Complaining to the SPSO

Before contacting us you should first go through the complaints process of the organisation involved. If you are not sure where to direct your complaint, please use our Complaint Agency Finder.  Once you know who to complain to, read this section on making a complaint.

If you're not happy with the final response from the organisation, or if you don't get one, you can complain to us.

When we get involved, our first step will be to look at whether the complaint is one that we can handle, because we can only investigate complaints where we have the legal power to do so.  See our list of organisations that we can take complaints about and matters that we can and cannot consider.  We will usually let the organisation know that you have made a complaint.  If it is not something we can look at, we'll let you know why we cannot investigate it and try to suggest who might be able to help.

If we do take on your complaint, it becomes an investigation.  Read more about how we investigate.  At the end of the investigation, a Report is sent to you, the body complained about and the Scottish Parliament. We cannot change a Report once it has been laid. Read more about our reporting process.  

You can contact us at any time for advice or to find out more about our service. 

If you wish to make a complaint about service you have received from the SPSO itself, please click here to find information about how to do this. 

This section was last updated July 2006