Service improvements

Surrey County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023

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 - 10 of 23 cases with service improvements

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

  • Surrey County Council (22 010 168)

    Category: Education Date: 23-Mar-2023

    Summary

    There was fault by the Council in failing to provide suitable fulltime education when a child was unable to attend school due to medical needs. This caused the child to miss out on education and caused the parent carer unnecessary inconvenience and distress. The Council will apologise and make a payment of £3900 to acknowledge the injustice caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide updated guidance to complaint officers clarifying the legal position around complaints and appeals, in particular that case law affecting the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction does not bar councils from considering complaints itself or prevent a complainant pursuing other legal remedies such as judicial review.

  • Surrey County Council (22 009 834)

    Category: Education Date: 27-Jan-2023

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council failed to arrange alternative provision for her son, Y, leaving her to arrange this and causing distress. We found the Council at fault because it did not act in line with its statutory duty to provide education to a child out of school. We recommended the Council apologise, pay £300 for distress and take action to remedy any injustice to others.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review all complaints made to the Council in the last 12 months concerning children out of school; consider if the Council has applied its section 19 duties correctly in light of this decision and; if the Council finds it has erred, take action to remedy any injustice.

  • Surrey County Council (22 009 496)

    Category: Education Date: 10-Mar-2023

    Summary

    Mrs X complains that the Council failed to provide her son, C, with alternative provision when he was absent from school between December 2021 and June 2022. The Council failed to provide alternative provision. The Council will take action to prevent the fault reoccurring and make payments to recognise the loss of education and financial loss incurred.

    Service improvements

    Remind all inclusion officers that they have an obligation to check any school provided provision is suitable when a child unable to attend for medical reasons or otherwise. And that it is the Council’s obligation to provide provision when the school’s is deemed unsuitable.Remind staff within the education department that government guidancedoes not expect alternative provision to be solely in an online format when children areunable to attend school.

  • Surrey County Council (22 006 202)

    Category: Education Date: 01-Dec-2022

    Summary

    Mr X complained the Council delayed finalising an Education Health and Care Plan (“EHCP”) for his son, Y, and failed to arrange alternative provision while Y was out of school, resulting in missed education, costs and distress. We found the Council at fault. We recommended it provide an apology, reimburse Mr X’s costs; pay £800 for missed education, pas £450 for time trouble and distress, arrange provision for Y going forward and act to prevent recurrence.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide training or guidance to staff responsible for arranging Education Health and Care Plans to ensure they are meeting their duty to provide information to parents about the process involved.The Council will put in place a process to ensure it has oversight of requests for information from professionals to support an Education Health and Care Plan and to ensure the Council considers taking action if there is any delay in responses.The Council will provide training to staff responsible for children’s education on the Council’s responsibilities under s19 of the Education Act 1996, with reference to this decision and the Ombudsman’s Focus Report ‘Out of school….out of mind?’, available on our website.

  • Surrey County Council (22 004 034)

    Category: Education Date: 31-Dec-2022

    Summary

    Mrs L complains in respect of her daughter (Young Person X) who has special educational needs (SEN). The Council maintains an EHCP for Young Person X which identifies what support she needs to meet her SEN. Mrs L complains in respect of the contents of the EHCP, a failure to provide specific EHCP provision, as well as how this was handled internally as a complaint by the Council. We found the Council failed to maintain oversight over whether Young Person X’s EHCP provision was being delivered. This meant the Council failed to provide part of the EHCP provision. The Council also gave misleading and inaccurate information to Mrs L as regards to who was responsible for providing Young Person X’s EHCP provision. We have no jurisdiction to investigate the contents of Young Person X’s EHCP because Mrs L appealed to a tribunal in respect of these issues. Nevertheless, Young Person X and Mrs L suffered an injustice by reason of the failings identified. The Council has agreed to our recommendations to remedy this.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind all relevant staff that it is the Council which has a duty to meet Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) provision.The Council will also conduct a formal review its oversight practices with respect to ensuring Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) provision is met in educational settings. The purpose of the review is for the Council to adopt measures so to prevent similar occurrences which result in a loss of EHCP provision. The review will also inform additional training and guidance to staff working in this area.

