Case Ref: 21 003 846 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has agreed to circulate a reminder to relevant staff of the time limits for complying with SEND Tribunal decisions, including that the Council should issue the final amended EHC Plan within five weeks of a SEND Tribunal decision to change a Plan.
• The Council has agreed to review its Personal Budgets Policy for Children and Young People with Education, Health and Care Plans 2021-2023 to ensure there are clear timescales for staff to make decisions on personal budget requests. It has also agreed to circulate a reminder to relevant staff of the need to put the reasons for any personal budget refusals in writing and provide details to applicants of their right to request a review of its decision (as stated in its 2021-2023 Personal Budgets Policy).
• The Council will review any relevant template letters to make sure it is clear when staff should include details of the review process.
• The Council has agreed to establish a mechanism to make sure complainants referred by its customer relations team to SENDART or another service receive a complaint response inline with the Council’s complaint procedure. For example, the Council should consider creating a system whereby its customer relations team records when it receives a complaint, when the complaint is passed to SENDART/another service and when SENDART/another service sends a stage one or final complaint response to make sure oversight is maintained over the complaint process. Guidance on this should be circulated to staff, with a reminder on when complaints should receive a stage one complaint response.
• The Council has agreed to ask a Senior Officer in SENDART to review this decision and share any identified learning from it with relevant staff members.

Case Ref: 21 007 095 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Fostering

• The Council agreed to provide documentary evidence that is has implemented the following lessons learnt in its Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and complaint handling procedures: • the police need to attend initial LADO allegation meetings even if this delays the LADO process; • an initial allegation meeting is not the same as a child protection strategy meeting and the two should run concurrently; • the police should share information it holds in the LADO process and the LADO should challenge if it is not happening; • social workers and police should hold joint visits to children during investigations to avoid the child having to retell their story; • the fostering service should recognise the emotional impact of an allegation on a carer and support them; • the LADO should request documentary evidence early in the investigation and will not conclude the process until it receives it; • all partner agencies must have completed their actions before the LADO closes the case file; and • where a complaint has been upheld and a recommendation made, the Council should complete it without delay and keep the complainant updated.
• The Council will remind relevant staff of the importance of following the timescales set out in the complaints policy.

Case Ref: 20 013 905 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to review how it plans for the transition between major stages of education for those children and young people with special educational needs who do not attend a school or college. This should ensure reviews are carried out in sufficient time to properly prepare for the transfer.
• The Council agreed to review is process for arranging personal budgets and direct payments for children or young people with education health and care plans, to ensure it only provides these when requested and agreed by parents or young people.

Case Ref: 20 009 859 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council has agreed to put a system in place that ensures service users are informed in a timely manner about any increases in the cost of their care package.
• The Council will share the lessons learned with its staff in the adult social care and finance teams.

Case Ref: 20 009 013 Category: Planning Sub Category: Planning applications

• The Council has agreed to put in place a procedure requiring its officers to check the accuracy of all plans submitted with planning applications, to ensure the measurements in each of the submitted plans is the same, and they properly represent the relationship with existing buildings.
• The Council has agreed to advise its officers about the importance of ensuring that neighbouring dwellings are drawn accurately on plans to ensure proposed schemes portray a true depiction of the relationship between existing and proposed buildings.
• The Council has agreed to provide training to enable its officers to have a clear understanding of the importance of requesting and interpreting details of existing and proposed site levels.

Case Ref: 20 009 009 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff that all service users should understand how their personalbudget can meet the needs in their care plans, whether their care is commissionedby the Council or through direct payments.

Case Ref: 20 005 512 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council is to remind relevant staff of the timescales for investigation of adult social care complaints set out in its feedback policy.

Case Ref: 20 004 148 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Friends and family carers

• the Council has agreed to: review its Family and Friends Care Policy (2018) to ensure it contains sufficient directions to staff on the information carers in informal family arrangements should be given. Clear directions to staff should be provided on when decision letters should be sent
• the Council has agreed to: issue a reminder to children’s services staff about the differing duties under the Housing Act 1996 and the Children Act 1989, the relevant court case from 2009 which explains why the Children Act takes precedent, and the statutory guidance Prevention of homelessness and provision of accommodation for 16 and 17 year old young people who may be homeless and/or require accommodation, 2018
• the Council has agreed to: review similar cases over the last six months where the Council has decided a private family arrangement is in place for a 16 or 17 year old young person. This is to ensure no other cases have been affected in this way
• the Council has agreed to: share this decision with relevant staff members.

Case Ref: 20 000 544 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Child protection

• The CCL investigated PA and his wife for a year believing they may have fabricated evidence that their son was suffering from an ASD. At no point did it have him assessed to see if he did. He was diagnosed, eventually, after a court recommended an assessment, with a disorder often linked to autism. I recommended that, if ever it investigated someone for similar reasons in future it would immediately, where possible, have the child assessed for that condition.

Case Ref: 20 000 437 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Licensing

• The Council will remind members of the Licensing Committee and officers taking minutes of the need to keep appropriate records of discussions at Committee and the need to give reasons for any decisions made.