SPSO Individual Decisions

Mr C and Ms D were involved in extra-curricular activities at their son’s school. They were uncomfortable with the actions of another parent, who they felt was promoting unacceptable racist and sexist views among the school community. Ms D, in particular, felt the parent was using bullying behaviours to make it impossible for her to continue her involvement with the school and they decided not to have their younger son attend the school. Mr C and Ms D raised complaints with the school, but were dissatisfied with the conduct of the investigations, believing that assurances that had been made were not followed through. They were similarly dissatisfied with the council’s handling of the complaint and information provided by the council during that process. Our investigation confirmed that the council dealt satisfactorily with these complaints. However, they did not carry out the investigations that Mr C and Ms D were led to believe would be carried out, and we upheld this element of their complaint. We did not uphold the complaint about the information given to Mr C and Ms D as we found it was generally appropriate. Recommendation We recommend that Glasgow City Council: • apologise to Mr C and Ms D for the failure to investigate comments which were alleged to have been made. Point of clarification - it was the nursery school from which the parents withdrew their younger son's application. Related reading View Decision Report 201003128 as a PDF (19.48 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C complained that the council had effectively recommended a tradesperson by giving him a trader's contact details. He was also concerned about the way the council handled his subsequent complaint. When we investigated this, the council said that they did not have a written policy on recommendations, as their standard practice was that they did not make these. We decided that this position was in fact undermined when they provided Mr C with contact details for a particular trader. Whether the council chose to refer to this as a 'recommendation' or not, we took the view that members of the public are likely to consider a trader suggested by an authoritative body such as the council as, effectively, having been recommended. On the complaint handling, we found that the council suitably investigated Mr C's concerns about his consumer complaint. However, they did not look at his concerns about the 'recommendation'. Instead they took the view that a complaint would only be accepted where 'there is evidence of service failure or maladministration on the part of the council'. We found that this was not supported by their complaints process. The council should have been able to investigate and respond to his concerns that their consumer adviser provided him with the trader's contact details. Related reading View Decision Report 201003442 as a PDF (19.02 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mrs C, a housing association tenant, was unhappy about the effect of a major road development close to her home. She said that the council did not investigate her concerns about the effect that the disruption associated with the work has had on her health, her quality of life and her human rights. Both Mrs C and the housing association were formally told some six years earlier about the planning application to build the road, but neither objected at the time. There was also a public enquiry into the plans, although Mrs C did not know about this until after it happened. After the work began, Mrs C complained to the council about excessive noise and hours of working, apparent cracking in her building and rat infestations, all of which she said were the result of the road works. Unfortunately, the works did take a long time and we recognise that Mrs C clearly experienced considerable disruption because of them. However, our investigation found that when she complained to the council they responded to her concerns and appropriately investigated the issues that she raised. Related reading View Decision Report 201003290 as a PDF (13.93 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mrs C complained on behalf of her daughter Miss A about one of Miss A's Highers, for which the Scottish Qualifications Authority gave her no award. Mrs C was unhappy with the way in which the council and Miss A's secondary school handled her complaint. She said the council did not investigate her concerns about Miss A's case at the final stage of their complaints procedure, instead producing a rehash of their previous response. Some of Miss A's work had been damaged or was missing and Mrs C also said that the school and the council shielded a teacher, who she said was not held accountable for Miss A's lost and damaged work and subsequent poor marks. The council confirmed that since Mrs C's complaint, the school had taken steps to improve security for candidates' work. Our investigation found no evidence that the teacher had been shielded, and in fact the school had taken action to deal with the teacher's failings. Neither did we find evidence that the council had not investigated or responded properly to Mrs C's complaint. Related reading View Decision Report 201003272 as a PDF (13.81 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C is the father of a boy who was temporarily excluded from secondary school. He complained that the council did not reasonably investigate his complaints. In the course of our investigation, we looked at the council’s Management Circular No. 8: Procedures Governing the Exclusion of Children and Young People from School (the circular) which lays out the procedures that must be followed when pupils are excluded. The council gave us information about how the school handled the exclusion. This showed that the school did not comply with some sections of the circular. They did not arrange a meeting within seven days of the date of exclusion, and there was no evidence of a homework programme being sent to the excluded pupil or tutorials being offered on his return to school. They did not use relevant forms and the information that the school recorded did not reasonably cover the information to be recorded on these forms. We saw no evidence that the school investigated the complaints. We therefore considered the response sent to Mr C to be unreasonable and noted that the council previously accepted that it was not in line with their guidance.