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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 29 August 2025
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Displaying 5744 contributions

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Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

I will not take an intervention.

I think that the imperative is to ensure that the legislation, when it is passed, does not allow exceptions to become loopholes, which would undermine our intention to uphold animal welfare standards. For those reasons, I will not support amendments 58 to 62.

Rural Affairs, Islands and Natural Environment Committee

Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

I will pick up on the point about mink. The mink projects in Scotland do not use dogs, and the mink population should be controlled under the environmental benefit exception.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

Item 2 is to take evidence on the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman’s “Annual Report 2021-22”. We are joined by Rosemary Agnew, who is our ombudsman; Niki Maclean, who is the SPSO’s director; and Andrew Sheridan, who is the SPSO’s head of improvement, standards and engagement. I welcome our witnesses. Before we move to questions from members, I invite Rosemary Agnew to make a short opening statement.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

Thank you very much. It was good to hear your opening statement and have you flag up the increasing complexity of legislation and the workloads that I imagine might come out of that.

You closed with the piece about complaints. It is good to hear that you do more than work on complaints, but I would like to focus on complaints. The committee would be interested to hear about the 17 per cent increase in public service complaints that the ombudsman received between 2020-21 and 2021-22, as noted in our papers. You touched on that a little. Will you expand on the reasons for that increase? Have new trends been identified in the recent case figures?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

That certainly is good news. I definitely agree that the direction of travel is right. The committee discovered on your website that the waiting time was 10 months last week and that it is nine months this week. As you said, if we were at the end of this week, it would be eight months. We wonder about that. If people see on the website that the waiting time is nine or eight months, could that deter them from complaining? Is there a way to parse that a bit more so that people understand it? Does the website have something that allows people to understand that there is a fast-track process so that, in a good number of cases, the period can be 12 weeks?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

Thanks for that. I will now bring in my colleagues.

I am sorry—I think that Willie Coffey has a quick supplementary first.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

I call Willie Coffey, who has a number of questions.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

I was interested in your comment that it might be time for a refresh of the model complaints handling approach.

I call Paul McLennan.

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

It is useful to hear that there is a potential route. Is there anything other than the human rights bill that could result in your getting the powers in this parliamentary session?

Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Annual Report 2021-22

Meeting date: 6 December 2022

Ariane Burgess

Thank you. It is helpful to hear about the direction of travel for child-friendly complaints and about the complexity and your concern about the impact on the people who use the services. Thank you so much for coming in today—it was good to hear the evidence and to get clarity on some of the details.

I suspend the meeting for five minutes before we move on to our next item of business.

10:34 Meeting suspended.  

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