Hansard

Tricia Marwick had the courtesy to send us a note to explain why she was leaving the debate. I am sorry that she is unwell.

I welcome the all-party support for the bill's general principles. I thank the Local Government Committee for its work so far. It will continue to scrutinise the bill at stage 2 and pursue the points that have been raised.

Members welcomed the one-stop shop approach that has been proposed. Jackie Baillie was right to say that that is part of a process of modernising the delivery of public services and making it easier for the consumer to access a proper complaints procedure.

As Johann Lamont said, although the new ombudsman is a one-stop shop, it is also a last-resort shop. I hope that the public services—the health service, local government, non-departmental public bodies and others—have proper procedures, not only for scrutinising complaints, but for using consumer feedback about the way in which they deliver their services in order to improve those services constantly. The theme of constantly improving public services runs through all the Executive's work. The system should not leave people to the last resort of approaching an ombudsman. We hope that most issues will be resolved well before that.

I welcomed the Local Government Committee's support for the Executive's view on deploying the deputy ombudsmen and on the bill's not tying them down to a set of specialisms. That is not to say that expertise should not develop or that people should not take a particular interest in some matters. Janis Hughes talked about that. The position in the bill is not rigid. Several members suggested that we have adopted the correct approach.

Trish Godman asked about and supported the new ombudsman's ability to consider requests from organisations for it to investigate. She cited the possibility of the complete failure of a public service and asked how that would be handled and how parliamentary committees would be involved. Such a situation would still relate to maladministration, which falls within the ombudsman's powers. Maladministration alone might not cause the complete breakdown of a service. If it did, the ombudsman could consider that, but it is clear that that would never fetter parliamentary committees. In the main, parliamentary committees would look for other failures in an organisation—such as a non-departmental public body—that met the conditions that Trish Godman described.

Members supported the extension of powers to examine the management and organisation of schools, but not professional judgments in schools. In part, that highlights some of the difficulties to which Sylvia Jackson alluded. If we extended the ombudsman's remit to professional judgment, it would run smack bang into difficulties concerning teachers' day-by-day work, head teachers' management of schools and decisions about learning for pupils. Those would be compromised. We have found the right balance, but I will shortly go into questions of professional judgment in more depth.

Linda Fabiani asked about the appointments process. I welcome the chamber's welcome for ensuring that the post is independent. It is for the Parliament to decide how to do that. A precedent was set by how the Parliament handled the Auditor General's appointment, but the freedom of information commissioner and the public appointments commissioner will also be subject to parliamentary scrutiny on the way to being appointed by the Queen, so the Parliament will have to consider them. That is a matter for Parliament, not for the Executive.

Despite all the welcomes, members expressed some concerns, which I will deal with as fully as I can. Members asked whether the water industry falls within the purview of the ombudsman's office. The water industry will have its own commissioner, who will have a much wider range of functions than just considering complaints, so that commissioner will fall within the purview of the ombudsman's office. If people have concerns about maladministration in the office of the water commissioner, there will be recourse to the public sector ombudsman.

Members asked about the Subordinate Legislation Committee's recommendations. As Andy Kerr said, we will lodge an amendment at stage 2 to deal with the matters that that committee raised about separating organisations' public duties, which would be subject to the ombudsman's scrutiny, from their private operations, which would not be.

Mary Scanlon asked about the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care and the Scottish Social Services Council. We believe that they will fall within the scope of the ombudsman's remit, but they will have internal procedures that will have to be exhausted first. After that, there will be recourse to the ombudsman. However, we will check that position and keep it under close scrutiny as the bill progresses through Parliament.

Mary Scanlon also asked about the time that an ombudsman takes to complete a report. Although we welcome the improvement in the time taken, we agree that that time scale should be constantly borne down on and made more effective in the interests of the consumer.

Tricia Marwick and Trish Godman asked about the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations. The bill is designed to give trade unions and staff flexibility on transfer to negotiate the best terms that they can. Different pension schemes operate, but taken as a whole we do not expect employees to be worse off. We do not expect anyone to be disadvantaged and we want to ensure that that is the case. However, we must leave flexibility for staff to negotiate. That may be a levelling up of workers' rights, rather than a levelling down. If the bill were worded differently, it might even prevent such flexibility. Our intentions are honourable. We want to ensure that staff do not transfer at a disadvantage.