Case Ref: 19 015 502 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Refuse and recycling

• The Council agreed to review its procedures to ensure the fault with the missed bin collections and replacement road markings are not repeated in the future.

Case Ref: 19 012 605 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council will look at what actions it can take to ensure there is no delay between receiving an housing application and assessing any medical evidence.
• The Council agreed to review its housing allocation policy to include a section about sheltered accommodation and the exercise of discretion. .
• The Council also agreed to take steps to ensure information about eligibility for sheltered accommodation on its website, and that given by officers, is clear and consistent
• The Council agreed to consider whether it needs to issue guidance to officers about the exercising of discretion on sheltered accommodation applications.

Case Ref: 19 012 131 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to review its procedures in how it identifies and deals with preparing young people with EHC Plans for transition to post-16 education to ensure they are dealt with in line with the relevant law and statutory guidance.

Case Ref: 19 011 481 Category: Planning Sub Category: Building control

• The Council failed to deal with this complaint in accordance with its published complaints procedure: there were delays. The Council apologised to the complainant but it has also agreed that it will review lessons learned form the complaint handling in this case and identify and implement measures to prevent recurrence of similar fault.

Case Ref: 19 008 497 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Fostering

• Within one month of my decision the Council should: send a memo to officers reminding them of the need to confirm in writing if it considers care arrangements for a child are a private family arrangement/private fostering agreement, outlining the financial implications of that.
• Within one month of my decision the Council should provide the Ombudsman with a copy of the refreshed statement of purpose it has introduced to ensure private fostering arrangements receive robust scrutiny and review.

Case Ref: 19 003 520 Category: Planning Sub Category: Planning applications

• The Council review how it handles complaints when there are similar complaints about the related issues, so that it makes sure it addresses complaints individually and does not refer to those already made.

Case Ref: 18 018 825 Category: Benefits and tax Sub Category: Council tax

• The Council has agreed to review the procedure it follows for deciding when it will seek to apply for an attachment of benefit to recover debt as opposed to use of enforcement agents. It should ensure relevant officers have clear advice on its expectations in this area and that it keeps records to explain why officers have decided to use a particular recovery approach if this is not consistent with its policy.
• The Council has agreed to complete a review of its practice of passing different council tax debts to different enforcement agents to recover for the same individual in debt.