FOI Request: 2.26.62334

Information requested

Request for information on how many complaints or reports of racist behaviour within the Commission's staff or appointees the Commission has received within the last 5 years? How many of those did the Commission deal with? How did the Commission deal with those complaints? What is the Commission's equality policy?

Response

Under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying exceeds the upper cost limit of £600. We do endeavour to provide information wherever possible. However, in this instance the costs of locating, reviewing and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit. This is because there are over 140 Complaints recorded over the last 5 years and the only way to check the content of the complaint would be to locate and review each one. There is no automated way for us to retrieve this information and, while some complaints are fairly straightforward and concise, others are extremely complex and run to many pages containing multiple issues. Each would have to be scrutinised in turn by an experienced officer. In April 2014, following new guidance from the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, the Crofting Commission adopted a new Complaints Handling Procedure. Under this procedure, complaints against staff, appointees and Commissioners are stored differently. I have therefore reviewed all of these files on your behalf and can confirm that none of the complaints in this period relate to racist behaviour. In order to try to locate information from an earlier period, prior to April 2014, you may wish to consider submitting a new request for a specific year. As a Non-Departmental Public Body of Scottish Government, the Crofting Commission does not presently have its own Equality Policy. The organisation adopts the Scottish Government Equality and Diversity Policy. Information on this can be found on the Scottish Government website at http://www.gov.scot On the Home Page there is a section entitled ‘People and Society’. If you click on this it will take you to information on Equality.