  • Surrey County Council (22 003 462)

    Category: Education Date: 27-Feb-2023

    Summary

    Mrs C complains the Council failed to provide her daughter with suitable education provision while she was unable to attend school. Mrs C says her daughter missed out on education and suffered avoidable distress and she spent unnecessary time and trouble in trying to resolve the matter. We have found fault by the Council but consider the agreed action of an apology, symbolic payment and service review provides a suitable remedy.

    Service improvements

    The Council will complete a review to ensure it meets it statutory duty to arrange alternative provision for children unable to attend school because of illness or otherwise as quickly as possible and can monitor any arrangements made through its Access to Education service to ensure they remain in place and provide suitable education.

  • Surrey County Council (22 001 375)

    Category: Education Date: 17-Nov-2022

    Summary

    Ms X complained the Council failed to agree a personal budget for her daughter, Y’s, Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), leaving her to fund Y’s education. We find the Council at fault for delays. We recommend the Council apologise to Ms X and Y, pay £400 and act to prevent recurrence.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide training for Special Educational Needs Service staff involved with personal budgets.The Council will ensure its annual review documents have a dedicated section for personal budgets.The Council has agreed to develop a process to ensure it can complete Education Health and Care Plans (including details of any personal budget) in time, when faced with changes in staff.

  • Surrey County Council (22 001 001)

    Category: Education Date: 09-Oct-2022

    Summary

    Mrs X made two complaints about delay within the Education, Health and Care Plan process for her son. There was fault by the Council for significant delay in issuing a final Plan after an appeal and also in its handling of her second complaint. This caused a direct loss of provision to her son, in addition to time and trouble for Mrs X. The Council has agreed to provide Mrs X with an apology, a financial payment and to make service improvements to remedy the injustice caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review its processes to ensure it issues final EHC plans within statutory timescales and minimises delays, providing evidence this guidance has been sent to appropriate staff members.The Council will review its processes on how it takes action when professionals miss deadlines in providing advice for the EHCP assessment process, providing evidence this guidance has been sent to appropriate staff members.The Council will identify what key steps it will take to ensure it improves its complaints handling, providing evidence of this.

  • Surrey County Council (22 000 603)

    Category: Education Date: 24-Oct-2022

    Summary

    Mr X complained about delays and other errors in the Education, Health and Care assessment process for his son, Y. There was fault in how the Council prepared Y’s Education, Health and Care plan and responded to Mr X’s complaint. This caused Mr X avoidable inconvenience, frustration, time and trouble, for which the Council agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy. It also agreed to remind staff about the importance of properly considering comments on draft Education, Health and Care plans.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to remind its staff responsible for Education, Health and Care plans of the importance of fully considering comments on draft plans, adequately recording their consideration of comments and explaining to parents why it intends to make, or not make, changes as a result of any comments.

  • Surrey County Council (22 000 324)

    Category: Education Date: 30-May-2022

    Summary

    Mrs R complains the Council wrongly ended her son’s (Child A) personal budget which was used to support his special educational needs. She also complains the Council has delayed in amending Child A’s Education and Health Care Plan (EHCP). We have identified numerous and serious failings by the Council which amount to poor administrative practice in some areas. The Council repeatedly made flawed decisions about Child A’s personal budget based on no clear rationale or criteria. It also failed to provide Mrs R her legal right to challenge the decisions through a clear review process. The Council also failed to adhere to statutory guidance relating to the timeframe for amending an EHCP. Mrs R has suffered serious loss, harm and distress by reason of the Council’s failings. The Council has agreed to our recommendations to remedy the serious injustice identified.

    Service improvements

    The Council will establish a clear policy relating to personal budgets and direct payments. This will include clear and simple statements of eligibility criteria and the decision-making processes. The policy will be published as part of the Council's Local Offer and made accessible to the public in accordance with statutory guidance.The Council will provide formal training to all officers who are (i)responsible for making personal budget decisions and; (ii) responsible forrecording written decisions relating to personal budgets. The training willfocus on the new policy referred to above and how decisions are to be properlymade and recorded to demonstrate good administrative practice in the future.a) At a senior level, the Council will review its systems and practiceswith respect to conducting reviews of personal budget decisions. Specifically,the Council will produce a template document informing parents of a personal budget outcome. This will contain information relating to a right of review.Further, the Council will develop a robust review process. This will includethe timetable for completing a review and how the decision will be reviewed.The Council will implement a practice of sending parents an outcome letter ofthe review exercise which fully explains how the decision was reached. TheCouncil will adopt further measures it considers appropriate following a ful lreview.

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