Case Ref: 24 004 917 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will issue a staff briefing to ensure all relevant staff are aware of the Council’s statutory obligation to ensure a child receives a suitable education if they cannot attend school. This will help to ensure children do not miss education provision while they are unable to attend school.
• The Council will share our focus report Out of school, out of sight? with relevant staff to emphasise the Council’s section 19 responsibilities and identify wider points of learning. This will help to ensure the Council understands its section 19 responsibilities when a child is unable to attend school.
• The Council will issue a staff briefing to remind relevant staff to respond to complaints in line with the Council’s procedure and keep complainants updated where deadlines cannot be met. This will help to ensure complaints are responded to in a timely manner and complainants are kept appropriately informed about what is happening.

Case Ref: 24 004 347 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Safeguarding

• The Council agreed that it would revise its current policy for safeguarding adults to include reference to the desired timescale for completing enquiries when it has decided to make enquiries. Also, that the policy would in future contain advice for its social workers and officers on informing both those who report concerns, or who are the subject of enquiries as alleged perpetrators of abuse, when it has completed its investigation. This was after this investigation found unacceptable delay in the Council beginning enquiries and that it failed to tell the complainant when it closed its investigation, meaning he believed its enquiries into allegations made about him remained ongoing.
• The Council also agreed that it would brief all those who conduct adult safeguarding investigations on key learning points from this investigation. That investigating social workers must consider the factual basis for any allegations made against individuals; that they should take seriously any counter-allegations and decide whether to investigate those also; that they should keep clear audit trails of communications relevant to decisions arising from the safeguarding investigation and if they record abuse substantiated, they must provide a clear rationale for such a finding. This was after this investigation found poor practice and a bias against the complainant when allegations were made about him, which it recorded as substantiated despite a lack of evidence for this finding.

Case Ref: 24 009 660 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• the Council will provide an update on how it is ensuring the outstanding stage two investigations are progressing.

Case Ref: 24 008 706 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Refuse and recycling

• the Council has agreed to review its procedures for assessing a property’s eligibility for a wheelie bin or other type of waste collection container and make any changes needed to ensure there are clear and transparent criteria for decisions;
• the Council has agreed to review its procedures for assessing a property’s eligibility for a wheelie bin or other type of waste collection container and make any changes needed to ensure there is clear guidance in place for officers making decisions, including about how to check if the criteria have been met;
• the Council has agreed to review its procedures for assessing a property’s eligibility for a wheelie bin or other type of waste collection container and make any changes needed to ensure it keeps proper records to support consistency in decision making.

Case Ref: 24 007 176 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has agreed to review its procedures to ensure it has a proper process in place for considering its duty to provide a child whose EHE has been ended with a suitable education.
• The Council has agreed to share guidance about its policy and procedure in these cases with relevant officers.

Case Ref: 24 005 023 Category: Transport and highways Sub Category: Highway repair and maintenance

• Consider how often the gullies need cleaning.

Case Ref: 24 003 458 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will share a copy of the decision with its education welfare and special educational needs staff to identify learning from this complaint.

Case Ref: 24 001 518 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council agreed to send a written reminder to its Adult Social Care officers about the need to handle residents’ complaints in a timely manner by either responding directly or referring them its Feedback Team.

Case Ref: 24 000 808 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has agreed to instruct all Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) staff and staff dealing with alternative provision to ensure that case records and meeting notes - including annual review meetings - must record which organisation is responsible for carrying out any agreed actions, with respect to children and young people’s referrals for education and support.
• The Council has agreed to inform its complaint handling staff that while proactively contacting complainants to resolve complaints is welcome, this is not a replacement for providing them with a complaint response.
• The Council has agreed to look into what caused the delays in the Council making decisions and finalising Education Health and Care Plans in this case and outline what action it has taken to prevent recurrence of these delays in future.

Case Ref: 24 000 115 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council will review all the evidence sent and make a fresh reasoned decision on the request for a two-bedroom property showing it took account of all relevant evidence provided in support.
• The Council agreed to remind all relevant staff involved with the making of decisions about bedroom entitlement of the need to: i) give reasons in support of itsdecisions; and ii) show they considered all relevant evidence against the requirements of its policy.