such as infarct (stroke) or haemorrhage (bleeding). No intracranial clot identified.” But SPSO refused to change their report. Going through the SPSO complaint process is an inexcusable waste of taxpayers money and they do not have a moral compass.

The SPSO is an illegal operation. That's evident from the number of bad reviews.
What the general public do not understand is that SPSO is the exact opposite of the equality act of 2010, they have been deliberately set up to cause emotional and physical distress along with financial harm to all.
Because majority of people have done ZERO equality and diversity training they are not aware of what discrimination is.
It is illegal for any individual or organisation to write to another and mention behaviour as some people have behavioural disorders listed under the equality act of 2010 and by mentioning the word behaviour it means they have caused emotional and physical distress or financial harm.
It is also illegal for an individual or organisation to cause emotional and physical distress or financial harm to the public again some peoples disabilities are related to emotional and physical distress I.e. autism.
This is why we have a public sector equality duty, yeah these people do not have a clue about the law of this land and that means they're ignoring current legislation which also means they've been deliberately set up to discriminate against all.

People of Scotland please do your equality and diversity training and understand what emotional and physical distress and financial harm are.

corrupt and waste off public money they do nothing so what do they get paid all these complaints about the service are we all wrong NO they should get sacked and close the place down there a waste off time

What a waste of tax payers money, they work harder at trying not to investigate wrong doing than they do to protect the public. My local authority have been found to be charging tenants for repairs that had never been carried out but the SPSO has stated 'its nothing to do with us, sounds like a crime has been committed'. They would get no stars if it was possible

Absolute waste of money. A service with no backbone and absolutely no substance. After a complaint against my local authority these fools upheld the councils decision and left me with a parting comment that they Infact have no authority to make the council do anything. So what is the point of this sh**?? Absolute waste of money and resources. If they don't have any authority to make a local council etc sort an issue then really what is the point of having the ombudsman?? None at all. Shambles

Just a waste of time and taxpayers money, This service should be shut down and the money spent else where.
Just the Government working for the Government
They will cover for each other and have no concerns or worries about the normal working class.
Do Not Go here expecting help.

Kja ...
Brilliant ive had this mob up to my halo
Reasonableness and more reasonableness zzzzz and more crap its all been said about this quango mobsters outfit . £millions public monies wasted taking everybody's complaints nowhere .and thats yur lot no compensation or sackings or
Anything .sue the clowncil at the drop of a hat i would its not their money anyway its tax payers money .its the only language the government understands and nearly forgot the word maladministration .

Do not waste your time with the SPSO they are toothless, biased and will do whatever they can to minimise your complaint and protect rude and lying local authority officers. Even when they know maladministration has taken place they will not say it has. The SPSO's own definition of maladministration is:
1) unreasonable delay
2) rudeness
3) failure to apply the law or rules properly.
My complaint had all three in abundance and not a mention of maladministration.The SPSO have the final say in everything, even the wording of your own complaint!. If you are still thinking of submitting a complaint use the above definition of maladministration to frame your complaint and make your preferred method of contact by email, never ever speak to them on the telephone! Above all, complain to your MSP and ask that the SPSO are replaced with a truly independent investigative body that is fit for purpose and has some power other than "recommendations".

Caledonia Housing Association committed multiple accounts of fraud (including misleading a court over the facts with help of their solicitor), engaged in malicious intent to cause harm in every way they could including using their contractors to tamper with our electricity, multiple violations of our privacy, withheld services costing us £1000s, defamed my character to prejudice opinion of authorities, multiple data protection breaches, (ICO denied their own legislation to cover for them,) they prioritised and protected anti social tenants and used one against another tenant, but the SPSO said she saw nothing worth investigating from my website; which I created to show indisputable evidence and exposed all of them involved with the housing associations . Its posted on facebook showing the many laws the housing association have broken including the criminal offences. They operate as a law unto themselves and regulators protect them.
Others warned me these regulatory bodies are all part of the same clique group who only protect themselves and it is obviously the truth.

After the Scottish Parliament abused my data and human right to privacy I complained but the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB) completely ignored my complaint until after I involved the Information Commissioners Office (ICO)when the abuse was finally investigated and the Scottish Parliament improved its systems for data protection and introduced mandatory training for all staff in data protection. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman displayed complete partiality towards the Scottish Parliament. Thus the SPSO both failed to assist me the complainant to obtain justice and failed to address the failings at the SPCB so that it might address its failings in regard to both data protection and how to handle valid complaints in a professional and timely manner .The SPCB abused me twice both by distributing my data and by ignoring my complaint but the SPSO compounded this abuse by showing partiality towards the Scottish Parliament rather than holding them to account. SPSO: Shameful Partial Service Ombudsman.

