Service improvements

Bury Metropolitan Borough 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 - 5 of 5 cases with service improvements

Export results (CSV)

Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for Bury Metropolitan Borough Council as a CSV file.

  • Bury Metropolitan Borough Council (25 001 865)

    Category: Education Date: 24-Feb-2026

    Summary

    We have found fault with the Council for failing to consider its Section 19 duty. This caused Miss X’s son, Y to miss out on education and support. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to Miss X in recognition of the injustice caused. In addition, the Council agreed to make a service improvement to share information between teams.

    Service improvements

    The Council will improve its information sharing within the education department by requiring officers to update information on the shared system. This should ensure that relevant teams are notified of important changes such as a child being placed on a reduced timetable.

  • Bury Metropolitan Borough Council (24 021 752)

    Category: Education Date: 16-Oct-2025

    Summary

    Miss X complained about a failure to put alternative provision in place for her child, Y, between 2024 and 2025, delayed annual reviews and a failure to update Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. The Council failed to provide adequate oversight of Y’s provision between January and July 2024 and then failed to put any education in place for Y between September 2024 and January 2025 when they were not on roll at any school. It also delayed amending Y’s EHC Plan by five months following an annual review. The Council agreed to apologise and make payments to acknowledge the injustice this caused. It also agreed to provide us with updates of action it is taking to improve services under its SEND improvement plan.

    Service improvements

    The Council should provide the Ombudsman with a copy of its SEND improvement plan and evidence of what it has already carried out to improve timeliness of annual reviews and oversight of school attendance and children/young people with Education Other than at School (EOTAS) packages.The Council should provide an update on any actions carried out under its SEND improvement plan with regards to timeliness of annual reviews and oversight of school attendance and children/young people with Education Other than at School (EOTAS) packages.

  • Bury Metropolitan Borough Council (24 021 278)

    Category: Education Date: 12-Nov-2025

    Summary

    The Council was at fault. It failed to provide all Miss X’s child, Y’s, Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan provision, did not put in place a personal budget for Y’s provision and failed to carry out Y’s 2023 and 2024 EHC annual reviews in line with the statutory timescales. The Council will apologise to Y, make a symbolic payment to Miss X to acknowledge the impact of Y’s lost provision and the frustration, uncertainty and confusion it caused her and her delayed appeal rights. It has already put some service improvements in place but will also make a service improvement for putting in place actions agreed in complaint responses.

    Service improvements

    The Council will put a new system in place to ensure agreed actions from complaint responses are complied with.

  • Bury Metropolitan Borough Council (24 019 017)

    Category: Education Date: 07-Aug-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained about the Council’s handling of her child Y’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan since 2023 including annual review delays and a failure to pay the personal budget. The Council was at fault. It failed to carry out annual reviews between August 2023 and July 2024 and then delayed issuing an amended Plan prior to Y’s transition to post-16 education. It also failed to review and pay Y’s personal budget which meant Mrs X was unable to arrange therapy provision between September 2023 and July 2024. The Council agreed to apologise to Mrs X and Y and make payments to acknowledge the distress caused the impact on Y’s education and development.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide an action plan showing how it intends to improve its processes around Education, Health and Care Plans to ensure it holds annual reviews prior to issuing any amended plans and to ensure specialist provision outlined in Education, Health and Care Plans is available and in place at the time plans are issued.

  • Bury Metropolitan Borough Council (24 000 867)

    Category: Education Date: 24-Apr-2025

    Summary

    Miss X complained that the Council failed to provide education to her son while he was out of school. We have found that the Council was at fault, because it failed to deliver home tuition to Miss X’s son for at least part of 2023. This meant he lost education, and he and Miss X likely suffered distress. The Council has agreed to make symbolic payments to recognise their injustice, and it will take steps to improve its service.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to send us a plan which sets out what it intends to do to overcome similar difficulties securing home tuition for other children in future.

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings