Service improvements

Bath and North East Somerset Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026

Find out more about service improvements

When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.

Showing 1 - 7 of 7 cases with service improvements

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Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for Bath and North East Somerset Council as a CSV file.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 022 684)

    Category: Education Date: 06-Oct-2025

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for failing to provide school transport for Miss X’s child Y to the school named in their Education, Health and Care Plan. The Council will apologise to Miss X for the avoidable frustration caused by its fault. It will also provide school transport for Y, reimburse Miss X for the mileage costs she incurred in taking Y to school, and take steps to prevent recurrence of the same fault.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide training to school transport officers and other relevant staff on home to school transport and the statutory guidance ensuring this covers applications from pupils where there is only one school named in their Education, Health and Care Plan.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 019 374)

    Category: Transport and highways Date: 22-Jun-2025

    Summary

    Mr X complained the Council and bailiffs acting on its behalf, wrongly enforced a Penalty Charge Notice for a traffic offence which was committed by a different person with the same name. We upheld the complaint. The Council will apologise, make a payment for the avoidable distress, inconvenience and time and trouble. The Council will also review its computer system.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide evidence of staff training it has delivered.The Council will review its computer system to see whether the automatically generated penalty charge notice received by the complainant could be prevented or be checked by staff before being sent out.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 015 922)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 19-Aug-2025

    Summary

    Mr X complained the Council failed to arrange his transfer to another local authority area, started and stopped the transfer process three times and failed to tell him the Council was not responsible for arranging a housing transfer until 2024. The way the Council reached the decision that it was not responsible for Mr X’s housing transfer was not affected by fault. However, the Council’s communications with Mr X and Mrs Y have been confused. That raised their expectations and caused them frustration now the accurate position has been explained. An apology, payment to Mr X and Mrs Y, alongside training for officers, is satisfactory remedy.

    Service improvements

    The Council will carry out a training session for social workers. That should cover the Council’s responsibilities around transferring care when a service user moves into another council’s area and the differences between that and responsibility for transferring a service user from one accommodation to another in a different council area.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 010 815)

    Category: Education Date: 27-Apr-2025

    Summary

    Mrs D complained the Council failed to provide alternative and special educational needs provision for her son, J, when he stopped attending school. We found fault which caused uncertainty to Mrs D and J. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to remedy this.

    Service improvements

    Share this decision statement with the staff involved in the development of the Council's children not in school policy.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 010 640)

    Category: Education Date: 10-Apr-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to secure educational provision in her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan. Mrs X said not receiving that necessary support badly affected her child’s education and wellbeing and caused distress. We found there was avoidable delay by the Council in securing provision in the Plan. In recognition of the resulting avoidable distress and time and trouble, the Council agreed to secure the educational provision and both apologise to Mrs X and make a symbolic payment of £1,000.

    Service improvements

    To improve its complaints handling, the Council agreed to: • Write to service managers responsible for complaints handling and instruct them to check if complainants want a stage 2 complaint response if this is not clear from their correspondence. • Write to complaints officers to remind them of the importance of both opening all messages posted to its online complaint service and then responding to them quickly and in line with relevant published time targets.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 003 025)

    Category: Planning Date: 24-Apr-2025

    Summary

    X complained about the Council’s failure to take planning enforcement action to control an energy generation facility. X said the failure has affected the environment and local residents. There was delay, which was fault and caused X frustration, the Council has already apologised. The delay could also cause injustice to others in the future. The Council will arrange and hold a meeting with X to explain its enforcement decision and carry out service improvements to prevent recurrence of the faults identified.

    Service improvements

    The Council will complete a planning service review. The review will include both plans to improve the service and to deal with any backlog caused by staff shortages in the past.The Council will share the outcome of its planning service review with the Ombudsman and the relevant Council oversight and scrutiny committee.

  • Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 001 607)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 21-Apr-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complains the Council has failed to assess her sister’s needs properly and has failed to get the deprivation of her sister’s liberty authorised. The Council has delayed in reviewing her sister’s needs and in applying to have the deprivation of her liberty authorised. It also failed to ensure she received a consolidated response to all her concerns. The Council needs to apologise to Mrs X for the distress it has caused. It also needs to apply to the Court of Protection to have the deprivation of her sister’s liberty authorised and take action to improve its services.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to:a) take action to ensure people’s care and support plans are reviewed at least every 12 months;b) identify the action it is going to take to ensure that, when people raise complaints about the Council and other commissioned services, they receive a consolidated response to all their concerns.

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