 Sa gael. I welcome everyone to the third meeting of the local government and communities committee in 2019 and remind everyone present to turn off their mobile phones. Agenda item one, the committee is invited to consider and agree whether to take agenda items five, six and seven in private. Are we all agreed? Thank you. At this point I'd like to invite Annabel Ewing to declare any relevant interests. I want to flag up to the committee that I have decided on an early basis to update my entry in the register of interest. Specifically, I now rent out a flat in Edinburgh on a normal residential lease basis. Thank you very much. Agenda item 2, the committee will take evidence on the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman's annual report on accounts 2017-18. I welcome to today's meeting, Rosemary Agnew, the Ombudsman, Nicky McLean, SPSO director, and John Stevenson, Head of Improvement Standards and Engagement, Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. I invite Rosemary Agnew to make a brief opening statement. Good morning, thanks for inviting us. I just really wanted to highlight a couple of things up front. It feels a bit odd for us this, if I'm honest, because this particular financial year was nearly a year ago, so it's been quite refreshing reading it in light of what we've been doing in the current year. What I really wanted to highlight was that this was my first full year as Ombudsman, and my two major priorities for this year were my own staff and my team's wellbeing, health and, you know, how they were experiencing work, but also clearing our backlog of complaints that had built up from a period when there were exceptionally high volumes, and in doing those two things, reflecting on how we operate as an organisation ourselves, because a lot of the planning that we did that doesn't show in this report is what we are now putting into place in terms of progress with the organisation. So I just wanted to put it in that context, because whilst the numbers and things in here are really important and there were some very clear messages coming through, it was very much a focus on a keep business going to plan for the future, starting with a new strategic plan that we laid for this year. So thank you for the opportunity to speak and we'll do our best to answer all your questions as fully as we can. Okay, thanks very much for that update, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of interesting stuff coming from it later, but last year's evidence session, the Ombudsman spoke about certain groups who do not traditionally engage with SPSO services, for example female prisoners and young people. What work has been done since then to address those concerns? What we are doing is, it's part of a wider suite of work that we're looking at in terms of identifying groups and how to reach them, but also what we learn from our own complaints in terms of customer feedback. One of the, I think the challenges for groups that don't use us is you don't know if they need to, there may be a perfectly good reason why there are particular groups that don't make complaints or go to the Ombudsman, and we're limited with how far we can demand information to find those things out, but what we are trying to do and it's work that started now is look more holistically at how we measure impact and how we engage with our stakeholders. One of the big pieces of work for us at the moment is mapping out a proper stakeholder framework so that we can target our limited resources in a different way. For example, one of the things that we did recently was we met with Accountability Scotland and an ADHD group from Perth, because there are particular challenges for ADHD, those who have ADHD, and it's not specifically and always in relation to the SPSO, it's in relation to engaging with public services, so we've started that journey with them. The group is going to come in and talk to all of our staff about the challenges that they face in accessing public services, because that can then translate into the context in which we consider complaints, in which John's team, who set model complaints, handling procedures, can perhaps build in advice. It's a perennial problem and, if I'm honest, I don't know the answer, but what we're trying to do is be more targeted and, rather than trying to do everything, target specific groups at a time where we think there may be a large number. Just to go to one of the groups that I mentioned, women prisoners, for example, has there been any work done to make life a bit easier for them getting complaints here? Yes. In the last year, we've worked closely with the Scottish Prison Service to look at the culture in the organisation to one that truly values complaints. Within that, we've worked to develop three e-learning modules for the SPS that are specific to the prison rules and encourage complaints to be welcomed and made. The three modules that we've developed were, first of all, for the front-line resolution aspect of complaints, so targeted to the front-line residential managers within the SPS. The second one that we developed was about the Internal Complaints Committee, and the third one that we developed was about the role of Governors. One of the things that Governors do is look at sensitive complaints and complaints from vulnerable groups. We took a kinhealistic approach to managing complaints within the SPS and we've worked to develop those products, which were signed off around about nine, ten months ago. That's great, but have those been taken up by the Prison Service and have you seen any impacts or positive impacts from them? They are being taken up by the SPS. At this stage, we've not seen any impact in that respect, but one of the things that we're going to be doing quite soon is working with the new prison inspector to look at how the prison inspector inspects prisons in relation to complaints in vulnerable groups, and we'll look to have an on-going liaison with that organisation. Okay, thanks very much for that. Just on another matter, the introduction of the strategic risk register, what does it include, why was it needed and what previous risk management arrangements were? This was part of a piece of work that we've concluded this year. We redid our governance systems, and what we have and had and still look at regularly is quite a low-level thing, things that are specific to us, specific to areas of work, but what we felt was missing was that strategic look at things that come from the outside world, if you like, in a different way, because those are where we perhaps might need to identify different approaches, different risks. It's also something that I wanted to be able to publish because a risk register at quite a low level has a lot of information in it that isn't for general publication, however much you want it to be, so we also felt that if we had a strategic register which had the big things on it, and one of them, for example, is, I hate to say the Brexit word, but there is a risk associated with that. There are risks associated at a macro level with things like security and data, and it was to try and give some reassurance to anybody looking at our information that our risk is based in understanding the big issues as well and that we've got assurance systems in place to address them. Last year, the Ombudsman suggested that the SPSO was adequately funded for the level of work that you had at that time. Is this still the case? I'll always say no to that, won't I? If everybody turned up for work every single day and nothing had changed, the answer would be, we probably were adequately funded, but what we are observing, and we think that it is the consequence of the effect of model complaints handling and better complaints handling by public bodies, is that we've seen an increase in the number of cases that require investigation, often very detailed investigation, so complaint numbers this year are comparable at this point to last year, but what there is is a 12% increase in the number of cases that we have to do a lot more work on. It's that work that is the resource intensive, it's the investigation work. If, for example, in a complex health complaint, it might require four different inputs from different clinicians and experts, and I would say we're on a knife edge. We are just about coping, but I think it's also important to stress that it's not just about throwing resources at things. One of the things that we've been doing throughout the year is looking very critical. We've effectively, as a new ombudsman, I have effectively been doing a review since I started and we're putting things in place, and that's looking at the service that we deliver and the efficiency within which we deliver it. So, for example, in the investigation team we've had a major structural change, and that might not sound a lot, but we've restructured the team so that anybody making a complaint when they get allocated to an investigator, it's the same person for the whole complaint. We've taken out steps to make it better experience for customers and more efficient for ourselves. I don't know if you want to add anything in, Nicky. I think the other side of the coin is obviously what public bodies are doing in handling complaints, and I think this year we've done a lot of work around how we can better support public bodies and we'll be launching a new support and intervention policy on 1 April, and that is very much about trying to identify where we can really target specific public bodies because it's a significant proportion of our work. Inevitably, we'll always come from the largest public bodies in Scotland, so it's really important that we help those organisations work as efficiently as possible. I do realise that by the time a complaint gets to you, it's been through, so if we take a large local authority, it's been through their complaints procedures to get to you. I noticed that a higher number of complaints were updated upheld compared to the same period for the previous year, 60 per cent as opposed to 54 per cent. That leads me to perhaps a couple of questions. Firstly, how effective are the complaints procedures and processes within public organisations given the person who will have exhausted all of them in order to get to you? Secondly, we live in a time of austerity. We still live in a time of austerity that has had a major impact on public services. Is there any correlation between the massive job losses and the impacts of austerity on public bodies and the ability to handle complaints but also perhaps the ability not to handle services to the point where people end up complaining? I think I had an easier leave than this. I'd say there are a number of points in that, actually. If we think about the rise in the numb percentage that we've upheld, that's I think a reflection of the fact that complaint handling is improving. So if you like more straightforward complaints, just don't reach us anymore. We've had a big drop in the number of premature complaints coming to us and I think what we're seeing is the consequence of the fact that the simpler ones just don't reach us in the same way or the same volume that they used to. What it tells me is that in terms of support and intervention and the work that we do with public bodies, we now need to think about how we support them on the more complex complaints and start developing perhaps more guidance on that. I think that we're seeing particularly in some sectors a change in culture and approach to complaint handling. I think that the local authority sector is a good one. You've got a lot of data on that, John. One of the things that you asked is how effective is the model approach. We know through benchmarking and we get a feel for how effective it is. For that particular sector, the local authority sector, there has been a downward trend in the number of complaints received by local government in Scotland over the past three years. In fact, in the last year, it went down by about 17 per cent. In 1617, local government received 75,700 complaints. In 1718, it received 62,800 complaints. Quite a downward trend there in complaints received. Off that population of complaints, when we track it through that model complaints procedure, in that last year, 89.9 per cent of complaints, of all complaints, were closed at stage 1 within five working days. For the majority of people who access the complaints procedure, it works well. Clearly, there will be those very complex complaints where the breadth and depth of the issue is complained off. It is very difficult to seek or to achieve resolution. Those are the ones that we are seeing coming to SPSO. Of course, those are the ones that are more and more