Case Ref: 22 010 764 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council should send written reminders to staff involved in complaints handling to ensure they signpost complainants to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman when it has finished its consideration of complaints. Any relevant templates should be updated to reflect this.
• The Council should establish clear guidelines for practitioners to consider the provision of independent Educational Psychologists within its EHC assessment process sooner, to include how and when to do this. This should be sent to all relevant staff.
• The Council should update us on the action it has said it has taken to try and resolve the delays with the availability of Educational Psychologists (EPs). This should include what effect it has had on the number of children and young people waiting for EP input in an EHC needs assessment and average waiting times.

Case Ref: 22 008 381 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Review and ensure the Council’s decision letters about assessment / re assessment requests are clear. For instance, the decision letter should clearly set out and explain there is a separate right of appeal when requests for statutory re-assessments are made.
• By training or other means remind staff of the importance of adhering to the statutory guidelines and timescales in completing EHCP annual review processes. Explain to the Ombudsman how the Council will monitor performance against timescales.
• By training or other means remind staff of the importance of following the Council’s complaint procedure timescales.
• •review and monitor the Council’s EHCP annual review process. Provide the Ombudsman with an action plan to demonstrate how the Council will meet statutory timescales for EHCP annual review process and issuing final EHCPs.

Case Ref: 22 002 320 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• The Council has agreed to provide us with a report on its progress in carrying out the steps its own report identified as recommendations in relation to cultural awareness.

Case Ref: 22 013 530 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• The Council will carry out a quality monitoring visit to ensure the arrangements for chiropody in the Care Home are working and that residents are all able to access chiropody where this is needed.

Case Ref: 22 011 140 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council agreed to remind staff that when responding to complaints about deprivation of asset decisions, they should respond to points of dispute and set out reasons why the decision is upheld or not upheld.

Case Ref: 22 010 021 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Friends and family carers

• The Council will explain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman how it has reviewed its private care arrangement processes and what improvements it has put in place, as it agreed to do following the conclusionof the complaints process.
• The Council will consider developing a leaflet which fully explains to people the implications of caring for children and young people under a private family and friends’ arrangement.
• The Council will review its relevant policy to ensure staff are aware that where people are considering caring for children or young people under a private arrangement they should explain the implications of such arrangement and provide information about what support services are available. The policy should ensure staff properly evidence and record this on the relevant case notes.

Case Ref: 22 009 279 Category: Planning Sub Category: Planning applications

• The Council agreed to review procedures so a proper, considered decision is promptly reached about whether planning consent is needed for a site, when looking at future locations for temporary site compounds.
• The Council agreed to review its practices so evidence continues to be available in the event of an officer leaving the Council.

Case Ref: 22 006 917 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Disabled children

• The Council will tell the Ombudsman what steps it has taken or will take to address the complaint-handling faults found during the investigation under the statutory children’s social care complaints procedure. These are to ensure:•stage 2 investigations are started within the required timescales;•the service area complained about sends a representative to the stage 3 Review Panel hearing.

Case Ref: 22 005 526 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Domiciliary care

• The Council should check the action plan of the service provider which was agreed as a result of a safeguarding investigation, and report back to us on the quality monitoring visit. The Council should also ensure the service provider has a system in place to retain records from a service users home, and check the service providers policies around record storage and retention.

Case Ref: 22 001 277 Category: Transport and highways Sub Category: Parking and other penalties

• The Council has agreed to review it policies to ensure it makes it clear people can cite exception circumstances and the Council will consider these in line with its equality duty.
• The Council will remind all staff that they must consider whether there are exceptional circumstances which means they should depart from the Council’s policy in certain cases to prevent an injustice.