Service improvements

Essex County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2026 and 31 March 2027

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 - 2 of 2 cases with service improvements

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

  • Essex County Council (25 007 284)

    Category: Education Date: 20-Apr-2026

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for failing to give Mrs X the information she needed to make an informed choice about whether to commission a private educational psychologist assessment for her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan assessment. This meant Mrs X paid for the assessment unnecessarily. The Council will reimburse Mrs X the cost of the assessment and take action to prevent similar fault in future.

    Service improvements

    The Council will add information on its website about its approach to parents commissioning private educational psychologist advice for their child's Education, Health and Care assessment. The Council will also add that information to the letters it sends to parents when it decides it will assess a child for an Education, Health and Care Plan.The Council will prepare a policy or guidance for staff which sets out its approach to private educational psychologist advice for Education Health and Care assessments. The policy will include that the Council can choose to act outside of its policy and reimburse a parent for the cost of that advice in exceptional circumstances. It will also include examples of some of the exceptional circumstances which might justify reimbursement.

  • Essex County Council (25 006 388)

    Category: Education Date: 10-May-2026

    Summary

    We have found the Council at fault for its poor communication in response to Ms X’s request for Education Other Than At School for her son, Y. The Council also failed to consider it Section 19 duty when Y stopped attending school. This fault caused Ms X and Y avoidable distress and caused Y to miss out on alternative provision. The Council has agreed to take action to remedy this injustice.

    Service improvements

    Share details with us of its new approach to the consideration of its Section 19 duty and how this will prevent alternative provision being missed in the future.

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