The Ombudsman responded today to the Scottish Government consultations on Draft Regulations and Orders Relating to Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014 (PDF 246KB).  He expresses concerns that the Act and the associated draft regulations under consultation do not address issues that he and others have repeatedly raised over the past several years.  He says that the move towards integrating services not only fails to integrate complaints handling arrangements, but may actually make the situation more complex by allowing for a separation of responsibility between service delivery and complaints handling.