complicated, where we find issues that are not prepared, whether they are all part of the complaint. In terms of the effectiveness of the model complaints procedure, when you compare it to what was in place several years ago to now, it is without doubt effective. We are not complacent because one of the things that we are doing just now, and we are currently doing this, is reviewing the effectiveness of the model complaints procedures to see if and where they can be improved further. We just closed a survey yesterday with public bodies across Scotland to get their feedback on that. The other question that you asked was about resources in the wider sense. I do not think that we see enough complaints to be able to say that there is a direct correlation. Although it is a lot of work to us, it is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is out there. We do see themes and occasional issues that come up that could be indicative of resourcing issues in public bodies. For example, within health complaints, communication is a constant theme that comes through on complaints. I can see if you are a ward sister and you have a lot of people to look after, and you have fewer nurses because for various reasons there are not as many there, then it is more of a challenge to have that level of engagement that you would want to have. Another example is that we have only had a few complaints about treatment time guarantees, waiting times, which health boards are not meeting. Their obvious question is whether they are not meeting them because they are not trying to or they just do not have the resources or there is not the resource there. Rather than us saying that we think that there is a correlation, what we do is highlight in our reports and perhaps draw those to the attention of others when we issue them to say that this has come up. The treatment time guarantee one is actually one that I did alert the Government to as well. Thank you very much, convener. I draw the committee's attention to the fact that I am a member of the Scottish Corporate Body, which provides the resources for the ombudsman. You say in your note to us—indeed, it is reflected in your report that the biggest concern you have relating to resources is those complex cases that take longer, which you just indicated, and you have had an increase in them. You hinted that partly that might be because simpler ones are disappearing and you are just going to left with more complex ones. Can you say a little bit more about whether you think that is a trend that will continue? I think that it is probably close to running its course. The last sector to take on the model complaints handling was the health sector. There are things still bedding in for them and we are still giving support to them. I am not sure that that will make a huge difference in terms of complexity, though, because health cases and complaints are often very complex. I think that the sort of forward thinking, the links that we now need to be making are to see how we can help organisations to look at those complex complaints. The simpler ones are probably there with them. The other thing that I think is worth thinking about as well is that we talk about engagement with the complaints process, engagement with the complaints system, but this is about engagement with public service. Your engagement with public service, ideally, should not end up as a complaint. It should end up as in, I have great public service, thank you. One of the things that we are keen on developing through our work is learning from complaints, because if you learn why something went wrong, hopefully it does not go wrong next time. That is an area where perhaps there is greater scope for improvement further down the line. On the more straightforward ones, I suspect that we have reached about the limit there. I do not know whether you want to add anything. I agree entirely with what you said. I have spoken before about the indicators that we use across the sector to measure and understand complaints performance. One of those indicators is learning from complaints, so the numerical ones are easy to record. The learnings have been more of a challenge, and that is an area across the sectors in Scotland. My own team could do more work in, and it is something that is on our agenda moving forward. I think that the data supports what Rosemary is saying. At the moment, the number of cases moving through to investigations is falling within local authorities, but it is rising within the health sector, so you can see because it is a relatively young to the complaints handling procedure, it is not bedded in yet, so I think that that will continue to rise until it is better established, probably over the next year and a half, two years. That is helpful. Moving on, there has been a reduction in requests for reviews from 309 to 230. That is obviously welcome. Is there any further comment that you could make on why that is the case? I do not know why that is the case. Part of it is a reflection of improvements that we make. We do a lot of work with the team about communication, explaining reasons clearly and the use of clear language, and we have had very good customer feedback on engagement and use of clear language and explaining our decisions. If things are explained well, then they are understood better, and I would hope that that is one contributing factor. I think that we cannot ignore the fact that when we had the backlog of cases and were very, very up against it, there were times when I think that we were so focused on getting through the work that maybe we did not always explain things well. Very, very few decisions are overturned or cases re-investigated, but what I am seeing as a trend now is that work has settled a bit and is a lot less re-explaining. The reviews requests that I am seeing are the ones where fundamentally somebody really disagrees with our conclusions and decisions. It is probably worth pointing out one of the other things that we are about to do. The way that complaints are closed once they are investigated is that there is either a full public report and that goes to both parties in draft before we make our final decisions about the complaint and then it is published. At the moment when we close cases in decisions that are by letter, what we do is we write the letter and we send it to both