Service improvements

West Sussex County Council

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024

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 West Sussex County Council as a CSV file.

  • West Sussex County Council (23 011 004)

    Category: Education Date: 08-Mar-2024

    Summary

    Miss X complained about significant delays in the education, health and care plan process for her son. She also complained about the Council’s communication and said it refused to make reasonable adjustments. We find the Council was at fault for poor communication and significant delays in the process. This caused significant distress to Miss X and her son went without specialist provision. To address this injustice caused by fault, the Council has agreed to several recommendations.

    Service improvements

    The Council should remind relevant officers of the importance of providing clear communication and responding in a timely manner.

  • West Sussex County Council (23 007 148)

    Category: Education Date: 26-Feb-2024

    Summary

    Mr X complained the Council failed to carry out an Education, Health and Care needs assessment for his child Y and failed to provide Y with any suitable education in the meantime. The Council was at fault for failing to decide whether to issue an EHC plan within the statutory timescales, caused by a delay in obtaining Educational Psychologist advice, and for not properly considering its duty to provide alternative education provision. The Council has agreed to apologise and pay Mr X £1800 to recognise the frustration and uncertainty the delays caused him and to acknowledge Y’s missed education provision, to make an ongoing payment of £100 per month until it issues Y’s final EHC plan, and to issue staff guidance.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to provide guidance to staff on how to properly consider and record whether to provide alternative provision under its section 19 duty under the Education Act 1996 to children of compulsory age who cannot attend school because of exclusion, medical reasons or otherwise, even when a child remains on a school roll.The Council has agreed to ensure it has a robust process in place to regularly review the situation when it is aware of children out of school and records the actions arising from this review.

  • West Sussex County Council (23 005 741)

    Category: Education Date: 28-Mar-2024

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council failed to provide her child with alternative education when she was unable to attend school due to ill health. The Council was at fault for failing to consider its duty under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 from April 2022 to February 2023. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X and pay her £3250 to acknowledge the frustration, uncertainty and the loss of provision.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to review its alternative provision process and provide the Ombudsman with evidence that it complies with Section 19 of the Education Act 1996.

  • West Sussex County Council (23 004 886)

    Category: Education Date: 14-Dec-2023

    Summary

    Ms X who is an advocate, complains on behalf of Mr and Mrs Z and their daughter. She said the council have failed to respond to their communication in a timely manner; offered to reimburse speech and language therapy but failed to make the payment; initially declined to continue to provide school transport and failed to respond to a request to escalate their complaint. We find the Council was at fault for lack of communication, failing to reimburse the payment and failing to respond to their request. This caused Mr and Mrs Z significant distress. The Council has agreed to several recommendations to address the injustice caused by fault.

    Service improvements

    Through training or other means, ensure the relevant officers are aware that all issues raised in a complaint are appropriately addressed.Remind relevant officers of the importance of providing clear communication and responding in a timely manner.Provide details of the steps the Council has already taken to reduce its stage two backlog.

  • West Sussex County Council (23 002 908)

    Category: Education Date: 23-Feb-2024

    Summary

    Ms C complains the Council did not review or update her son’s Education, Health and Care Plan as it should have. It delayed putting any alternative education in place and finding a new school after D stopped attending his previous school. Its communications were poor. The Ombudsman upholds the complaint and the Council has agreed to our recommendations.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind relevant staff that it is the Council’s duty to ensure the specified special educational provision in an Education, Health and Care Plan is being provided. And they should investigate where information is provided that leads to a question about whether the provision was in place.The Council will remind relevant staff of the Council’s duties to advise parents of the outcomes of Education, Health and Care Plan annual reviews.

  • West Sussex County Council (23 000 130)

    Category: Education Date: 21-Feb-2024

    Summary

    Mrs Y complains about the Council’s failure to provide education for her child, D, when they stopped attending school. Mrs Y also complains the Council failed to meet statutory timescales when assessing and issuing D’s Education Health and Care Plan. The Council also failed to respond to Mrs Y’s complaint. In the parts of the complaint within our jurisdiction, we find fault which caused injustice to Mrs Y and D. The Council has agreed to implement the remedial actions listed at the end of this statement.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide evidence of the staff training sessions and Education Other Than at School [EOTAS] process documents made available for officers. As part of ongoing training and development, the Council should remind officers of the requirement to give a right of review against any decisions to refuse a personal budget as per Section 7 of the SEN (Personal Budget) Regulations.The Council will improve the way it makes decisions about requests for alternative provision. This could be in the form of staff training or a briefing paper. As part of this, the Council will draw officers’ attention to the Section 19 duties, accompanying statutory guidance and the LGSCO’s focus report ‘Out of School, Out of Sight?’

  • West Sussex County Council (22 012 781)

    Category: Education Date: 03-Oct-2023

    Summary

    We uphold a complaint made on behalf of Mrs C, that the Council was at fault for delay in issuing an education, care and health plan for her son and in answering a complaint. We also found fault in the Council’s approach to seeking specialist advice as part of the assessment. These faults caused uncertainty for Mrs C and impacted on her son’s education. The Council has accepted these findings. At the end of this statement, we set out the action it has agreed to take to remedy this injustice and make service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to brief relevant staff on the correct approach that it should take when a young person or their parent requested that it seek professional advice (such as from a speech and language therapist or occupational therapist) as part of an education, health and care needs assessment. It agreed to remind staff of the need to decide such requests promptly, to make a clear decision on whether to seek such advice and give reasons if deciding not to. Also, to ensure that if it sought advice that it was then under a duty to make sure it was received.

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