Parliament Workbench

Petition · PE01594 · Session 4

Specification of 'lying' as an example of public maladministration

Closed Submitted 3 Dec 2015 Parliament & Constitution
Signatures
1
Comments
0
Considered
2 meetings
in the Official Report

What it asks

Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to amend the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 to define maladministration in such a way that formalises the Crossman Catalogue as a source of examples and adds lying to the list of examples.

What the petitioner did first

The petitioner looked at official definitions and listings of maladministration to check that ‘lying’ is missing from them and is not clearly implied by some other listed item.
I wrote to the SPSO. In the response, Mr. Jim Martin was quoted as saying (in response to a question from the Local Government and Regeneration Committee) that “we would criticise a body who provided inaccurate or misleading information”, but it was implied elsewhere that they did not always do so. My letter was not fully answered.
My list MSP wrote to the Minister for Parliamentary Business asking for the Government’s view. The response confirmed the petitioner’s knowledge of the present legal position, but did not discuss the realities of complaint handling and the other issues raised in this petition.

Where it was considered

Official Report
  1. 12 Jan 2016
    Public Petitions Committee
    New Petitions
    1 mention
  2. 1 Mar 2016
    Public Petitions Committee
    Continued Petitions
    1 mention

Signatures by country

No online signatures are recorded for this petition; the total above may include paper signatures.

Comments

No public comments.