parties and then if they have new information or they think that we have got something factually wrong, they ask for a review. What we are doing from the 1st of February is before we make a final decision, we are actually going to send our provisional decisions to both parties in the same way that we do reports so that we can engage particularly for complainers who really will want to have a say that they usually have a say afterwards and so that we can again reduce the number of review requests that we get. It is still giving people opportunity but it is at a different time. We think that that is going to be quite a lot of work in the short term for us because it is a fundamental change in approach but the experience I have is that even when we do not uphold complaints following a review we get equal amounts of, I do not agree with you but thank you for the explanations and that for me is a learning because I have learned a lot, the three of us have about the feedback from complaints. I do not agree with you that you have not looked at it and I am going to write to the papers and tell them all what a terrible shower of people you are but the reviews are going down because we are not as stretched although we are stretched with resources and we have done work on communication ourselves. That is helpful, thank you very much. If you want to complain handling timescales for early resolution complaints are they the one that has your targets of the percentage being met has dropped from 88 to 85.3? Are there any particular reasons for that or is that just? I think that it was clearing the backlog because there were cases that sat there for a number of weeks before they were looked at and decided so by definition they were going to take us longer before we started so that I think is the predominant reason. We are also looking again at timescales and we will be setting new performance indicators next year in light of the procedural changes we have made because feedback from complainers is often rather than taking a bit longer and having a really good decision that I am confident in. What we are looking at is whether we need to allow a bit more time for the earlier ones but still maintain performance as it is on the longer-scale ones because I do not want complaints that take more than a year. Some do inevitably but we want to reduce those so allowing ourselves a bit more time early on would be beneficial for us and complainers. In terms of your complaint uphold rates I note that the water sector is significantly higher at 73 per cent. What is wrong with water? I am going to ask Nicky to answer that to her favourite subject. I will not go that far but I am happy to answer the question. I think that in the water sector what has happened is that in terms of business to business providers you have a number of new organisations coming into that sector that are less experienced in following a standardised complaints process and that is impacting on the numbers and people are not being signposted properly through the complaints process and I think that it is largely in experience of working with the complaints process within these businesses. We are working with Wix to try to address that and try to work with these providers so that they get a better grip and that is something that John's team has been working on. We did some scanning of the water landscape to see what information was out there for customers and for many organisations it was not there at all or it was erroneous or it did a signpost or the timescales were too long so there is quite a bit of work to do with that sector. To adopt that standardised and simplified approach that values complaints and gets people through the process efficiently. Just really a quick one in terms of the new system, the recording enquiries that was introduced in 1617. What is the impact to that being and are there benefits, on-going benefits to that new system? In terms of the recording enquiries, the impact was that it was more of a technical change in terms of how we record things as to whether or not they are a complaint and previously I think we done it depending on the type of contact, the way in which someone was contacting us whereas we just simplified and clarified the definition of how we record whether it is an inquiry or a complaint. I think that it was more a technical reporting issue than anything else. Thank you, convener. In your overview you talk about the challenge of complaint handling and learning from complaint handling and I think that you have already identified some processes in questions that have already been asked. You have said that you are just about coping but that would infer to me that some of those public bodies are not coping and it may be, as we have already discussed, because of the demands that they have, the stress situation or the resources. Those all have implications for that to ensure but, at the end of the day, training and support are vitally important. Can I ask you to develop some of that in your views as to how you believe that that is now helping in some ways or is it not enough support and there is not enough training in some sectors and that is what is creating and, in amongst all of that, you have communication. Nine times out of ten a complaint happens because of a communication breakdown. Just to pick a few of those. If I start with, I am going back to the model complaint handling for now because one of the things that that has introduced is links, clearer links, into governance arrangements because I would say, before model complaints handling, complaints were something done over there. Part of the aim of this is not just about handling complaints, it is also about monitoring and bringing it into the governance landscape because, if it is not in the governance landscape, there will not be learning at an organisational level, there will not see a need to identify that actually you are not meeting timescales, why is that? In some sectors, the local authority sector is a good example of where they have an active complaint handlers network and we are seeing the benefits of that. If we look at training in a specific way, we offer as an organisation training at cost and it is pretty well used. We also, as part of our stakeholder engagement, something that I am keen to develop is more seminar-based things because, if