Service improvements

West Sussex 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 - 8 of 8 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 (24 020 226)

    Category: Education Date: 06-Aug-2025

    Summary

    Ms X complained the Council failed to provide her son with alternative provision while he was out of school following a school placement breakdown. We find the Council at fault for failing to arrange a suitable full-time education or any alternative provision from January to July 2024. The Council has also failed to meet its statutory duty to ensure the provision set out in Ms X’s son’s Education, Health and Care Plan was delivered. This fault meant he received very limited education between January and July 2024. This caused Ms X and her son significant distress and uncertainty. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment to Ms X and her son, and make service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to review its processes to ensure it meets its S42 and S19 duties when a child is out of school and to include consideration of interim reviews.The Council has also agreed to put a system into place that allows oversight of SEND Officer's cases during unexpected or long absences.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 018 933)

    Category: Education Date: 24-Sep-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained the Council did not provide alternative education after her child stopped attending school, only considered making amendments to her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan after giving her a decision not to amend the Plan and did not respond to some of her communication. There was some fault with how the Council considered whether to provide alternative education to Mrs X’s child, however this did not cause injustice. The Council was not at fault for discussing changes to the Plan after it decided not to amend it. The Council was at fault for not responding to Mrs X’s communication. To remedy the injustice caused the Council agreed to apologise to Mrs X, make a payment to her for the anxiety she suffered by poor communication and carry out a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    Take steps to review its procedures around communication and tell the Ombudsman what it has put in place to ensure people are updated when their cases are reallocated to new officers.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 018 646)

    Category: Education Date: 01-Sep-2025

    Summary

    The Council delayed completing Miss X’s child, Y’s, Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan and then failed to secure the provision in the Plan. It also failed to arrange suitable alternative provision when Y was unable to attend school. This caused Y to miss out on part of their education and caused Miss X distress, uncertainty and frustration. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X and make a payment to recognise the impact of its failings. It will also review its approach to delivering alternative provision when a child cannot attend school.

    Service improvements

    The Council failed to arrange suitable alternative provision when a child was unable to attend school, due to a lack of available providers. It has agreed to review its approach to delivering section 19 alternative provision to ensure it explores all avenues to meet its section 19 duties, regardless of provider availability.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 013 239)

    Category: Education Date: 14-Aug-2025

    Summary

    Ms X complained the Council failed to provide the provisions in section F of her child’s Education, Health and Care Plan. The Council is at fault for failing to monitor the provision was in place. This lack of support has caused Ms X and her child distress. The Councils complaint response was poor, causing Ms X additional distress. This is their injustice. The Council agreed a package of remedies.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to consider how to improve monitoring of annual reviews which are delegated to schools to identify potential failings at the earliest possible opportunity.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 012 905)

    Category: Education Date: 04-Jun-2025

    Summary

    We found fault on Mrs Y’s complaint against the Council through a service failure. It failed to issue the final Education, Health and Care plan for her daughter, Z, within statutory timescales. The Council issued it 40 weeks late. The delay caused Mrs Y avoidable injustice as she suffered uncertainty and frustration. The agreed action remedies the injustice caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to produce an action plan showing how it will meet the statutory timescales for needs assessments and issuing Education, Health and Care plans.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 010 702)

    Category: Education Date: 19-Dec-2025

    Summary

    Ms Y complains that failures by the Council caused her child, D, to miss important provision and limited their chances of passing exams. Ms Y says the failures meant she had to deliver provision at home, causing further distress. When she raised concerns, the Council limited Ms Y’s contact because it said she was unreasonably persistent. We find fault in some parts of the complaint which the Council has agreed to remedy with a symbolic payment of £500 and the implementation of some service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council will remind relevant officers of the need to issue written warning letters before imposing contact restrictions for those considered to be unreasonably persistent and/or displaying unreasonable behaviour. This is in line with the Council’s published policy.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 003 266)

    Category: Education Date: 28-Apr-2025

    Summary

    Mrs X complained about the Council’s handling of her daughter’s Education, Health and Care Plan in late 2022 and the lack of alternative provision since January 2023. We have found the Council was at fault for the delay in finalising Plans following reviews in October 2022 and March 2023. This caused Mrs X and S avoidable distress, uncertainty and loss of provision from section F of the Plan. The Council has already accepted some of the faults and apologised together with our further recommendations.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to share this decision with relevant staff to ensure that the Council keeps relevant contemporaneous notes about any decision it makes about its section 19 duty and remind relevant staff of the importance of issuing EHC Plans within the statutory timeframes following an annual review.

  • West Sussex County Council (24 001 750)

    Category: Education Date: 22-Jun-2025

    Summary

    Ms X complains about issues concerning her daughter Y’s education, including delays in the EHCP process, failure to provide suitable full-time education, and poor communication. We have concluded our investigation with a finding of fault. The Council delayed in finalising Y’s EHCP and failed to ensure suitable education was in place between November 2022 and May 2023. The Council has agreed to our recommendations.

    Service improvements

    Remind relevant staff of the need to act promptly in identifying and arranging interim education when a child cannot attend school;Review its record-keeping and communication practice in EOTAS and alternative provision cases to ensure families are kept appropriately updated.

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