Case Ref: 22 008 899 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• review its procedures for checking SEN provision has been properly put in place when a child or young person starts a new placement.

Case Ref: 22 008 343 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• The Council agreed to issue a reminder to all social work staff working within its adult safeguarding team of the relevance of the Human Rights Act when it comes to cases which involve family separation. It will encourage staff to record their consideration of human rights matters whenever relevant to decision making during safeguarding investigations.
• The Council agreed to issue a reminder to care providers with whom it contracts for residential care of its expectations when it comes to handling complaints they receive by or on behalf of users of council services. This will make clear the Council’s expectations on notification of complaints and signposting to its complaint procedures.
• The Council agreed to provide evidence that a care provider with whom it contracts for care will issue advice to its care homes on the importance of clarifying contact arrangements in cases where adult safeguarding investigations involving family separation are ongoing.
• The Council agreed to provide evidence that a care provider with whom it contracts for care will review customer service training for its staff at a specific location to cover telephone enquiries from relatives; to ensure this includes advice on de-escalation techniques in the event they are finding such enquiries difficult or demanding.
• The Council agreed to provide evidence that a care provider with whom it contracts for care will ensure that a specific care home has discussion with its local GP surgery about the correct forms to complete in the event that a resident moves into its care on a temporary basis (i.e. for an anticipated stay of less than three months).

Case Ref: 22 010 233 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will provide us with the details of the Annual Reviews monitoring system in place for children who are out of school.

Case Ref: 22 008 150 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Send a reminder to its Education Health and Care plan coordinators that when annual review meetings are cancelled, and this would lead to the review not being completed within the statutory timescales, to identify any actions that can be taken to ensure the review happens within the required timeframe and rearrange a meeting without delay

Case Ref: 22 007 593 Category: Education Sub Category: Alternative provision

• The Council will ensure all special educational needs case officers and their managers review:• Department for Education School Attendance: guidance for schools, August 2020;• The Council’s Personal Budget policy and Direct Payments guidance;The Council will provide us with the evidence the above action has been completed.

Case Ref: 22 006 788 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• The Council will remind relevant officers of its policies on alternative ways of using direct payments, including to fund activities and pay close relatives in exceptional circumstances.
• The Council will put in place a system for ensuring that it has discussions with parents or young people about all available options for receiving services once a care plan is agreed, and records those discussions. The options will include direct payments and commissioned services.

Case Ref: 22 005 779 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will consider the improvement in monitoring Annual Reviews arranged at schools by sending to the headteachers/principals lists of all children/young people, whose Education Health and Care Plan review should take place in the coming term, two weeks before the start of this term.
• The Council will remind the front-line Special Educational Needs staff of the details of the Council’s corporate complaints policy and in particular what constitutes a complaint, which should be passed to the complaints team and responded in line with the Council’s policy.

Case Ref: 22 005 273 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Consider what went wrong in this case and what procedures the Council can put in place to ensure a child’s Statement of Special Education Need Section F provision is arranged in a timely way. The Council should report its findings back to the Ombudsman.
• Consider why it took so long to provide the stage two complaint response in this case and identify what steps the Council will take to improve complaint handling.

Case Ref: 22 004 357 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• 3. After our investigation of other complaints we have made recommendations to the Council about improving its services and we ask that compliance with our decisions be monitored.• I also recommend that, within three months of the Ombudsman’s final decision, the Council should:• issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware of what EHE entails and the consequences for the parents or carers;• tell us how it will ensure that future EHC Plan reviews are held on time and the action required following the review meeting is taken according to statutory timescales; and• confirm how it will ensure that timescales are met in responding to complaints.

Case Ref: 22 001 569 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to remind relevant staff to carry out due diligence with schools when it receives complaints that provision listed in Education, Health and Care Plans is not in place. It will also remind staff they should not refer complaints to the schools' complaints procedure when receiving these complaints.