we can, within our limited resource, deliver some of those and turn it into guidance on complaint handling, we get over one of the barriers for public bodies and that is, how do you prioritise training on complaints above training on patient safety? If we can contribute to that through our resources, this is very much down to resource things. Ideally, we would love to be able to do more e-learning packages like we did for the prison service, but part of it is this push that invest in good complaint handling and link it into your governance so that you learn from it, you are more likely to see other improvements. There is still a long way to go, I would say, in having every sector at the same point on the journey. One of the other major pieces of work that Nicky mentioned earlier was our support and intervention policy. What we are doing is making much better use of our own data. We are monitoring and recording the way that the outcomes from complaints, the recommendations that we make and we are looking for themes. The whole idea of the support and intervention policy is a journey. If we identify an organisation that we think might need help, we will offer it as far as we can within the resources. The ultimate is that we have powers under the SPSO act. If an organisation, by the time it reaches a very senior level, does not improve, then we need to think about how we use our powers. For me, the prize comes in that support bit. That is what we are launching now. We have just developed it and it will be in place from 1 April. We have got some examples of where we have worked with specific organisations, with Lothian NHS, where we have seen palpable results and improvements. Once organisations start to improve and realise that they can, it is quite energising as well. It was not as bad as we thought to do that. I do not know whether you want to add anything particularly, John, from your team. One of the early questions was about resources and the training to put it in context. Although we have a very effective training unit, the resource is essentially one full-time equivalent. It is a training officer who gets ad hoc support from the organisation throughout the year. Given the scale of the sector, we cannot deliver training alone, but one of the other things that we do within my team is to develop tools to help complaints handlers. Tools around quality assurance, decision making, complaints improvement and the culture within the organisation. Those tools all lend themselves to creating an environment that values complaints, quality, learning and so on. There is a certain responsibility in the bodies themselves to take those tools that are freely available and use them. From a resource point of view, we would love to deliver far more training courses, far more training products and so on, but there is a cost-benefit analysis. The bodies themselves have a duty to try and provide the training internally so that their staff are up to speed. You talk about culture. There is a culture that people feel sometimes when they are taking on a health board or they have a difficulty. The organisation is vast and does not give the right information and does not support the customer or the complainant. They try to protect the organisation themselves. We see that and we hear that on a regular basis. How do you feel that the whole culture needs to be managed for the future to give people the confidence in putting forward complaints and not having to deal with the culture of secrecy or behind the communication and all of that that they find themselves in? There are a number of approaches to this. Nick is going to comment on how we respond to complaints that we investigate as well. I would say that because we see a top slice of complaints, we see different practices and we see different standards in different organisations. It is not always even sectoral. Part of monitoring our own work is to try and identify those so that we can directly become involved. How do you tackle the bigger issue within organisations themselves? You start with the obvious ones. Is it clear on your website how to give feedback and make a complaint? If you have to go through three different webpages and it does not pop up easily, then, in my view, you are not being even vaguely helpful. This has to run alongside giving feedback as well. Can you have a culture where what you want to do is put things right before there becomes a complaint? If somebody raises an issue, that is a journey that, if we look at some public bodies, we are really good at it. You see examples of having meetings even after they have answered the complaint to try to help people to understand where it went wrong and to try to engage. You see others where, frankly, the complaint did not answer the question. Those are the ones that, when they come to us, we do something about. I will ask Nicky to comment on that. I think that it is really important that, where we see poor communication and not necessarily poor communication from a technical perspective but from an interpersonal level, we call that out as well. We do now record where there are complaints handling issues on cases where the complainant has not raised that as an issue. That would include the type of language that has been used within the complaint responses. We also do record and give feedback on how the public body has engaged with us. Culturally, that sends a very clear signal, not just us but other scrutiny bodies, other regulatory bodies. It is really important that we are open and transparent about that interaction because it tells you about the culture within the organisation. We are now gathering that intelligence. As Rosemary said, it is really important that, although we are only seeing a small number of cases, we can start to build up a picture, not just on the basis of the complaints people bring but the interaction during the complaint process. We monitor and track that. You have identified that there are a number that do it well, but there is also a number that do not. It is trying to make sure that they are scrutinised and that they are governed to ensure that they improve. The reason behind their lack of improvement may well be that they do not have the resource, the timescale and the staff to make that happen. That is very difficult for you then to try to manage that situation. You can point