Service improvements

Cheshire East Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022

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 - 9 of 9 cases with service improvements

Export results (CSV)

Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for Cheshire East Council as a CSV file.

  • Cheshire East Council (21 012 628)

    Category: Education Date: 29-Mar-2022

    Summary

    The Council failed to provide the IT equipment and software listed in Ms X’s child’s Education, Health and Care Plan. This has negatively affected her son’s education. The Council has agreed to apologise, provide the items needed and make a symbolic financial payment to Ms X. It has also agreed to put in place appropriate training for staff to prevent this happening in future.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to remind staff, through appropriate training, of the Council's non-delegable duty to secure the Special Educational Needs provision set out in Section F of a child's Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan).

  • Cheshire East Council (21 012 021)

    Category: Children's care services Date: 19-Jan-2022

    Summary

    Miss X complained the Council wrongly refused to allow her to escalate her complaints to stage 2 of the children’s statutory complaints procedures. The Council was at fault when it refused to go to stage 2 of the procedures. This caused Miss X avoidable frustration and time and trouble coming to the Ombudsman. It has agreed to apologise, pay Miss X £100 and move without further delay to stage 2. It has also agreed to carry out service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to remind relevant staff of its legal obligations under the statutory children’s complaints procedures, in particular its obligations to carry out a stage two investigation and the limited circumstances in which early referrals to the Ombudsman can be requested.

  • Cheshire East Council (21 001 585)

    Category: Environment and regulation Date: 09-Dec-2021

    Summary

    Mr D complained the Council failed to take preventive action when he reported a blocked drain. We find the Council was at fault for its communication with Mr D. The Council apologised for this when it responded to Mr D’s complaint. It has also agreed to carry out service improvements to prevent a reoccurrence of the fault.

    Service improvements

    By 8 February 2022, the Council has agreed to provide evidence that it has: •Created a dedicated adverse weather webpage that acts as a central hub where customers can get advice, information and support before, during and after periods of adverse weather. •Produce written guidance for staff working on the adverse weather desk to support them with signposting customers to appropriate resources. This will enable them to provide consistent and accurate response to enquiries.

  • Cheshire East Council (20 014 516)

    Category: Education Date: 17-Dec-2021

    Summary

    Mrs X complains the Council failed to ensure her daughter, B, received certain special educational provision set out in her Education, Health and Care Plan. She complains the Council failed to complete the annual review of the Plan within the statutory timescales. The Ombudsman has decided to uphold Mrs X’s complaint. Because of this fault, Mrs X was caused distress and uncertainty, and B missed out on certain provision. To remedy the injustice, the Council has agreed to apologise, make Mrs X and B a payment, and take action to prevent similar failings in the future.

    Service improvements

    the Council has also agreed to make the following service improvement: remind relevant staff members about the specific statutory timeframes for completing the annual review process, including when the Council intends to amend an EHC Plan ;the Council has also agreed to make the following service improvement: develop a procedure to ensure that, where it appears a child or young person is not receiving the provision set out in their EHC Plan, robust action is taken without delay.the Council has also agreed to make the following service improvement: review its complaints handling process to ensure clear information is given to staff on assessing injustice when fault is found and awarding appropriate remedies for this. The Council should consider including a reference to the Ombudsman’s published guidance on remedies in the guidance.the Council has also agreed to make the following service improvement: share this decision with relevant staff.

  • Cheshire East Council (20 013 619)

    Category: Education Date: 08-Feb-2022

    Summary

    Ms X complained about fault and delay in the way the Council provided support for her child’s special educational needs and care needs. We cannot say that on the balance of probabilities her child missed out on education, but the fault did cause uncertainty and distress as to whether the outcome might have been different, which is in itself an injustice. Recommendations for an apology, financial payment and service improvements are made.

    Service improvements

    The Council will ensure it considers with parents what advice to get for an Educational, Heath and Care needs assessment and in particular consider any requests for advice made by parents.The Council will ensure advice given about Educational, Health and Care needs assessments, elective home education and Education otherwise than at School accurately reflects law and statutory guidance.The Council will ensure when a parent withdraws a decision to home educate that they are appropriately signposted to officers responsible for school admissions or education otherwise than at school.

  • Cheshire East Council (20 012 023)

    Category: Education Date: 09-Mar-2022

    Summary

    We did not investigate Mrs X’s complaints about decisions the Council made about a child she fostered. This is because we did not find fault with the Council’s stage two and three statutory complaint investigations. However, we did find fault with delays in the Council’s complaint handling and in complying with the recommendations from those investigations. The Council has offered a suitable remedy for the delay. It will also complete the recommendations, apologise to Mrs X and remind officers of the timescales for carrying out investigations.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind staff dealing with complaints the timescale for completing a stage two investigation begins once a complainant requests it in writing.The Council will review its systems for monitoring compliance with recommendations from stage two investigations and stage three review panels to ensure these are completed in a timely way.

  • Cheshire East Council (20 009 764)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Aug-2021

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council failed to secure the provision of the Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT) assessment specified in her son, Mr S’s, Education, Health and Care Plan and delayed putting into place transport arrangements to college which then proved to be unsuitable. The Council was at fault when it delayed in ensuring the SaLT assessment took place. This caused Mrs X and Mr S an injustice. The Council should make a financial payment to recognise this. There was no fault in the transport arrangements the Council put into place or the timing of those arrangements.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to provide evidence of the work it has carried out with the relevant part of the NHS and a school to prevent delays when sourcing and providing speech and language therapy.

  • Cheshire East Council (20 008 527)

    Category: Education Date: 18-Nov-2021

    Summary

    We upheld Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her son’s education, health and care plan. Her son, Mr Y, lost out on provision he was entitled to. Miss X and Mr Y also experienced frustration and uncertainty due to faults by the Council. The Council agreed to apologise to Mr Y and Miss X and make a payment to recognise their distress and time and trouble.

    Service improvements

    The Council will issue a reminder to staff about the timescales for issuing an amended final plan following a decision from the SEND tribunal.

  • Cheshire East Council (20 005 989)

    Category: Environment and regulation Date: 27-Aug-2021

    Summary

    The Ombudsman found fault on Mrs H’s complaint against the Council about it failing to: make representations to a review committee; object to Temporary Events Notices; communicate with her properly; issue a valid Noise Abatement Notice; ensure there were no delays; consider evidence. The agreed action remedies the injustice caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to review its practices to ensure: the environmental protection team will make objections to future temporary events notices from the venue where appropriate; proper checks are made about the relevant party to be named on the Noise Abatement Notice; officers act on accepted breaches of licence and progress them without delay; ensure reports received by the environmental protection team are acknowledged and actioned.

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