Service improvements

Kent County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024

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 11 - 20 of 27 cases with service improvements

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

  • Kent County Council (22 017 713)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Dec-2023

    Summary

    Miss B complained the Council failed to ensure her son received full-time education, failed to identify a suitable secondary school placement, failed to provide updates, failed to carry out annual reviews of her son’s education, health and care plan and failed to send her a final education, health and care plan following a review in October 2022. The Council failed to put in place any education provision between April and November 2022, failed to identify a suitable secondary school and failed to carry out annual reviews properly. An apology, payment to Miss B, reminder to officers and amendment to processes is satisfactory remedy.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind officers in education of the Council's duties to provide alternative provision when a child of statutory school age is out of school. The Council should consider sharing a copy of our focus report 'Out of school…. Out of sight?' and our final decision with the reminder.The Council will remind officers dealing with EHCPs of the need to follow the code of practice when receiving annual review paperwork from schools.The Council will draw up a plan, to be shared with the Ombudsman, to show how it will deal with similar cases in future to ensure drift does not occur when a child is out of school. This should set out a clear pathway for taking timely action to decide whether to either take enforcement action for non-attendance, plan for re-integration into school, seek an alternative placement, or offer alternative provision for medical or other reasons;The Council will ensure it has procedures in place for checking it takes the necessary action following review meetings to issue amendment notices and draft and final EHCPs.

  • Kent County Council (22 016 843)

    Category: Education Date: 09-Jan-2024

    Summary

    Mrs X complains the Council has not dealt properly with her son Y’s Special Educational Needs. The Council delayed producing Y’s EHCP and didn’t respond to Mrs X. Y was left with no provision and Mrs X had to pay fees. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X, pay Mrs X £14,104 in respect of costs incurred for Y’s education placement, £2532 for her legal fees, pay Mrs X and Y £250 each in respect of avoidable distress, pay Mrs X £100 in respect of time and trouble as well as produce an action plan to show how it will meet statutory timescales for EHCP annual reviews.

    Service improvements

    Produce an action plan to demonstrate how the council will meet statutory timescales for EHCP annual reviews.

  • Kent County Council (22 015 764)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Feb-2024

    Summary

    Miss X complained about the Council’s failure to arrange an early review and the scheduled annual review of her Education, Health and Care Plan. This led to a failure to provide support for her special educational needs for two and a half terms. We have found the Council to be at fault. We also found fault with the Council’s complaint handling. To remedy the injustice to Miss X, the Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment and take action to improve its service.

    Service improvements

    The Council will reflect on the issues raised in this decision statement and identify any areas of service improvement, particularly around communications, complaint handling and delay in the EHCP process.

  • Kent County Council (22 015 189)

    Category: Education Date: 25-Oct-2023

    Summary

    Miss X complained about how the Council provided for her son, Y’s, special educational needs. There were delays in reviewing Y’s Education Health and Care plan and authorising payments for the support the Council agreed to provide. The Council also communicated poorly with Miss X. The Council agreed to apologise, pay a financial remedy and confirm the ongoing personal budget. It also agreed to review how it communicates between its teams and how it authorises personal budgets.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to review how its SEND Therapies team process and approve personal budgets for Education Health and Care plans to ensure these are processed promptly and families are kept aware of any delays.The Council agreed to review the working arrangements between its SEND and SEND Therapies teams to ensure that communication between the two teams are effective and that any complaints involving both teams are responded to jointly.

  • Kent County Council (22 014 981)

    Category: Education Date: 23-Oct-2023

    Summary

    The complainant alleged that the Council delayed in issuing an amended Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, after his annual review of October 2020, delayed in providing treatment for his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) required by his EHC Plan, and that the amount of the budget for his direct Occupational Therapy was insufficient. Based on the information to date, we find some fault by the Council causing an injustice. We recommended ways to remedy the injustice caused by the faults, which the Council has accepted. We are therefore closing the complaint.

    Service improvements

    We decided that the Council's failure to arrange an Occupational Therapy assessment for the complainant was a result of a service failure which may have affected other pupils with special educational needs. the Council will:if another person complains about the delay in an Occupational Therapy assessment, it will accept fault and remedy any injustice in line with our guidance on remedies and how it remedied the complainant's injustice.the Council will :provide a prompt way whereby those in receipt of personal budgets, who are unhappy with the amount offered, can have the decision reviewed, as required by the guidance.

  • Kent County Council (22 014 793)

    Category: Education Date: 13-Dec-2023

    Summary

    The complainant (Mrs X) complained about the Council’s failing to consider her Personal Budget request, to deliver full-time education and special educational provision to Y and to comply with the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Tribunal decision. Mrs X said the Council failed to include her son’s (Y) views and to list all professional reports in Y’s Education Health and Care (EHC) plan issued in September 2022. We found fault in some areas of Mrs X’s complaint, including delivery of education and special educational provision, the Personal Budget process, communication and complaint handling. The Council agreed to apologise, make payments, consider Mrs X’s Personal Budget request and prepare a plan of action for Y’s educational support. The Council also agreed to provide us with the evidence of making service improvements in line with its Accelerated Progress Plan.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide us with the details of any steps undertaken to ensure better communication with parents as stipulated in the Council's Accelerated Progress Plan.The Council will review the way it handles Personal Budget requests to ensure that:a) when requesting Personal Budget parents/young people are provided with the advice on:1. Provision for which a Personal Budget may be available;2. Details of the organisations that provide advice and assistance on Personal Budgets;3. Conditions which must be met before direct payments may be made;4. Right to ask for a review of the decision refusing direct payments.b) Personal Budget requests are considered within reasonable timescales. The Council will provide the evidence that this has happened.

  • Kent County Council (22 014 492)

    Category: Education Date: 31-May-2023

    Summary

    The complainant, Miss X, complained that the Council has failed to amend her son’s Education, Health and Care Plan after the 2022 review; failed to update her after a previous 2021 review; failed to respond to her complaint and other correspondence and delayed providing a personal transport budget. We find the Council at fault. This caused her and her son significant stress. To address the injustice caused by fault, we recommend several remedies.

    Service improvements

    Issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware of:The Council’s duty to decide whether to keep, cease or amend the EHC plan within four weeks of the review meeting, and to notify the parents in writing and include what the proposed changes are. The Council’s duty to issue an amended plan as quickly as possible and within eight weeks ofthe original amendment notice. The Council’s complaints policy which states the Council will acknowledge complaints within three working days and will provide a response within 20 working days at stage one. Where this is not possible, it will inform complainants at the earliest opportunity.Provide us with evidene of the Councils recent implementation of the SEND structure

  • Kent County Council (22 013 815)

    Category: Education Date: 20-Jul-2023

    Summary

    the Council failed to ensure G received a suitable education when she was too ill to attend school. The Council took too long to issue her Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan and delayed arranging the provision. I have recommended a remedy for the injustice this caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council will develop an action plan to address what appear to be systemic problems with the Council’s response to children out of education for health reasons. The Council will involve the relevant scrutiny committee to review progress and ensure that improvements are embedded.

  • Kent County Council (22 011 633)

    Category: Education Date: 15-Nov-2023

    Summary

    Mrs B complained that the Council delayed in completing an Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessment and issuing an EHC plan for her daughter C. It also failed to provide suitable alternative education while she was unable to attend school, communicated poorly with Mrs B and delayed excessively in responding to her complaint. We found fault causing injustice. We have asked the Council to apologise to Mrs B, make a financial payment and improve its procedures for the future.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to ensure the draft alternative provision policy is approved and implemented.The Council has agreed as part of that process, to ensure training is provided to staff on the new policy with particular emphasis on the correct application of the section 19 duty.

  • Kent County Council (22 011 323)

    Category: Education Date: 16-Nov-2023

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for delaying in completing a child’s Education, Health and Care plan, not putting in place adequate special educational provision and for failures in complaint handling. This caused injustice as if there had not been delays the child would have received the special educational provision they were entitled to receive much sooner. To remedy the injustice caused the Council agreed to apologise, make a payment for the loss of provision to the child and consider what changes it could make to its procedures around communication.

    Service improvements

    Consider what changes it can make to its communication process as outlined in its final complaint response and report back to the Ombudsman to what specific measures it will put in place.

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