them in the right direction, but if they are not able to cope and they are not coping with the situation, it is only going to get worse. There is a bit in for your PR officer, but can I just remind everybody that you do not need to get everybody to answer every question? I would have thought that that was more a statement than a question, to be honest, but if you want to answer it, feel free. Can I just say I will note it? Thank you. I am content with that. Looking at the role that the SPSO has taken over as independent reviewer of decisions on the Scottish welfare fund, which I think that you are in year 17-18, represented the second year of that role, I understand that crisis grant reviews have increased by over a third in the last year, about 36 per cent. Of course, at the same time, we are seeing a number of things. Austerity already referred to also the roll-out of universal credit. For example, in 5 in 17-18, the number of crisis grants awarded increased by about 14 per cent, and we see the roll-out of universal credit in 5. From your perspective, looking at the crisis grant decisions made and the increase in the number of the reviews, do you see any connection between those issues? Do you foresee that, as long as the other two constants remain, austerity and universal credit roll-out not being halted, you will see a further increase in reviews and crisis grants in the year ahead? I'm not sure we will. The links to benefit and waiting, particularly in terms of waiting for benefit, where we are seeing issues is perhaps in lack of clarity in the guidance, the Government's statutory guidance on handling the reviews. We've just this week sent our comments back for the annual review. I suspect that it's one of those things where it will always maintain a link, but it might not be austerity. It might be something specific to an area that they go up in an area. There will always be a link to demographics, as well. When you look at the areas that have the highest number, they will tend to be those where there are those most in need. As to whether it will change in terms of proportions, I don't really have a feel for it. I don't know if you have anything to come through the team. I think what's interesting is that the up-hold rate on crisis grants is that we're only in Elm. We've only been providing this function for two years, but the up-hold rate is remaining constant, so there's not an indication that the decision making is getting poorer in that area. I think that there is some evidence to suggest that there is a link with the roll-out of universal credit because of some of the delays that that can inevitably cause, but I don't think that we've got a big enough data set to be able to say that to definite. So, when you come before us next year, it may be that you have a bit more information in terms of the experience that you will have gained by that stage? That is the case, and it's also the case that I think the bigger indicator would be and the data sets from local authorities, as it is with complaints. So that's where the analysis, I think, would give you a better picture. Okay, so let's watch that space really. With regard to the Scottish Welfare Fund review role that the SPSO now performs, unlike your other roles, the complaint can be made by telephone, and I understand that you're seeking to have that to be the position with respect to all complaints. In terms of your experience though, in terms of telephone access for the community care grants and crisis grant reviews, what has been your experience, do you feel that you would be able to seamlessly move to extending that facility, the telephone facility, for access across the board, or would other things need to happen before that? I think that it would have to be in context of it is another way of making a complaint. I mean, we try and get around it as far as we can, but ultimately there has to be a complaint in writing unless there are exceptional reasons. And the unfairness to me of this is it's the complainer who has to demonstrate exceptional reasons. We can't universally say, oh, everybody from that sector can just make them by phone now. What I think it gives us is the flexibility to adapt access to the way in which access is needed. There will always, I think, be a predominance of filling in a form on the website or what have you, but for me this is part of the journey of being able to actively put the message out there to advocacy groups, to citizens advice. If there is somebody who wants to make a complaint but they find the written doing it that way a barrier, then there is this option now. At the same time, thanks to our office move, we have a new telephony system and what we will have is the ability to be able to record calls. I think that that's important because it's a way of being able to capture the information easily as well, so that's something that we're looking at at the moment because obviously we've got data protection considerations. I don't think we could ever move to every complaint by phone without significant resource increases, so what we have to do is look at being as accessible as we can using the phone but also putting it in context of what we can do with what we have. I've gone like Graham asked his questions because he could follow on from that question. In terms of the general accessibility position, I note that the SPSO is currently looking at the position of British Sign Language and perhaps you could update us as to where that work is. We have already made some changes to our website. We have a wider British Sign Language plan and we're working with other office holders. We're doing some joint work there to see if we can't make use of resources. We do as much as we can. We've still got a journey to go on it but the most important things are in terms of for us accessing our service that is available now in BSL on our website. Thank you very much, Graham. Thanks, convener. My questions really do follow on from that because you've been asking for legislative changes in a couple of areas. One is around accessibility, which Annabelle Ewing has touched on. It does seem absurd that people have to prove exceptional circumstances to be able to make a complaint by phone. That's the first area. The other is to give you the ability to launch your own investigations at your own initiative. Before we look at