Service improvements

Cheshire East 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

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

  • Cheshire East Council (25 003 123)

    Category: Education Date: 15-Jan-2026

    Summary

    Ms X complained that the Council failed to secure provision set out in her daughter’s Education, Health and Care Plan. The Council is at fault for failing to secure the provision from February 2025 to July 2025. This caused avoidable distress and frustration to Ms X and her daughter. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a symbolic remedy, and make a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to review its decision making and identify gaps in oversight in its handling of missing EHC Plan provision, and outline lessons learned and what it will do in the future to ensure provision in a child or young person’s EHC Plan is delivered.

  • Cheshire East Council (25 002 549)

    Category: Education Date: 13-Nov-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained about delays following the Annual Reviews of her son’s (Y) Education Health and Care Plan. We found fault with the Council’s failure to comply with the statutory review timescales. This fault caused injustice to Mrs X. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a symbolic distress payment and carry out some service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review its Annual Review process to ensure there are no unnecessary delays in dealing with the review documents sent by the schools.The Council will ensure there is a system in place to prevent parents of the children with EHC Plans being negatively affected by the changes in the SEND staff.

  • Cheshire East Council (24 011 853)

    Category: Education Date: 26-May-2025

    Summary

    Ms X complained the Council failed to adequately facilitate an independent review panel meeting regarding a permanent exclusion from school. She also complained the Council failed to produce adequate minutes of the meeting. Ms X said the Council’s actions negatively affected the family’s mental health. We found fault by the Council. The Council has agreed to provide an apology, a financial remedy and a copy of the notes taken at the meeting.

    Service improvements

    Remind staff of the need to adhere to the statutory guidance regarding independent review panel hearings; specifically that the minutes of the meeting should name all attendees, and that the clerk should make reasonable efforts to send relevant paperwork to all parties at least five school days prior to the review.

  • Cheshire East Council (24 008 973)

    Category: Education Date: 24-Apr-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council failed to secure the special educational provision her in daughter, W’s, Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan. The Council was at fault. To remedy their injustice, the Council will apologise to Mrs X and pay her £1400. It will arrange speech and language therapy provision for W. Lastly, the Council will review why it delayed reassessing W’s needs for her EHC Plan and issue a staff reminder.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review why it did not begin seeking information for the child's Education, Health and Care Plan until May 2024, despite agreeing to the reassessment in March 2024. The Council should identify what steps it should take to make sure such delays do not occur again. It should send the Ombudsman details of those steps.The Council will remind staff that when they commission support from a specialist such as a speech and language therapist, they must ensure the package they commission is sufficient to deliver the relevant special educational provision in the child or young person's Education, Health and Care Plan.

  • Cheshire East Council (23 016 429)

    Category: Education Date: 03-Jul-2025

    Summary

    Mrs B complained that the Council failed to take appropriate action to safeguard and promote the welfare of her children. We find there were delays in care planning which likely delayed Mrs B from having unsupervised contact with her children. The Council also failed to respond to correspondence sent on behalf of Mrs B. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to Mrs B. It has also agreed to make service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to amend its working procedures to ensure care plans are properly updated in accordance with the statutory process, and that section 47 outcomes are properly followed up with families.The Council has agreed to consider how it can minimise changes in social workers for looked after children.The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff of the importance of including all contact and correspondence in the case records, and of responding within a reasonable timeframe.

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