A COUNCIL has pledged to continue striving to improve its handling of social care funding contributions after a Government watchdog found the authority was willing to learn from past mistakes.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Michael King said his office had twice threatened North Yorkshire County Council with issuing a witness summons last year after long delays answering complaints, but this year had received apologies from the authority following delays.

He said while the handling of complaints in the council’s health and adult services department remained a concern, he was optimistic “next year we will see an even better picture” given the improvements the council had put in place.

Mr King highlighted how his office had issued three public reports about the council in January and February this year, all involving issues relating to adult social care.

The first report involved failings in an adult social care financial assessment, in which the council was unable to demonstrate it considered all the facts surrounding how much a care home resident should pay towards their fees.

The second and third reports concerned confusing and conflicting information the council gave to families about the financial arrangements for paying care home fees.

Mr King said he was encouraged by how the council had enacted most of the recommendations from the ombudsman’s findings and learned from them to improve services.

He said: “It has been updating its working practices, but there is more work to be done before we are satisfied it has implemented all of our recommendations.”

Councillor Greg White, the authority’s performance management boss, said the key for the authority was striking the right balance between providing high quality care and the best use of finite resources in the face of huge demand.

He said: “We are pleased that the ombudsman has recognised the improvement in our performance from the previous year, but we still have a way to go. We obviously want all our customers to receive a good service, however we need to be careful with public money and sometimes will have to make tough decisions.”