each of those, you wrote to us earlier this month and you say that you're concerned about the lack of progress on this, following discussions with the Scottish Government and that you've not yet had a definitive or final response for them. Can you tell us a bit about the discussions that have been going on and why we've got this lack of progress given that you've been talking about this for some time? Well, the issues were there shortly after I took up office and we put a case together for those with the policy responsibility, setting out the various different things. The discussions have been really positive and there was an indication that we think that we can do this by an order. We think that that might take primary legislation. Then there's a change in staff. We sort of felt that we had to start all over again because despite a very comprehensive case, oh, we need more, we need more. We had to basically re-engage again. Then there's a change in staff and that combined with in the Government in that particular area that we were dealing with. Each time that we've had discussions, it's always been very positive. I'm not at all critical of the engagement itself, but it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. I don't know if it stalls because of lack of interest or whether it's too low down the priority order, but we just feel that we keep saying the same thing, so I'm going to try and find a different way of saying it to Parliament, I think. I have to say, it sounds a bit absurd that the Government stalls on something just because there's been a change of staff. That doesn't seem acceptable. I don't know enough about how the Government works, but I don't want to be hypercritical, but I'm very frustrated that, for example, the issue of a complaint in any format I don't think is a primary legislative change. How much does it take to put an order through Parliament for something that is self-evidently to the benefit of everybody? I was going to ask about this because obviously one of the changes that you're looking for may well require legislation, but that one, the accessibility, is probably quite simple, so it probably doesn't need to happen at the same time. No, they wouldn't have to. That would be your view, so the accessibility one could happen quite quickly, quite easily. It just needs a will to do it. Well, I think so. I think we think so. Let's look at the bit where you're looking for the power to take your own initiative, launch your own investigations. This power exists in other countries, and you point in your letter to Ireland, where you say that they've been very effective at raising issues faced by vulnerable groups a voice for the voiceless, and that goes right back to the first question that the convener asked about these hard-to-reach groups. It would seem to be a positive thing to happen. Yeah, there are two sides to this. We are increasingly using the phrase public value investigations because there has to be a public value in doing them, but it's a bit hit and miss to rely on a complaint coming in that's exactly about the issue you want to look at. For me, there is something in there about having an ombudsman that is able to look at something that they would have looked at had there been a complaint, fundamentally. I've had me happy pills or something for the morning. I am really proud to be the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman. I think that Scotland leads the way in many things, and I want us to lead the way in a modern ombudsman service. We don't even lead the way in the UK now. Both Wales and Northern Ireland have these powers. In fact, Northern Ireland has just launched its first investigation. I look at things that my European colleagues have achieved. The Irish Ombudsman has achieved in adding value at inevitably a lot lower cost than maybe looking at 15 or 20 complaints about something. I think that we've got a real opportunity to be able to use the skills that we've got and the understanding that we have of public services from an ombudsman point of view to build in improvements or highlight issues. Some of it is about highlighting the issue, and it comes back to the point that I was saying earlier that you don't engage with a public service to make a complaint. You engage for the service, and it's unlikely to be one-off. You don't have your bins emptied once, you have your bins emptied regularly, so if we can highlight things that can improve it at that end, not after the complaints come in, I think that there is a huge benefit to that. The other thing I would add is that it's not something that would be the main, the only thing that we do. Complaints are important and always will be. Finally, in your letter to us, you do say that you intend to lay a report before Parliament with proposals for legislative change. Can you tell us when we might expect to see that? We are currently doing our business planning for April next year for the next financial year. I would like, ideally, to get something to you before summer recess, because I think that it's something that needs to be looked at early. It's important to me, but we're still at the point of looking at all the priorities that we've got. That is my aim. Who would that go to? I think that I would probably lay it before Parliament generally, but I would send it specifically to this committee in the first instance. What's the friendly faces we do? I'm absolutely fine. Thank you very much. Turning to the issue of the SPSO becoming the independent national whistleblowing officer, could you update the committee on what progress is being made? The work falls out of the Francis review, the freedom to speak up. We have worked over the past year in collaboration with the Scottish Government, the sector, the NHS, the whistleblowing organisation and whistleblowers to develop a project steering group and a project working group to develop a draft set of principles in relation to whistleblowing, guidance in relation to whistleblowing and standards in relation to whistleblowing. The stage that we're at just now is that that draft work has been completed. The next stage is to go out to public consultation. We aim to do that in parallel with the Scottish Government consulting on the draft order. The draft order hasn't been completed yet, so we're at the stage where we're waiting on the Government