Complaints and grievances within Social Justice and Social Security: FOI release

Information requested

The number of recorded complaints and/or grievances about (a) bullying and (b) unacceptable behaviour within the Directorate for Social Justice and Social Security since May 2021.

Please breakdown this information showing whether these complaints were about another civil servant, a Senior Civil Servant or a Minister.

Please specify when each complaint or grievance occurred and was recorded and please specify whether the complaint was about unacceptable behaviour or bullying

I believe this information would be held by line managers and should quite rightly be kept on record.

You subsequently confirmed that your request related to the Directorate for Social Security.

 

Response

Line managers in the Scottish Government are encouraged to deal with concerns about bullying and/or unacceptable behaviour at an early stage on an informal basis, where appropriate to do so. There is no requirement to report informal action to HR and therefore no information is held centrally about cases that have been dealt with informally locally.

We have requested details of information held locally by the business area. This has indicated that there are no records of complaints or grievances since May 2021.However, it should be noted that this information would be held by individual line managers and some may be currently absent from work (for example, due to holidays or other forms of leave) or may have left the business area/the SG since 2021.

In relation to information held centrally by HR, I can confirm that there have been no recorded complaints and/or grievances about bullying or unacceptable behaviour within the Directorate for Social Security since May 2021.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.