Case Ref: 23 005 701 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• Create action plan to clear housing register application backlog
• Provide applicants assessed as band 2 or higher financial remedy

Case Ref: 23 005 539 Category: Benefits and tax Sub Category: Council tax

• The Council agreed to remind its complaint and council tax staff that complaints should be processed in line with the Council’s complaints procedure and decisions about fault on the Council’s part should only be made after a proportionate investigation into a complaint.
• The Council agreed to review its procedures for identifying unallocated payments in its council tax receiving account to ensure that unallocated payments are traced within a reasonable period of time.

Case Ref: 23 004 731 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• The Council will share with relevant staff statutory guidance Getting the best from complaints to ensure:when a complainant has requested desired outcomes of their complaint, they should be addressed as part of the stage two adjudication response;where recommendations have been made at stage two, the adjudication response should set out the Council’s answer to each one; andcomplaints are completed within the statutory timescales.

Case Ref: 22 015 672 Category: Housing Sub Category: Other

• The Council has agreed to provide training or guidance to relevant staff on identifying and making reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities.
• The Council has agreed to ensure all frontline staff are aware of the low threshold for the duty to make inquiries into homelessness and how to direct such cases to the relevant service.
• The Council has agreed to ensure all decisions of the Exceptional Needs Panel about priority under the allocations scheme are communicated in writing and set out the right to ask for a review.

Case Ref: 22 015 504 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council is developing staff guidance covering the arrangements for alternative provision when they span across academic years to ensure it restarts in September. The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with a copy of the guidance.
• The Council will review its approach to consulting schools for children needing a placement. This should ensure that appropriate, timely steps are taken to widen the scope of consultation when insufficient responses are received from an initial round.

Case Ref: 22 015 112 Category: Education Sub Category: Alternative provision

• The Council will remind all staff within children's services of the duties under section 19 of the Education Act 1996.

Case Ref: 22 013 016 Category: Planning Sub Category: Enforcement

• The Council will remind staff of the importance of arranging monitoring visits within an appropriate timescale of a dangerous structure notice
• The Council will remind staff of the importance of including their rationale, whether it is allowing the owner to undertake repairs or undertaking that duty itself, with reference to the Council’s policy.

Case Ref: 22 010 636 Category: Education Sub Category: School transport

• The Council should remind the travel assistance appeal panel and clerk to the panel that their decision letters should set out brief details of the grounds raised and the reasoning for its decision.
• The Council should remind officers that early decision letters regarding applications for travel assistance should refer to exceptional reasons raised and should briefly address these.

Case Ref: 22 010 125 Category: Education Sub Category: COVID-19

• The Council has agreed to provide evidence of the reasonable adjustment policy used by the company acting on its behalf when assessing applications for blue badges.
• The Council has agreed to remind staff of the proactive duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act and ensure blue badge decision letters are correct.

Case Ref: 22 009 145 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council will review its practices and guidance to staff on when to refer acomplaint as a service request and when to process this under the complaints procedure, so that complainants can access this. The Council will show how it has communicated this to the relevant staff.