Service improvements

Medway Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025

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 - 7 of 7 cases with service improvements

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

  • Medway Council (24 005 524)

    Category: Education Date: 21-Mar-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council failed to complete an Education, Health and Care needs assessment for her child within legal timescales and is still ongoing. She also said it failed to provide an education for her child for a long period. This has caused significant frustration, distress and uncertainty, and affected her child’s wellbeing and educational attainment. We found the Council at fault. The Council has agreed to apologise and make symbolic payments to remedy the injustice.

    Service improvements

    The Council should share a copy of our “Out of school, out of sight? focus report to relevant staff. It should highlight key points to ensure officers are aware of what they should consider when there is a duty for it to act, including assessing the child’s individual needs and circumstances and when it must make alternative arrangements to provide a suitable education. It should also remind staff to properly record its decisions at the time.

  • Medway Council (24 004 029)

    Category: Housing Date: 03-Mar-2025

    Summary

    Miss X complained the Council provided her with unaffordable interim accommodation and failed to provide her with appropriate support to manage the rent, when she became homeless due to domestic abuse. The Council was at fault as it failed to carry out an affordability assessment, failed to contact Miss X when her rent was not covered by housing benefit and failed to provide appropriate support with a discretionary housing payment application. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and to increase the payment it has already offered her to acknowledge the frustration and uncertainty this caused. It has also agreed to issue a reminder to officers to prevent a recurrence of the faults.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to remind relevant officers in its housing/homelessness teams to ensure where a service user asks to make a formal complaint it is considered through the formal complaints procedure.The Council has agreed to remind housing officers that Discretionary Housing Payment applications can be made in retrospect for a period when an individual is claiming housing benefit.

  • Medway Council (24 003 010)

    Category: Education Date: 06-Nov-2024

    Summary

    There was fault by the Council in failing to seek confirmation of whether a pupil had previously hit staff on school transport before reaching a decision about the nature of transport required. The Council will apologise, provide a payment to remedy injustice and make service improvements. The complaint is upheld.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind staff to keep records of relevant information provided by phone and take this into account when making decisions about school transport.

  • Medway Council (23 021 211)

    Category: Transport and highways Date: 09-Oct-2024

    Summary

    We found fault on Mr D’s complaint about the Council’s decision to withdraw parking permits for residents on his road, which caused him stress as he had to find somewhere else to park. The Council accepted this decision was wrong. The agreed action remedies the injustice caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to contact other residents on the affected road who were also wrongly told they were no longer able to apply for a permit and i) notify them that they are eligible and ii) offer them a free permit for 12 months.

  • Medway Council (23 020 941)

    Category: Planning Date: 19-Sep-2024

    Summary

    X complained about the Council’s failure to take planning enforcement action against their neighbour, who carried out developments on the land next to X’s home in breach of planning controls. We found fault because of unreasonable delay in taking enforcement action. We also found service failure because the Council cannot access some of its enforcement records due to building safety problems. The Council has agreed to our recommendations. It will carry out service reviews so it can avoid the fault recurring and to plan for how best to deal with the service failure.

    Service improvements

    The Council was at fault in unreasonable delay in beginning planning enforcement action. To avoid the likelihood of the fault happening again the Council will review its planning enforcement service. The review will consider whether the service has adequate resources to carry out its functions effectively.To ensure it keeps proper, secure and adequate records, the Council will review what information for the planning enforcement service or any other Council service is inaccessible because of RAAC/unsafe building issues. It will consider:a) whether affected information might be retrieved; andb) how in future it should best record and keep its records so it can carry out its functions effectively.The Council will report the outcome of the reviews to the Ombudsman and its own relevant oversight and scrutiny committee.

  • Medway Council (23 017 327)

    Category: Education Date: 16-May-2024

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for a delay in deciding Mrs B’s son’s special educational needs support. Its decision – which is yet to be made – is currently five months late and counting. It has agreed to make this decision without further delay, and it will make a symbolic payment to Mrs B to recognise her son’s likely injustice from the delay so far.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to provide us with an action plan which sets out how, in future, it will avoid similar failures to complete timely SEN reassessments.

  • Medway Council (23 011 218)

    Category: Housing Date: 26-Jun-2024

    Summary

    there was fault in the way the Council considered Ms X’s concerns about the suitability of interim accommodation it placed her in when she was homeless. The Council has agreed to provide a personal remedy for the distress and uncertainty this caused and make a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    Review and amend the template letter notifying acceptance of the main housing duty to include information about the right to request a review of the suitability of accommodation;Remind officers of the continuing duty to keep the suitability of all interim and temporary accommodation placements under review and record their decision on suitability when an applicant notifies a change in circumstances which may make an existing placement unsuitable.

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