Chamber and committees

My other question is directed to Greg Dempster and Jim Thewliss. The EIS survey report mentions some instances where it was felt that PEF had been used—contrary to the guidance—to plug gaps that had arisen from cuts to more general budgets. Is that still being seen?

I came across an example where a local authority was halfway through a training programme for the entire teaching staff in its employment when PEF came along. It was suggested to the headteachers in the remaining schools that had not yet had the course that they could use PEF to pay for it, in order to avoid the local authority having to meet the cost. Are such things still going on or is the approach settling down?

In fairness, as I name-checked Andrea Bradley and Mike Corbett, I should give them the chance to comment.

The premise of PEF, as I recall it, was to empower headteachers and their staff because they are the best-placed individuals and groups to understand the needs of the school. I was therefore a bit concerned by Andrea Bradley’s comments about teachers being left out of the decision-making process, but Mike Corbett’s comments perhaps cleared that up. He said that there are some good examples of teaching staff being involved in the decision making and there are some examples of that not having happened. That has probably covered what I wanted to ask about at the outset, but I have a question about how PEF is deployed.

There have been a number of comments that have suggested that it is about who does what in a school and how they go about it, but some of the best examples of the use of PEF that I have come across have involved some more innovative things—for example, the appointment of truancy officers to visit families in a supportive way to understand better why children are not attending school. I have also seen secondary schools in clusters putting maths teachers into the primary schools because they have found that, on the maths front, the kids were not as well prepared as they should have been for going to secondary school.

Do you recognise that there is more to the use of PEF than simply the deployment of resources in individual schools? I direct that question to Greg Dempster in the first instance, and then Jim Thewliss.

My final question is on your interaction with the Scottish Housing Regulator, with whom you have a memorandum of understanding. How in practice do you share any insights into complaints about social landlords with the regulator? How does that work?

Before I get into my questions, I would just like to be absolutely clear on something. When you investigate complaints, are you re-investigating the original complaint, or are you simply looking at the processes that were followed by the body in question to ensure that they were as they should have been?

Perhaps we can look at some specific public bodies—for example, local authorities. After all, we are a local government committee.

I am interested to explore with you the volumes and nature of local authority complaints. Are they changing in any way? Are you seeing any variances from the pandemic? Moreover, are your dealings with local authorities fairly consistent? You talked about your ability to resolve some cases with a telephone call. Are some local authorities far better at that kind of engagement with yourselves and others?

I just want to develop that, Niki. The delay is now 10 months, so if someone came along today with a case that was deemed and accepted as being non-urgent, how long do you think that they would have to wait in total before their case was dealt with?

I guess that the most exercised and agitated complainants who come to you will often hold the view that there is something wrong with the system, in that the body that they have complained about continues to investigate itself up to a point at various levels of escalation. However, from what you said earlier, ombudsman, you seem to feel that the performance of the system is improving.

I should preface my questions by saying that I absolutely get that Covid has had an impact on all sorts of organisations and, of course, it is inevitably the case that a number of complaints will not be legitimate in nature at the outset.

That said, you said earlier that the SPCB has been very supportive of you and that you, in turn, have been supportive and have looked to understand the challenges faced by public bodies. Ultimately, though, you are there to represent the public’s right to challenge the experiences that they have had. If, as we have read,

“there is currently a delay of up to 11 months in allocating complaints to an SPSO Complaints Reviewer”,

that is inevitably going to have an off-putting effect on members of the public. After all, what is the point of taking a complaint forward if it is going to take up to 11 months to allocate it?

What evidence do you have, anecdotally or otherwise, of people not pursuing a complaint, because of that inordinate delay? It is a delay that almost inevitably comes on top of the delay that they have already experienced with the public body that they are complaining about. I certainly know of cases where the response from the NHS has been, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have the time to deal with that.” I understand that, but when we put all that together, the fact is that people who try to raise what are often legitimate complaints face a very long time before they get the resolution that they are looking for or are entitled to.

I am interested in exploring that aspect with you, but can you also tell me how that 11-month delay compares to people’s experience pre-pandemic? Moreover, how long on average does it take to conclude a complaint once it has been allocated to a complaint reviewer, whether or not it proceeds to a full investigation?

As has already been touched on, some of the respondents to the consultation expressed concerns that the reforms were simply a rebranding of the current system. As we all know, that cynicism will always be there in such a process.

I would like to explore with you, and get your view on, this issue. Do you believe that Scottish Government’s response to the OECD report, and thereafter to your report, offers a genuine reassurance that there is, certainly at Scottish Government level, a recognition of the need to reform fully, and a commitment to the process?