Source · SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)

Glasgow City Council

SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) Partly Upheld Reference 201003128 Sector Local Government Category complaints handling Decided 01 September 2011

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Full decision

Summary

Mr C and Ms D were involved in extra-curricular activities at their son’s school. They were uncomfortable with the actions of another parent, who they felt was promoting unacceptable racist and sexist views among the school community. Ms D, in particular, felt the parent was using bullying behaviours to make it impossible for her to continue her involvement with the school and they decided not to have their younger son attend the school. Mr C and Ms D raised complaints with the school, but were dissatisfied with the conduct of the investigations, believing that assurances that had been made were not followed through. They were similarly dissatisfied with the council’s handling of the complaint and information provided by the council during that process.

Our investigation confirmed that the council dealt satisfactorily with these complaints. However, they did not carry out the investigations that Mr C and Ms D were led to believe would be carried out, and we upheld this element of their complaint. We did not uphold the complaint about the information given to Mr C and Ms D as we found it was generally appropriate.

Recommendation We recommend that Glasgow City Council: • apologise to Mr C and Ms D for the failure to investigate comments which were alleged to have been made.

Point of clarification - it was the nursery school from which the parents withdrew their younger son's application.

Related reading

View Decision Report 201003128 as a PDF (19.48 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

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