Service improvements

Surrey County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026

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 26 cases with service improvements

Export results (CSV)

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

  • Surrey County Council (25 006 976)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 26-Feb-2026

    Summary

    We have found fault in the Council’s actions. The Council delayed re-assessing Mr B’s needs for care and support. As a result, there was a delay in Mr B receiving the support he needed. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr B, pay a financial remedy and carry out a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    Ensure all relevant staff understand the Council’s duty to keep appropriate records in adult social care. It will provide training or guidance as needed.

  • Surrey County Council (25 005 242)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 09-Feb-2026

    Summary

    Miss X complained about the Council’s actions following her annual review. We find fault in the Council’s failure to provide copies of final assessments in a timely way, its poor communication and complaint handling, and its failure to clearly act on or explain decisions following the January 2025 review. I also found fault in the Council’s handling and recording of contingency planning in relation to Miss X’s upcoming surgery. These faults caused Miss X avoidable distress, uncertainty, and time and trouble in pursuing information and support. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment to Miss X, and take steps to improve its services.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to remind relevant adult social care staff of the importance of providing service users with copies of finalised assessments and care and support plans, even where no changes have been made from draft versionsThe Council has agreed to review its arrangements for managing cases when social workers are unexpectedly absent, including ensuring appropriate managerial oversight and clear alternative contact arrangements for service users.

  • Surrey County Council (25 005 021)

    Category: Education Date: 27-Mar-2026

    Summary

    Mrs K complains the Council delayed acting after a Tribunal order. It did not provide her daughter with the contents of her Education, Health and Care Plan and did not provide alternative provision when she could not attend school. The Council has still not met all of the Education Otherwise Than At School provision for her daughter. We uphold the complaint. The Council delayed reviewing the Education, Health and Care Plan, putting educational provision in place, paying invoices and making remedies. This led to avoidable distress for Mrs K and her daughter missing provision. The Council has agreed to our recommendations for remedies and a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    A Council officer (at a sufficiently senior level to make recommendations) should review what happened in this complaint. They should focus on whether there are any lessons to be learned about supporting the parents of children receiving Education Other than at School.

  • Surrey County Council (25 004 513)

    Category: Children's care services Date: 21-Nov-2025

    Summary

    Miss X complained about the way the Council dealt with her son, Y’s education. The Council was at fault for not considering Miss X’s complaint through the children’s statutory complaint procedure. This caused Miss X frustration and uncertainty. The Council agreed to apologise, make a payment to Miss X for the frustration and uncertainty this caused and consider her complaint further.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind staff dealing with complaints of the importance of following the statutory complaint procedure in relation to the education of looked after children.

  • Surrey County Council (25 004 311)

    Category: Education Date: 28-Jan-2026

    Summary

    Mrs X complained about the way the Council dealt with her daughter, Y’s education. The Council was at fault for failing to properly consider its section 19 duties, delaying in issuing Y’s Education, Health and Care plan and poorly responding to Mrs X’s complaints. This caused distress, frustration and uncertainty to Mrs X and Y. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment to recognise the injustice caused and make service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to send us an action plan which sets out how, in future, it will avoid similar failures to consider its section 19 duties to children out of school.

  • Surrey County Council (25 003 208)

    Category: Education Date: 23-Sep-2025

    Summary

    We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to award travel assistance to Miss X’s child Y. This is because the Council has remedied any injustice Miss X experienced by providing her with a personal travel budget, which she has accepted.

    Service improvements

    The Council has awarded a backdated personal travel budget.

  • Surrey County Council (25 002 580)

    Category: Education Date: 05-Jan-2026

    Summary

    There was fault by the Council. There were delays organising annual reviews and delay sending the final Education, Health and Care plan after the 2025 annual review. There was delay paying the personal budget but the Council remedied this when considering the complaint during it’s complaints procedure, along with making a payment to remedy its failure to provide the Occupational Therapy in the Education, Health and Care Plan. An additional payment for further failure to provide therapy in the Education, Health and Care plan, along with an apology and a review of procedures remedies the injustice of loss of educational provision and uncertainty to Mrs X and Mr Y.

    Service improvements

    Provide details of the measures it has put in place to update its personal budget processes to prevent delays in making payments in the future.Provide details of the measures it has put in place to prevent delays in the annual review process in the future.

  • Surrey County Council (25 001 228)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 05-Feb-2026

    Summary

    Mrs X complained that the Council refused to fund her father’s placement under the ‘Discharge to Assess’ pathway. The Council was at fault for how it assessed her father’s eligibility for funding. It gave Mrs X contradictory information, and its poor communication and record-keeping created avoidable confusion. This caused Mrs X inconvenience and distress. The Council will now take action to address her injustice.

    Service improvements

    The Council will confirm how it will ensure that its social care staff are fully aware of D2A eligibility procedures.

  • Surrey County Council (25 000 703)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 15-Dec-2025

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for failing to update Mr S’s care plan to include provision after his day placement ended in August 2024. This meant he missed out on provision to meet his eligible care needs. This also caused his mother, Ms X, distress, as she became his fulltime carer with no respite. The Council agreed to apologise and make payments to Mr S and Ms X to acknowledge the distress caused and the lack of provision. It also agreed to report back to us on steps it will take to prevent similar issues from happening in future.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review the complaint and identify the issues that led to the individual being left without any adult care services provision. It will report back to the Ombudsman on the steps it will take to avoid similar issues happening in future.

  • Surrey County Council (24 021 919)

    Category: Other Categories Date: 09-Jan-2026

    Summary

    X complained about the Council’s communication with them about their application for a site plot and questioned if it fairly followed its allocation scheme. We found the Council at fault for poor communication, poor record keeping and failure to demonstrate transparency with its allocation decisions. This caused significant frustration and uncertainty to X. The Council has agreed to apologise and pay a symbolic payment to recognise their injustice. It has agreed to review its allocation scheme and make changes to how it retains records when administering the scheme.

    Service improvements

    The Council should consider our guidance on the Principles of Good Administrative Practice and:a)It should review and revise its allocation scheme, to include clear information and details of processes. Including when and how applicants and scored and explanations of how specific applicants are shortlisted;b)It should review and include processes of how it records the allocation of future plots to allow oversight and ensure it can evidence its decisions in line with its updated scheme; c)It should review its retention policies to ensure it keeps records for an appropriate amount of time;d)It should ensure it has a system in place to record and monitor dates of contact it should make with its applicants in line with its scheme; e)It should create an internal guidance note to explain what would warrant a high or low score for each allocation criteria to ensure consistency across applicants; andf)It should write to all applicants on its waiting list to advise of any changes it makes to its allocation scheme and the reasons for these.g)It should send the LGSCO an update at the three-month point with evidence of what progress it has made on this by that time.

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings