Case Ref: 23 016 943 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed to remind homelessness staff to send its decisions in writing. This includes if it decides a person is not homeless.
• The Council has agreed to remind homelessness staff to make further enquiries where a person indicates they are homeless due to domestic abuse and make a decision on whether any duty is owed in relation to this.
• The Council has agreed to remind staff to check for key information such as where there have been allegations of domestic abuse in a person’s homelessness application, before contacting the applicant for an assessment.

Case Ref: 23 014 197 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Circulate a briefing note to all relevant staff in its Area Inclusion Partnership to clarify the councils legal duty to provide education following a permanent exclusion, and to confirm that the council retains this duty to provide an education even if an exclusion is appealed. Also to set out what advice and information needs to be given to parents about finding a new permanent school place following an exclusion.

Case Ref: 23 013 988 Category: Benefits and tax Sub Category: Council tax

• By training or other means, the Council as agreed to remind relevant staff of the importance of making and keeping accurate notes and appropriate record of telephone conversations between them and service users.

Case Ref: 23 012 637 Category: Transport and highways Sub Category: Other

• The Council has agreed to amend its policy and processes for dealing with equality related reasonable adjustments in relation to PCN’s and appeals.

Case Ref: 23 006 763 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• 2. The Council will:a) review the safeguarding investigation in this complaint and our decision statement and produce an action plan to improve future safeguarding investigations to minimise delay, and improve communication with families;
• b) provide evidence of the actions the Council agreed to take including the revised contract in response to this complaint;
• c) arrange a meeting with Bondcare to share our decision with it and discuss if there are any further lessons learnt from this complaint including how the Council responded to the complaint.

Case Ref: 23 001 845 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council will remind staff in its Adult Social Care team of its section 9 duty under the Care Act 2014. This is to ensure needs assessments for individuals are properly assessed and the outcomes are shared with individuals without delay.

Case Ref: 22 017 741 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has agreed to send us the findings of an external review into its EHC assessment processes. It will also send us an action plan which, in light of the review’s findings, sets out what the Council will do to improve its service.

Case Ref: 23 012 516 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• When planning a man's discharge from hospital to a care placement, the Council did not communicate effectively with the family about how long funding would be in place, and what would happen after the man left hospital. It accepted this during the complaints process and undertook to learn from the complaint and take steps to prevent recurrences. We asked the Council to provide evidence of the work it has done to improve its communication and to prevent similar failings in the future.

Case Ref: 23 010 727 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has agreed to explain what steps it has taken or is taking to ensure it complies with the statutory timescales in the EHC Plan process and its section 19 duty to provide alternative education.

Case Ref: 23 009 924 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware of the Council's section 19 duty