Case Ref: 21 001 456 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has also agreed to:remind relevant staff of the need to comply with relevant statutory timescales for making decisions about assessments and EHCPs.Provide the Ombudsman with evidence of the action it has taken to commission additional educational psychologists as referred to in its stage two complaint response.

Case Ref: 19 018 257 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council has agreed to provide evidence that it has• Completed a series of quality audits to verify that all clients are correctly receiving a copy of their assessments.• Improved its processes and resource capacity to prevent significant delays in carrying out social care needs assessments.•Put systems in place to ensure correspondence is recorded and acted upon in a timely manner.
• The Council has agreed to review its procedures and provide training to relevant staff to ensure there is continuity of care when a person with care and support needs is moving to another council area.

Case Ref: 21 006 736 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council will provide evidence of the procedural changes it has made to improve contact with those who make a referral for a care needs assessment and to ensure referrers are made aware of the outcome of the assessment.

Case Ref: 21 001 380 Category: Education Sub Category: COVID-19

• The Council will remind SEND staff of the circumstances when an EHC plan should be reviewed as identified in the SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years.
• The Council will review its procedures for record keeping and remind SEND staff of this.
• The Council will review its procedures for arranging out-of-area EHC provision.
• The Council will review its internal procedure for providing evidence to the Ombudsman.
• The Council will remind SEND staff of the need to act promptly to secure EHC provision.

Case Ref: 20 010 881 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Ensure that in future it has a mechanism to pursue schools that fail to comply with the provision detailed in an EHC Plan such as happened here and provide us with details of this.
• Take action to address the apparent shortage of OT providers it uses to ensure it is in future able to meet its statutory duties and provide us with details of how it will achieve this

Case Ref: 20 009 532 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council has agreed to review its procedures to ensure eligible people who request a Deferred Payment Arrangement have one properly set up.
• The Council has agreed to provide training to relevant staff to ensure they are aware of the correct procedures to follow.

Case Ref: 20 007 513 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Domiciliary care

• The Council has agreed to share its lessons learned with relevant staff, especially with regards to how to deal with a request for a financial remedy following a (partially) upheld safeguarding enquiry, and how to respond to requests to change homecare provider.

Case Ref: 20 006 912 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• Remind staff involved in statutory complaints of the timescales for the statutory children’s complaint procedure and provide them with a copy of our 2021 guidance on the children's statutory complaints procedure.

Case Ref: 20 006 751 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council has agreed to remind its staff of the importance to ensure it starts the financial assessment process early enough to leave sufficient time to complete it, when a client is in residential care and his capital has reduced close to the high threshold of £23,250.
• The Council has agreed to ensure that in any new contracts with care homes, the client will pay their assessed contribution to the Council, rather than to the care home, unless the client has agreed to pay it directly to the care home.

Case Ref: 20 002 875 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will write a guidance document, setting out details of how it will make direct payments. This document will sit alongside its Direct Payment Policy, which it is currently revising.