Completely ineffectual and biased. A waste of taxpayers money and a worry as they are not doing their actual job and providing a service. They leave a gap meaning people aren't getting the help they're entitled to.

Very bad; nothing but a whitewash. It is no wonder services are declining when this is all that the public have to protect them.... the Scottish people deserve better.

The main issue with them is they give a verdict without proper explanation and then say you can only challenge it if you have new info or if something has been misunderstood.
Pointing out there are new flaws in any new responses you get, via them, from the organisation will not result in them discussing the flaws with you to establish if they have taken them into account. In my case new/amended responses from the organisation meant part of my complaint (which merely asked for an explanation) had never been addressed. The previous answer had been incoherent and I pointed this out in my complaint to SPSO- the health board withdrew their previous answer and claimed they misspoke... but their new answer wasnt about the question I had asked it was a completely different topic. So the question was then unanswered. The SPSO still found the NHS had addressed my complaint properly.
Obviously when they arent explaining themselves it is difficult to know how to argue against them... has something that seems obvious been considered or not. The lack of transparency seems to me to be about fudging the verdict.

You will be further traumatised by the SPSO; they should be shut down.

Probably one of the worst organisations I have ever interacted with. They do nothing but waste time. Even after months, the investigator's understanding of the complaint was well below par. They use discretion to investigate what they want to investigate, not what the complainant wants them to investigate. The most shocking part was that some of the things which they wanted to investigate was not even factual and did not even represent my complaint. If you case is extensive or not straight forward, just go through the motions and get them out of the way and then sue the organisation you have a problem with. Based on my experience, expecting something from this organisation is a huge mistake! Please note, they will also make you aware of their various limitations, I was okay with this and still tried to get something going but still got nothing which could have done me any good!

I agree with other reviewers here. SPSO seems to be a complete waste of public funds and it requires a major overhaul and their staff needs to be trained.

They don't even deserve a single star. I have given them a rating of one as there was no way to give them a zero. Oh did I mention, they take ages just to understand and respond to your complaint? I am sure a major backlog is the actual reason for it or they are just trained to go through the motions in a snail's pace and take the p*ss while doing so!

My profoundly autistic son was lost whilst at a South Lanarkshire school and South Lanarkshire Council refused to conduct a proper investigation, South Lanarkshire Council have refused every request, provided none of the assessments we asked for and when we complained about a manager they passed the complaint to THAT MANAGER and surprise surprise that manager did NOTHING.

Eventually we were told the complaints process had been exhausted and the next step was to go to the SPSO.

SPSO took months to reply and said they would only look at 7 of 19 complaints, this was then without informing us dropped to 5.

SPSO investigator upheld in favour of South Lanarkshire Council on all 5 points despite clearly stating South Lanarkshire Council had provided no evidence, wait she then proceeded to criticise South Lanarkshire Council for providing no evidence at all yet sided with them anyway???

As for my proof? (of which we had tons) According to the SPSO this was actually misunderstood by myself and I was then given a few weeks which was less then the required time for FOI requests to be returned to prove once again it was not understood.

Now I am in the position of trying to raise money for judicial review which in itself is a joke as the average family cannot afford this process and SPSO will be fully aware of this which is why they can just get away with lies and uphold in favour of Councils without any evidence.

They get paid £ 5 millions from us tax payers 64 staff with some on 100k a year plus early pensions at only 60 yrs (plus top up.)
Fake responses its been said below .dont waste time energy save on stress dont bother with them they are not worth it .seek legal advice if youu can .

Ref:201708250
An absolute waste of public money. Totally powerless and toothless. They are nothing more than a smoke screen to run the complainant down to the point where they give up. It seems the best outcome that can be achieved is a mealy mouthed apology.
Whatever this department costs annually could be an instant budgetary saving by closing it down. It would not be missed.
Something to take up with my MP if he bothers to respond!

Not good enough. If the SPSO the final stage for complaints about the National Health Service then this is very worrying. My case concerned the NHS and I have received a generic response declining to help me as my case fell outwith the required timescale. The system has to be flawed if organisations serving the public are failing to give people a voice or any support.

SPSO, Is the ombudsman in Scotland for public and health services, but they do not serve the public, read the reviews on other sites, not found one good one yet. Have they helped anyone?

The do not communicate in layman's terms, but legal and government jargon, they are not fair, they do not help the individual battling they system, they are the system, and seem to me to have no interest in helping the underdog, to get what is even close to fair.

What is the point of an ombudsman? they get paid to talk around in circles, not listen, understand or help, for all the help they were to me I say abolish them, and save the waste of time and money.

ALL companies should be regulated by an totally intendant ombudsman who is NOT funded by the very people they are supposed to investigate