GAINS complains to Public Standards Commissioner for Scotland, 23 Sept

N.B. we tried complaining to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, but they told us they don't handle complaints about committees of the Scottish Parliament. Instead, they said we should contact the Public Standards Commissioner for Scotland, which we did....

To: Public Standards Commissioner for Scotland <info@ethicalstandards.org.uk> 
Cc: John Swinney ; Roseanna Cunningham ; Patrick Harvie msp 
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 10:18 PM

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to make a complaint against the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament. 

When we first presented our petition in January for the abolition of waste incineration, the Committee was very sympathetic and attentive. The Committee then sought the views of local authorities and other public bodies, and invited us to comment on those views. It really seemed as if they were listening.

However, after the elections in May, only 2 of the original 9 members were still on the Committee. The new Committee took just 3 minutes to dismiss our petition as "incompetent".

It took us months of painstaking work to prepare our petition, seek signatories and raise money to bring an expert to help us with our presentation to the Committee. To have all this work dismissed in an instant is not acceptable behaviour. 

The Committee's own rules state (at section 15.7) that it must give a reason for rejecting a petition. Simply stating that it is "unachievable" does not, in our view, constitute a satisfactory reason.

We presented a detailed and comprehensive set of arguments, explaining why waste incineration is unsustainable, both from an economic and environmental point of view, and that other methods of waste management were better and cheaper - see attached document. The Committee had no right to dismiss these arguments so lightly. 

The SPSO says that it cannot help, but suggests that we contact you. Can you help us?

Yours sincerely,

Michael Gallagher
Green Alternatives to Incineration in Scotland