Call for school complaints review

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Ministers have been urged to overhaul the way parents' complaints about schools are handled.

The Scottish Consumer Council said the current system was too complex and many parents did not believe action would be taken as a result of their complaints.

It wants local councils to have a deadline for producing a confidential response, free of jargon.

The call came in a report which found that the complaints system was improving but more needed to be done.

Dundee City Council topped the league with the highest number of complaints for every 1,000 pupils but it said this was because inquiries were counted as well as complaints.

Successive pieces of legislation have created a system which is neither coherent nor consistent Douglas SinclairScottish Consumer Council

The report said most schools and councils provided complaints information to parents, all of it easy to access and understand.

However, it said the information was not always up to date and was not comprehensive.

Fewer than one in six schools complied with their legal duty by including information on the right of parents to complain to the ombudsman.

Only 16% of schools had a member of staff trained in complaint handling, and only half of schools were found to be monitoring complaints.

Criticising the system for the independent review of complaints, the report said this involved several stages and there were four separate means by which the review took place.

Complex legislation

It said complaints could be handled by education appeal committees, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, independent adjudication or an additional support needs tribunal.

Scottish Consumer Council chairman Douglas Sinclair said: "The key to ensuring that a grievance doesn't damage home-school links or the morale of the school is to ensure that there are high-quality, consumer-friendly procedures in place to resolve the problem.

"However, successive pieces of legislation have created a system which is neither coherent nor consistent.

The figures for Dundee include all concerns and inquiries, as well as complaints Dundee City Council spokesman

"It is difficult to see how any parent could navigate it without considerable information, advice and support."

Charlie Gray, education spokesman for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, welcomed the report's finding that the "vast majority" of parents were satisfied with the Scottish education system.

But he said: "There is an issue around the complexity of the legislation and this is something that we may need to look into."

A Dundee City Council education spokesman said: "In our response to the Scottish Consumer Council, we made it clear that the figures for Dundee include all concerns and inquiries, as well as complaints, received by the city council's education department for that specific year.

"We operate a high-profile advice and conciliation service which encourages parents to get in touch about a wide range of issues regarding schools and education.

"Many of the contacts made by parents to this service are simply to ask for information and advice about their child's education."