SPSO Individual Decisions

Mr and Mrs C complained about the games area in a new community campus beside their home. They were unhappy about light spillage from the floodlighting for the games area into their garden. In particular, they complained about the council's failure to take enforcement action on a planning condition about light spillage from the community campus. The planning condition for the campus said that there should be no light spillage beyond the boundaries of the site to the satisfaction of the planning authority. We were satisfied from the evidence we saw that light spillage from the games area had occurred. Planning authorities have a general discretion to take enforcement action against any breach of planning control if they consider such action appropriate. We did not consider that the council had taken satisfactory steps to mitigate the effects of the floodlighting and to address Mr and Mrs C’s complaints about this matter. Although the light levels in Mr and Mrs C’s garden had been measured, this was done by staff from the facilities management group contracted by the council to manage and run the facility, and not by council staff. Our planning adviser commented that the use of terms such as ‘to the satisfaction of the planning authority’ had been discouraged in the Scottish Government Planning Circular 4/1998 – ‘The Use of Conditions in Planning Permissions’. Mr and Mrs C were also unhappy that the council had failed to take action in response to their complaints about antisocial behaviour by users of the games area. The Centre Manager confirmed that Mr C had contacted him about this eight to ten times during two months in 2010. We found that the council had taken action to try to prevent balls going into their garden and had put up signs asking customers to mind their language. However, the Centre Manager also stated that he did not have a record of each time Mr and Mrs C made a complaint. It was clear that management staff at the campus did not adequately record th

In early 2011, Mr C complained to the board about the length of time he was told he would have to wait on the waiting list for a psychological assessment. He had already been on the waiting list for over nine months and was told it would be another eight to ten months before he would be seen. The board apologised to Mr C for the length of time that he would have to wait before treatment and told him that the problem was caused by the departure from post of one of the psychologists. They hoped to recruit a replacement as soon as possible and the manager had been working with the psychological department to reduce the waiting times as quickly as possible. Mr C complained to us and we found that in 2008 the Scottish Government issued guidance to health boards so that they could take action to be best placed to meet new waiting time targets of 18 weeks from referral to treatment due to take effect from 2014. We found that the board failed to demonstrate to us that they had taken action in accordance with the guidance and that Mr C had waited too long for an appointment.

Mr C (a solicitor) complained on behalf of his clients that the council had accepted hearsay evidence in deciding that his clients were intentionally homeless. He further complained that the council's failure to tell his clients what information they had considered in coming to their decision was unreasonable, as it meant his clients were not able to refute it. Mr C also said that the decision was made by staff members connected to his client's ex-wife who worked in the office where the decision on his homeless status was made. We found that Mr C's complaint about accepting hearsay evidence in coming to the decision was outwith our jurisdiction. This is because the SPSO Act says that the Ombudsman is not entitled to question a decision taken without maladministration. We found that this element of complaint was about the fact that Mr C's clients disagreed with the decision, rather than that the council had done anything wrong. We did not uphold Mr C's complaint that the council failed to tell his clients what information had been considered in coming to the decision, as we decided that they had acted in line with Scottish Government guidance on homelessness. The complaint in connection with Mr C's client's wife was found to be premature as he had not yet put that point to the council or completed their complaints process. Related reading View Decision Report 201100620 as a PDF (14.16 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mrs C complained that the board failed to inform her of a meeting which took place to discuss her and her children. The evidence showed that the meeting was arranged to discuss suspected child protection matters. It also involved people outside the children's core care team. The Scottish Government's guidance on child protection makes it clear that all service providers have a responsibility to act to make sure that a child whose safety or welfare may be at risk is protected from harm. If a child is considered to be at risk of harm, relevant information must always be shared which may prevent problems from escalating. However, the guidance also says that when involved in child protection work, authorities should ensure that, wherever possible, parents are given full information about the nature of the concerns, and the child and family are consulted on and given explanations for any actions/decisions taken. The board's own child protection guidelines are clear that if children are suspected to be at risk, these concerns should be raised without delay. When such concerns are formally raised, the parents should be informed. Only in situations where there are clear and present reasons that make informing the parents inadvisable or unsafe can it be justified not to do so. We found that the board should have told Mrs C about the meeting, and about the support services that exist to help families in these situations. Related reading View Decision Report 201000844 as a PDF (19.14 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

Mr C is an immigrant to the UK, who is studying here and who also has a job. When he applied for an allowance for 2010/11 for living costs support (payable to migrant workers) this was refused, although he had received the allowance the year before. He complained that, in advising him of the outcome of his application, the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) did not explain their reasons for deciding that his employment was marginal and ancillary, and that his studies were his predominant activity. We reviewed the information SAAS gave Mr C and decided they had followed both their own procedures and relevant Scottish Government guidance. SAAS did explain, as far as was possible, why they decided to refuse Mr C's application. The SAAS chief executive also offered to meet Mr C to discuss his situation if that would be helpful to him. Related reading View Decision Report 201003492 as a PDF (13.85 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

As part of the Edinburgh Trams project, the City of Edinburgh Council have carried out works to alter the road network in some areas of Edinburgh City Centre. The changes to the road network to support the new tram infrastructure were carried out using a series of public consultations in conjunction with Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs). The council decided to relocate the disabled parking bays in Frederick Street from near Princes Street to near George Street as part of this programme. Mrs C raised a number of specific issues about this change. These included the accessibility of the new location, the process of consultation (which she felt did not include disability groups or interaction with the blue badge scheme), and an assurance she said the council had given to reverse the change when possible. Mrs C was also unhappy with the reasons given to support the change and said that the changes breached her human rights and the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act. Our investigation looked at the regulations that councils must follow when applying for TROs and at guidance issued by the Disability Rights Commission and the Scottish Government. As changes to road management can only be made as part of the TRO process, our investigation was restricted to considering whether the process had been followed out appropriately. During the investigation, we found that the council had complied with the guidance and procedures. This included appropriate consultation with disability groups and compliance with the appropriate guidance. There was no link between the blue badge scheme and the positioning of disabled spaces that the council needed to consider and the reasons the council gave were reasonable. We found no evidence that the council had given a specific assurance that the change would be reversed. While we did not uphold any aspect of the complaint, we accepted that Mrs C had been affected by the change. We noted that there would likely be a further opportunity for

Mr C complained that the council failed to properly deal with his planning application for an extension to his home. He said that the council lost documents and unnecessarily delayed their decision to grant planning consent. After consent was granted, Mr C raised his concerns with the council about the time the process had taken. We reviewed the statutory framework within which this decision was made. This included: • The Town and Country Planning (Schemes of Delegation and Local Review Procedure)(Scotland) Regulations 2008, and • The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure)(Scotland) Regulations 2008 In addition we considered the supporting Scottish Government Planning Circulars, Circulars 4 and 7, North Lanarkshire Council's Scheme of Delegation and Policy HSG 12 'House Extensions' from North Lanarkshire Council's Southern Area Local Plan. Our investigation found that consent was granted eight working days outwith the statutory two month period during which a planning authority should usually determine an application. We found that although the council did not determine the application within two months this is not, in itself, maladministration. The law provides for such delays and gives the applicants an avenue of appeal. However, insofar as the council did delay the validation of the application by failing to ensure that the scanned plans were passed to the planning officer when first submitted, we upheld the complaint. The council accepted that they caused the initial delay in this process and have apologised to Mr C for this. For this reason, and because they had demonstrated that they have put in place procedures to try and ensure that similar situations do not arise in the future, we had no further recommendations to make. Related reading View Decision Report 201004601 as a PDF (19.1 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018