Case Ref: 20 010 278 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council's restructuring of its Special Educational Needs Team will include a review of Education, Health & Care and annual review processes to ensure annual review decisions are issued in a timely way giving families appeal rights.
• The Council's current special educational needs review will include a review of the sufficiency of vocational education places locally.

Case Ref: 20 009 969 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff to ensure decision letters refer to or set out the relevant parts of the allocations policy which apply to the case.
• The Council has agreed to remind relevant staff to base decisions on up-to-date information. Where this is not available, the Council should ask for a new assessment to determine housing need.

Case Ref: 20 009 677 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council will remind staff of the importance of involving family members in a needs assessment and of the need for transparency in determining support hours and that they disclose the support hours tools calculations where requested.
• The Council will explain what action it has taken to prevent unnecessary delays in future in carrying out reassessments and agreeing and implementing revised budgets.
• The Council will review the practice of how and when direct payments are increased to determine if they should be raised annually in line with inflation or to recognise the requirement of the living/minimum wage.

Case Ref: 20 008 765 Category: Benefits and tax Sub Category: Council tax

• By training or other means, ensure officers are aware of the Council’s vulnerability guidelines and when these should be applied;
• Review its procedures or guidelines for officers to ensure the faults experienced by Ms X do not recur. This should include ensuring officers check whether a Council Tax payer has other open accounts when closing an account to ensure a final bill is sent to their current address and all accounts are checked when dealing with queries from a Council Tax payer.

Case Ref: 20 008 548 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• provide us with evidence it has reviewed: Its response to information from applicants about their, or householdmembers, health or disability issues, to ensure its process for assessingmedical housing need is clearly explained.
• provide us with evidence it has reviewed its process for the completion of assessments required for theassessment of medical housing need, to ensure any barriers for applicants in arrangingthese are removed.

Case Ref: 20 008 213 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Noise

• The Council has agreed to require its contractor to adhere to the operating hours allowed by the permit.

Case Ref: 20 007 920 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Direct payments

• The Council has agreed to remind staff of the need for transparency in determining support hours and to disclose the support hours tools calculations where requested.
• The Council has agreed to explain what action it has taken to prevent unnecessary delays in carrying out reassessments and agreeing and implementing revised budgets.
• The Council has agreed to review the practice of how and when direct payments are increased to determine if they should be raised annually in line with inflation or to recognise the requirement of the living/minimum wage.

Case Ref: 20 007 731 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Review its procedures for dealing with EHC plans to ensure they are in accordance with the SEND Code. The review should include procedures to: • ensure the delays experienced by Mr Y in issuing his EHC plan do not recur • ensure officers consider if they should hold an interim review in the event of a child/young person’s change of circumstances. • ensure provision set out in section F is delivered; • improve the Council’s record keeping by ensuring it has an audit trail of how it has dealt with a child’s/young person’s EHC plan including records of the annual reviews. The Council should provide a copy of its revised procedures to the Ombudsman and explain how it will improve its practice in this area.

Case Ref: 20 007 415 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council has agreed to remind its officers to consider the planned move process when households are facing eviction and bed and breakfast accommodation is clearly not suitable, even on a short-term basis.
• The Council has agreed to remind its officers that where homeless families and vulnerable individuals are owed a section 188 interim accommodation duty or section 193(2) main housing duty, it should ensure they are not evicted through the enforcement of an order for possession as a result of a failure by the authority to make suitable accommodation available to them.
• The Council has confirmed that it will review the priority it awards to foster carers when it reviews its housing allocations policy.

Case Ref: 20 006 959 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will remind Special Educational Needs officers the legal duty to secure special educational provision in an Education, Health and Care Plan rests with the Council and cannot be delegated to settings.