Case Ref: 23 017 237 Category: Housing Sub Category: Private housing

• The Council has agreed to review its procedures for communicating with landlords when considering applications for housing assistance from tenants served with notice to leave their accommodation.
• The Council has agreed to remind officers of its process and timescales for completing its complaints procedure.

Case Ref: 23 014 095 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Looked after children

• The Council will remind relevant staff that a lack of consent from a young person does not automatically prevent it from considering a relevant complaint through the children’s statutory complaint procedure; and where a young person has refused consent to share their information the test is whether the child is Gillick competent to make that decision, and whether it is in their best interest.

Case Ref: 23 011 120 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed to reflect on the issues raised in this decision statement and identify any areas of service improvement, particularly in respect of assessment of persons leaving custody and assessment of priority need. The Council should prepare a short report setting out what it intends to do to ensure similar problems do not reoccur. This report should be sent to the Ombudsman.

Case Ref: 23 006 830 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council will provide refresher training to all housing and homelessness staff, including managers, on the Council’s interim accommodation duty and relief duty.
• The Council will make sure all staff in the housing and homelessness department know they must keep proper, contemporaneous records of all of their communications and actions.
• The Council will share a copy of this decision and the Ombudsman’s focus report (‘More Home Truths: learning lessons from complaints about the Homelessness Reduction Act’ published March 2023) with all housing and homelessness staff, including managers, and discuss them at a team meeting.

Case Ref: 23 004 636 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to review its processes for referring young people approaching adulthood, who have special educational needs or are receiving children's social care support, to its adult social care team for an assessment of their needs as an adult. It should ensure referrals are made promptly and it has systems in place to identify missed referrals.

Case Ref: 23 009 268 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed to remind staff dealing with homelessness cases of the importance of considering if the Council owes a duty to help prevent loss or damage to a person's belongings.

Case Ref: 23 007 822 Category: Benefits and tax Sub Category: Council tax

• The Council has agreed to inform us of the improvements it has made to its processes to ensure such delays do not recur.

Case Ref: 23 007 757 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will remind staff that most annual reviews of Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans should be held within 12 months of the previous annual review, not the previous EHC Plan.

Case Ref: 23 007 558 Category: Planning Sub Category: Planning applications

• The Council has agreed to provide training or guidance to staff handling complaints about compliance with the Council’s complaints procedure.

Case Ref: 22 015 782 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will introduce a policy on Personal Budgets in the Education Health and Care plans which would include information specified in the SEND Code of Practice 2014 paragraph 9.96.
• The Council will consider introducing a template letter for negative Personal Budget decisions which informs people of their right to ask for a review of the decision.
• The Council will prepare a plan of improvements in monitoring timeliness of the Education Health and Care needs reassessments.