Official Report 738KB pdf
Welcome back, colleagues. Item 4 on our agenda is consideration of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman draft revised statement of principles for complaints handling procedures. The committee has to consider the draft statement and report to Parliament on any views that we have. I invite members to make any comments that they wish to on the draft revised statement.
My comments relate to a wider issue; they are on the letter that we received from Mary McIntosh. She is from my area, and she was present during the evidence sessions regarding this matter. If we approve the revised statement today, does that mean that we will have to send her a response? My concern is that she has a bee in her bonnet about this issue.
We were not going to consider Ms McIntosh’s submission to the committee at this point, because we are considering only the general principles of the statement, but we will consider that at a future meeting. Is that okay?
Yes, because it is right that we consider the letter in relation to what we are doing here.
Okay.
I was particularly happy to see that the whistleblowing principles and the child-friendly principles have been added to the statement, and I note that there have been wording changes in relation to how to describe a document of this type to the public, which I also welcome.
Taking on board Meghan Gallacher’s comments, do we agree that we approve the revised statement and that we will give that notification to the Parliament?
Members indicated agreement.
Are members content that we delegate that responsibility to handle those matters to the convener, when she comes back?
Members indicated agreement.
As previously agreed, we will take our next item in private, so that concludes the public part of today’s meeting.
11:11 Meeting continued in private until 11:26.