07 November 2008
By David Scott
Complaints about public services are frequently the result of a breakdown in trust between people and service providers, Scotland's public services watchdog has claimed.
Professor Alice Brown, the Scottish public services ombudsman, said more needed to be done to resolve persistent problems in the provision of public services.
In her annual report for 2007/08, published on October 31, she referred to recurring complaints about health services and growing concern about a 'lack of dignity' in the provision of care and treatment, especially for the most vulnerable patients.
Planning cases, which formed a large proportion of the 4,000 complaints in the last year, were rooted in discontent or disagreement with the planning process and its outcomes.
Brown added: 'These types of cases, while significantly different in substance, often have a common theme in that they are a result of a breakdown in trust in the relationship between the service user and the service provider. The complainant may no longer have faith in — or feel they can depend on — public services.'
Brown, who is standing down from the post in March 2009, said there had been a shift in culture, with public bodies now seeing complaints as a positive opportunity to learn from the public users and improve services.
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