Case Ref: 23 000 664 Category: Education Sub Category: Alternative provision

• The Council agreed to review and amend its policy for children out of school with medical or health needs. It will ensure that:as part of the review, it completes an Equalities Impact Assessment for the policy, and gives due regard to reflecting equality considerations in the design of its policies and processes for accessing alternative education when out of school;the amended policy allows it to consider discretion about medical evidence requirements on a case-by-case basis; andthe amended policy makes clear that where a child is not approved for support from the Council’s Home and Hospital Tuition Service, and remains out of school, the Council must arrange other suitable alternative education, in line with its duty under section 19 of the Education Act 1996.
• The Council agreed to share a copy of our final decision with all staff across its teams that deal with children with special educational needs, or children out of school/ with attendance issues. It will draw its staff's attention to the:Council’s duties to provide suitable alternative education for a child out of school for any reason under section 19 of the Education Act 1996;Council’s duties under the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty;Council’s duties under the Human Rights Act 1998 to give due regard to respecting and protecting an individual’s rights;requirement to comply with statutory timescales for carrying out Education, Health, and Care needs assessments;importance of responding to queries in good time and keeping families updated; and complaint handling timescales set out in the Council’s complaints procedure.

Case Ref: 23 000 369 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• By training or other means remind staff of the importance of completing care and support assessments and carers assessments in a timely manner, using the appropriate assessment method(s) and in line with the Care Act. This is to ensure care and support needs are identified and met.
• Remind front-line staff about the importance of keeping service users’ cases moving and dealing with the cases in a timely manner.
• Remind relevant staff of the need to provide responses to complaints within the appropriate timescales in line with the Council’s complaint handling procedure.

Case Ref: 22 016 360 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• Provide training to all staff regarding the Council’s responsibilities relating to section 19 alternative education provision;
• Provide guidance to staff relating to the EHCP process and their responsibilities to adhere to timescales set out in SENCOP.

Case Ref: 22 015 686 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council will remind staff dealing with housing register applications of the need to consider if there is reason to believe an applicant may be homeless or at risk of homelessness, and if so that the Council considers whether it owes a homeless duty and writes to the applicant with its decision and relevant rights of review and appeal.
• The Council will provide guidance to relevant staff about when an Occupational Therapy assessment to understand complex housing needs may be needed and remind them of the importance of recording how this is considered.
• The Council will remind relevant staff to consider, and document its consideration, whether a case should be dealt with outside of the housing allocations policy; and remind officers responding to complaints to clearly communicate what the next step in the complaint process is and to respond to all communications within the timescales set out in the complaints policy.

Case Ref: 22 015 630 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will remind staff to action a parent’s request for a reassessment of Education, Health and Care Plan needs and support and to notify them within 15 days of the request of its decision
• The Council will remind staff to notify parents of its decision following an Education, Health and Care Plan annual review meeting.
• The Council will review with staff the timescale of amending Education, Health and Care Plans and finalising them, in line with legislation.
• The Council will review with staff the importance of not delaying action as soon as it becomes aware a child is not attending school because of illness or other reasons.

Case Ref: 22 015 417 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Refuse and recycling

• The Council agreed that it would remind relevant officers who deal with complaints of repeated missed waste collections to consider if they should enter a property on a ‘special requirement list’ kept by the Council and contractors where there have been repeated problems with collection. This reminder would cover cases where problems relate to an unusual property location or layout, as the list is also used to identify properties where occupiers have extra needs.

Case Ref: 22 014 763 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Charging

• The Council should review the way in which Liberata responds to queries from service users, what service level agreements are in place for responding to customer queries and how the Council will ensure that the service provided is acceptable in future.

Case Ref: 22 013 945 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council has wrongly advised that schools, not the Council, hold responsibility for providing s.19 education. The Council has agreed in a previous investigation to provide updated training. The Council should use the training opportunity to ask officers to identify other cases where s.19 education may not have been provided, and provide a remedy to other families identified.
• The Council should update and clarify its information for schools so cases where pupils have been long term absent and s.19 education is not in place can be identified and report the situation to the relevant scrutiny committee.

Case Ref: 22 011 788 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed to revise the wording in the template letter accepting the main housing duty to inform homeless applicants of their right to request a statutory review of the suitability of temporary accommodation.
• Review its guidance to officers about when to make further enquiries and, where appropriate, request evidence from the police when a household in temporary accommodation has reported a serious threat or assault;
• Review guidance to officers about the circumstances when it isappropriate to make a safeguarding referral to Children’s Services
• Arrange a briefing with all relevant officers to make them aware of the reviewed guidance and good practice

Case Ref: 22 001 040 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Residential care

• The Council will discuss with relevant staff the process for dealing with adult social complaints that may involve elements of health care and related guidance. It will provide the Ombudsman with documentary evidence of the discussion.