Case Ref: 22 009 191 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• The Council will provide training for its staff dealing with the Children's Services complaints on the criteria to be applied when dealing with late complaints contained in the guidance 'Getting the best from complaints'. The Council will let us know when this training has been completed.

Case Ref: 22 005 978 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• Issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware of: Point 12.22 of the care and support statutory guidance which says in all cases, the consideration of the request for direct payments should be concluded in as timely a manner as possible.

Case Ref: 22 004 880 Category: Housing Sub Category: Allocations

• The Council agreed to review the the information and guidance it provides to applicants and medical professionals about evidence for housing applications. It should ensure that the information does not discourage applicants and professionals from providing relevant information about the effects of health problems or disabilities for professionals who know them well.
• The Council agreed to review the requirements it places on its medical advisers to ensure the advice provided for housing allocation priority contains sufficient explanation of how the recommendation was reached to allow housing staff to fully understand the advice and make their own decision about priority.
• The Council agreed to remind its housing allocations staff that: all decisions about medical priority should be made by the Council, not by the Council's medical advisers; and while they can take into account any recommendations made by the Council's medical advisers, they should not give this any special weight, must also take into account all evidence provided by applicants and resolve any conflicts of evidence (including with the medical adviser’s recommendation) when making decisions.
• The Council agreed to review the resources it assigns to its housing allocations team to ensure it has sufficient staff to respond to applications and queries from applicants within a reasonable period of time.

Case Ref: 22 004 658 Category: Environment and regulation Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour

• The Council has also agreed to review the local community trigger procedure, in conjunction with the relevant local agencies, to ensure it is in line with the statutory community trigger guidance. This should include providing timeframes for the review process; the need to consider inviting complaints/ a representative to review meetings and how this consideration should be evidence; and provide an appeal process.

Case Ref: 22 004 342 Category: Housing Sub Category: Homelessness

• The Council has agreed it will ensure it has a process to identify and review cases where a decision on whether it owes the full housing duty are outstanding for more than three months to include management oversight and the encouragement of action plans to resolve whatever outstanding inquiries are delaying such a decision. This is to avoid lengthy delays, well in excess of Government guidance, in completing inquiries into whether it owes such a duty.
• The Council agreed to ensure it has a process to cover cases where homeless households are in need of a change of emergency or temporary accommodation because of its unsuitability. While the Council will face shortages of supply and budgetary pressures it should still be seeking to meet its statutory duties and have a way of systematically prioritising and reviewing such cases. This is to ensure there is not drift once it has identified a need to change such accommodation.
• The Council agreed to ensure that it had a process to identify complaints made about its housing services that have exceeded timescales for a reply under its corporate complaints procedure. This should include identifying who has oversight of such cases and ways for escalating concerns about non-response to senior managers. This followed a failure by the Council to reply to a complaint in this case for over eight months.

Case Ref: 22 004 078 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Fostering

• The Council has agreed to provide us with evidence of what action it has now put in place to ensure it:acts on written representations from foster parents;informs foster parents of the outcome of its review panels; andfollows its own policy on signposting foster parents to relevant fostering support when they are the subject of investigations.

Case Ref: 22 003 832 Category: Children's care services Sub Category: Other

• the Council has also agreed to circulate a reminder to relevant staff of its duties under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and the circumstances when a Child in Need Assessment should be carried out, including where the individual affected has accessed the legal protocol for housing disrepair claims;
• the Council has also agreed to review its guidance to staff on handling complaints where the complainant is accessing the legal protocol for housing disrepair claims. The Council should make sure it is clear to staff when complaints about children’s social care services should be treated as separable from the legal protocol. This should make specific reference to the circumstances when children’s social care services complaints should be put through the statutory complaints process;
• the Council has also agreed to circulate a reminder to relevant staff that children’s social care services complaints that fall under the statutory complaints process should be treated as separable from housing disrepair claims. Those complaints that have completed the statutory complaints procedure may be considered by the Ombudsman if the complainant remains unhappy.

Case Ref: 22 002 258 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council will provide guidance to staff about the timeframe for carrying out an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment when ordered by a Tribunal; gathering advice and discussing this with parents; and seeking social care advice as part of every Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment.
• The Council will review procedures for children unable to attend school due to medical needs to ensure medical advice is obtained to support decisions about the amount and type of alternative education to provide, including special education provision. The Council will also keep provision under review.
• The Council will ensure statutory timescales for phase transfers for children with Education, Health and Care plans are met.

Case Ref: 22 002 241 Category: Education Sub Category: Special educational needs

• The Council agreed to remind relevant staff that where NHS Occupational Therapy advice is sought during the Education, Health and Care assessment process and that advice is delayed, to consider obtaining advice from private occupational therapists or asking other professionals to cover the issue in their reports.
• The Council agreed to consider whether to review its partnership and commissioning arrangements with health bodies to ensure advice requested as part of the Education, Health and Care assessment is received within six weeks of the advice request.

Case Ref: 22 002 217 Category: Adult care services Sub Category: Assessment and care plan

• The Council was at fault when it proposed to significantly reduce a care package by transferring most of the responsibility for providing the care to Children's Services. The Council has agreed to investigate what prompted the council officers carrying out the care needs assessments to believe that adult social care did not have the responsibility to fund eligible needs around caring for a child. The Council will hold a lessons learned meeting within adult social care about the case to ensure against people with eligible care needs being wrongly advised in future.
• The Council has agreed to remind all adult social care staff of the Council’s duties in relation to eligible outcomes under the Care Act Regulations 2015, in particular the outcome of caring for a child.
• The Council has agreed to remind all adult social care staff of the Council’s duty to have regard to Article 8 of the Human Rights Act which protects people’s right to respect for family and private life, sets out the limited circumstances in which a public authority can interfere with this, and the relevance of this when assessing the caren eeded for disabled adults to care for their children.