Rosemary Agnew is the current

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) is the organisation that handles complaints about public services in Scotland. The Ombudsman service is independent of government and with a duty to act impartially. The SPSO is responsible for lookin ...

. She is the third person to hold this office, taking up the post in May 2017. She was formerly the

Scottish Information Commissioner The Scottish Information Commissioner is responsible for the promotion and enforcement of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) and thEnvironmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004Scottish EIRs). The current Scottish Infor ...

2012–2017.

Career

Agnew worked as an Assistant

Ombudsman An ombudsman (, also ,), ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament (usually with a significant degree of independence) to investigate complaints and at ...

at the

Local Government Ombudsman The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, legally the Commission for Local Administration in England and formerly known as the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), is a service that investigates complaints from the public about councils and som ...

. Prior to appointment Rosemary was

Chief Executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of the

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = , logo_width = 200px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = Scottish Legal Servic ...

an appointment that she took up on 26 October 2010.

Information Commissioner

She was nominated as the second Scottish Information Commissioner in February 2012. She took up office on 1 May 2012 for a fixed term of six years. In 2012, Agnew responded to

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP)

Catherine Stihler Catherine Dalling Taylor Stihler (née Taylor; born 30 July 1973) is a Scottish former politician who is chief executive officer (CEO) of Creative Commons. A member of the Scottish Labour Party, she was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) ...

's complaint, following Stihler's request to find out further details from the Scottish Ministers about whether they had sought legal advice over the position of an independent

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

Deputy First Minister of Scotland The Deputy First Minister of Scotland ( gd, Leas-Phrìomh Mhinistear na h-Alba; sco, Heid Meinister Depute o Scotland) is the second highest ranking minister of the Government of Scotland, behind the First Minister of Scotland. The post-hold ...

Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is a Scottish politician serving as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. She has been a member of ...

MSP told the

Scottish Parliament The Scottish Parliament ( gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Pairlament) is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyro ...

chamber on Tuesday 23 October 2012 that the Scottish Government had only now sought legal advice on the position of an independent Scotland in the European Union. As a result of this row

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and economist who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure on the Scottish nationalist movement, he has served as leader ...

, the

First Minister of Scotland The first minister of Scotland ( sco, heid meinister o Scotland; gd, prìomh mhinistear na h-Alba ) is the head of the Scottish Government and keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland. The first minister chairs ...

, referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to determine whether he had broken the

Ministerial Code The Ministerial Code is a document setting out "rules" and standards for government ministers in the United Kingdom. Separate codes exist for ministers of the Scottish Government, the Northern Ireland Executive (based on the St Andrews Agreemen ...

. In January 2013 an independent adviser judged that neither Salmond nor the Scottish Government had breached the ministerial code. On 3 February 2017, the Scottish Parliament announced that Agnew would be stepping down as Commissioner on 30 April 2017 and would take up a post as the

on 1 May 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agnew, Rosemary Ombudsmen in Scotland Scottish civil servants Scottish women civil servants Scottish chief executives Living people Year of birth missing (living people)