Case Ref: 21 011 239 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: COVID-19

• The Council has agreed to circulate guidance to relevant staff to ensure they understand its policy on dealing with complaints about waste collection.

Case Ref: 21 009 789 Category: Education Sub Category: School transport

• The Council will remind the school transport appeal panel that its decision notice needs to include reference to all the evidence considered.

Case Ref: 21 007 520 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• The Council has agreed to review how stage three investigations make recommendations at the end of the investigation. The Council should review how it will address parts complaints that are upheld and ensure there are actions to ensure these are addressed.
• The Council has also agreed to share the final decision with the stage three panel.
• The Council has agreed to review whether further visits were recorded that did not take place, and audit other cases where the social worker may have populated visits. If the Council finds that other visits were recorded, it should consider whether a referral to the appropriate regulatory body is necessary. The Council should tell the Ombudsman of the result of this audit.
• The Council has agreed to review how and when it communicates with parents about health concerns and developments for children, and consider providing further training to staff in this area.

Case Ref: 21 003 003 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• Training for all relevant staff about the Council's public sector equality duty and the importance of asking about and making reasonable adjustments
• written guidance for all relevant staff on reasonable adjustments, including how to seek information and examples of adjustments that can be made
• review and amend existing staff procedures and applications forms to ensure questions about reasonable adjustments are imbedded in the process when a person approaches the Council as homeless or in need of housing. Revised procedures should include methods for ensuring any reasonable adjustments are clearly recorded and consistently provided.

Case Ref: 21 000 037 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Noise

• The Council agreed to take steps to ensure it knows why there are gaps in the evidence it provided in support of its response to our enquiries.
• The Council agreed to ensure officers are reminded of the need to have a proper record of their consideration of, and their decision on, evidence provided privately by a complainant, such as an acoustic report.
• The Council agreed to ensure officers are reminded of the need to have clear records of reviews, and decisions taken on those reviews, after witnessing, or having monitoring equipment evidence, a breach of an abatement notice.
• The Council agreed to give officers clear updated guidance about the noise procedure it expects them to follow, especially following breaches of abatement notices.

Case Ref: 20 000 246 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• The Council will draw up an action plan to address the faults identified in this statement (or provide evidence its practice development programme does so). That action plan should include: consideration of how to keep the service user/vulnerable adult at the centre of the planning rather than being deflected by what the family's wishes are; carrying out mental capacity assessments where a person's mental capacity is questioned and arranging a best interests meeting as soon as possible following that if the person is assessed as not having capacity; the need to fully complete the record from the best interests meeting to show the options considered and the final decision reached; consideration of the circumstances in which advocacy should be considered and/or some type of mediation where there is a difference of opinion or a person wants to return home and the partner disagrees; and consideration of progressing a safeguarding referral where a family has requested it be put on hold.

Case Ref: 19 018 849 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has acknowledged that cannot show how it considered all the information it had when it decided the complaint's housing priority. The Council will consider whether there are any lessons to be learned from its review of how it considered the complainant's housing priority. It will write to the Ombudsman and the complainant about this.

Case Ref: 19 015 370 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council should review why it took so long to produce support plans for the care of young adults in their home, and specifically consider the actions of staff on the ‘front line’, along with line management and any other relevant oversight arrangements. The review should attempt to establish whether any shortcomings were specific to this case or evidence of more systemic issues. Finally, the Council should produce an action plan to address any issues its review identifies, with the aim of preventing recurrences.

Case Ref: 18 016 351 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Domiciliary care

• The Council has agreed to work with a Care Provider to ensure: - it has satisfactory procedures in place to ensure the safe administration of medication to users of its services; - it has satisfactory training in place to ensure the safe moving, handling and transfers of users of its services; - it keeps adequate records on its client files of such matters as the user of services’ preference for care workers of a specific gender; how it records concerns or complaints from users of services including those brought to its attention by the Council; - it undertakes prompt investigation into any concerns raised about the practice of individual care workers.
• The Council has also agreed to take steps to ensure more effective investigation into concerns about care provided on its behalf by domiciliary care providers. This will encompass ensuring that: - its social care staff ensure investigation of concerns raised by users of services which allege serious failings in a Care Provider’s service; - its social care staff maintain oversight where they have asked a Care Provider to look into a user of service’s concern; - officers asked to respond to complaints are reminded of the need to respond to the individual concerns around poor care raised by complainants; as well as considering broader questions of care provider’s policy and practice; • it avoids communication breakdowns between its social care and contracts team.

Case Ref: 19 012 436 Category: Transport and highways Sub Category: Parking and other penalties

• The Council should take steps, including training for relevant staff, to ensure officers progress representations that have been made on time, in the proper way.