to finalise the draft order, and then the two consultations will run in parallel. We're actually meeting with the Government next week to look at the timescales for that. I hope that that will progress earlier this year. Timescales slipped a little because, originally, it was going to be bored, but it's been extended to primary care, so it's had to take account of that because, obviously, there's a lot more work involved in that. The timescale for it actually coming into operation has slipped and is likely to be. I understand at the moment closer to the autumn rather than the April, but we weren't concerned about the slip for the reason that it slipped because this is so important. I want this to be as right as it can be because it differs from complaints in that it's a very personal thing to whistleblow, and we have to make sure that the system supports everybody, especially whistleblowers, in doing that. One of the issues that is always very clear about is the slippage, if you would call it that. It's more around giving boards and primary care providers sufficient time to plan and prepare for implementation. It wouldn't be appropriate or fair to say, here's a new procedure and you need to implement it within two or three months. The timescales now reflect the fact that primary care will be involved and primary care and the boards will need sufficient time to plan and prepare for effective implementation. We'll take that into account when we meet the Scottish Government next week. Obviously, it seems that involving primary care to that degree is eminently sensible. Therefore, one can understand why it's important to do that, to get it right, given that this would be a very significant change. In terms of consultation, is there any idea yet about how long that will be? Will that be the standard of three months or something around that? Presumably, the SPSO Office would intend to ensure that there was proper awareness raising at the time of the consultation, because, obviously, you would want to have as many views submitted as possible to that. We will contact everybody who is under our jurisdiction, all the appropriate organisations. I should have said this earlier that, in the past week or so, we have worked with the Scottish Government on some workshops around adopting a once-for-Scotland policy approach to the pin procedures. We attended to give some advice on the whistleblowing procedure. I was very encouraged indeed that, when we asked the people of the sector what do you think a whistleblowing procedure should look like, what should it contain, the feedback that we got really covered all the things that we've already got in the draft procedure. A clear definition, support for staff, support for people in the wider context who are involved in the whistleblowing procedure, timeliness in terms of getting the whistleblowing procedure through the procedure in good time, reflecting that there could often be a patient safety issue or keeping the person who raises concern at the heart of the process. All the feedback that we're getting from the sector at the moment is already reflected in those draft products that we have and we're ready to consult on. Great. Perhaps you can keep the committee advised at the relevant stages as to what's going on. I'll finish with this last one. You decided to update the strategic plan midway through the usual four-year cycle. Was this to change the direction in the strategic aims or was there any other reason for it? I think it was to put more focus on developing some of the things that were there and that we want to develop further, specifically more direct and obvious focus on the importance of learning from complaints, more direct focus on being a contribution to public service. It's not just about complaints, but also to have something that is really well-rooted in our values. Having it well-rooted in our values, for example, being people-focused, that then influences the decisions that we make as an organisation, the approaches that we take. Something as simple as saying, we're going to restructure our teams so that somebody coming to us gets one investigator throughout the life of the complaint. That is rooted in a value of being people-focused because that's what suits the complainer. The fact that it helps us is good, but it's actually about people. It also means that we have focus on our own people as well because we have some lovely people with strong values who are trying to do a really good job and most of the time we do. Every now and again, we need support because it's hard work having to listen to some of the things that we listen to daily. That was all about vision and values and not just the direction but who we want to be in following that direction. Thank you very much for that. I'd like to thank yourself, Rosemary, John and Nicky, for your evidence this morning. That was very useful. I'm going to suspend very briefly to allow the witnesses to leave the table. Agenda item 3 is consideration of negative instrument 376. As listed on the agenda, I refer members to paper number 3. This instrument is laid under the negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annull it. No motion to annull have been laid. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has not drawn the instrument to the Parliament's attention on any of its reporting grounds. Do members have any comments on the instrument? In terms of consultation in paragraph 5, it says that since October 2014, Scottish ministers have undertaken a number of public consultations and are proposal to exempt certain heritable securities from a 20-year security rule. I'm just wondering why progress wasn't made at the time of any idea. It isn't very specific. All it really goes on to say is that the consultation was completed several years ago and the order couldn't be pursued at this time. Do we know why? We've got no idea. It's done through the Delegated Powers, so I suspect that there were any questions that would have been asked at that point. Yes, we're happy to write and find out. Yes, it's just that it does seem an inordinate amount of time between consultations. But given that the DLPR has no issues with it, I invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument, and we agreed. That concludes the public part of today's meeting, and I move the meeting into private.