Summary: We upheld a complaint from Miss J finding the Council at fault for delays and poor communication leaving her son, Mr K, without care for several months. This loss of care provision had a harmful impact on Mr K, as well as causing distress to Miss J. While the Council had previously acknowledged some fault and offered a remedy to the complaint, we did not consider this went far enough to remedy both Miss J and Mr K’s injustice. So, the Council has now agreed to take further action, comprising an apology and symbolic payments for Mr K and Miss J, and a review of Mr K’s care and support plan. It has also agreed to make service improvements for others to help prevent a repeat of the fault.

The complaint

1. Miss J complained on her own behalf and that of her son, Mr K, about the Council’s adult social care service. Miss J said the Council failed to support Mr K when he turned 25 and his Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan expired. In particular, Miss J said the Council:

• failed to put in place care for Mr K from July 2023 until March 2024;
• provided an inadequate package of care between March and July 2024;
• made offers to provide care that kept changing and were not enough to meet his needs.

2. Miss J said since July 2024, Mr K had received a care package more suitable to meet his needs. However, Miss J said this still failed to provide enough support for him to attend a gym or support his personal assistant’s transport costs. Miss J told us she experienced distress and frustration in making enquiries and pursuing a complaint on behalf of Mr K.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
7. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

8. Before issuing this decision statement I considered:

• Miss J’s written complaint to the Ombudsman and supporting information she provided;
• correspondence Miss J exchanged with the Council about the subject of her complaint, that pre-dated our investigation;
• information the Council provided in reply to written enquiries;
• any relevant law or Government guidance referred to below;
• any relevant guidance published by the Ombudsman referred to below.

9. I also gave Miss J and the Council a chance to comment on a draft version of this decision statement. I took account of any comments they made and / or any further evidence they provided before finalising the statement.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

10. A child or young person with special educational needs may have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. This sets out their needs and arrangements made to meet them.
11. The Care Act 2014 and the Children and Families Act 2014 enable local authorities to continue provide children’s care services to young adults up to the age of 25, if they have an EHC Plan.
12. Beyond the age of 25 the Council’s adult care services will meet an adult’s care needs. Whenever that service becomes involved, it must carry out an assessment in line with Sections 9 and 10 of the Care Act 2014.
13. Government guidance (the Care & Support Statutory Guidance) says care needs assessments:

• must involve the person needing care, and support them to have choice and control; (paragraph 6.1)
• can be undertaken by telephone where “appropriate”. The guidance suggests this could be for someone whose needs are “less complex” or already known to the Council; (paragraph 6.3)
• must ensure the person “is able to be involved as far as possible, for example by providing an interpreter where a person has a particular condition affecting communication”; (paragraph 6.39).

14. Following an assessment, if the Council is to meet someone’s care needs, it must find the following:

• first, that their needs arise from, or relate to, a physical or mental impairment or illness;
• second, that because of their needs, they cannot achieve outcomes in two or more of the following domains:
1. managing and maintaining nutrition;
2. maintaining personal hygiene;
3. managing toilet needs;
4. being appropriately clothed;
5. being able to make use of their home safely;
6. maintaining a habitable home environment;
7. developing and maintaining family or other personal relationships;
8. accessing and engaging in work, training, education or volunteering;
9. making use of necessary facilities or services in the local community including public transport, and recreational facilities or services; and
10. carrying out any caring responsibilities they have for a child;
• third, because they cannot achieve these outcomes, there will likely be a significant impact on their well-being.

15. Where the Council finds the eligibility criteria above met, then the Care Act 2014 also requires it to provide a care and support plan. This should consider what needs the person has, what they want to achieve, what they can do by themselves or with existing support and what care and support may be available in the local area. The support plan must include a personal budget, which is the money the council has worked out it will cost to arrange the necessary care and support for that person.
16. In deciding how to meet needs, a council may take account of its own finances and budgetary position. Government guidance says a council “may reasonably consider how to balance that requirement with the duty to meet the eligible needs of an individual in determining how an individual’s needs should be met (but not whether those needs are met). However, the local authority should not set arbitrary upper limits on the costs it is willing to pay to meet needs through certain routes – doing so would not deliver an approach that is person-centred or compatible with public law principles. The authority may take decisions on a
    case-by-case basis which weigh up the total costs of different potential options for meeting needs and include the cost as a relevant factor in deciding between suitable alternative options for meeting needs. This does not mean choosing the cheapest option; but the one which delivers the outcomes desired for the best value”. (Paragraph 10.27 of the Care and Support Statutory Guidance)
17. Government guidance also notes there are “many variations of systems used to arrive at personal budget amounts”. But these may not work for all client groups “especially where people have complex needs, or needs that are comparatively costly to meet”. It says that councils should not have a “one size fits all” approach. (paragraph 11.23).
18. There are three main ways to manage a personal budget:

• as a managed account held by the council with support provided in line with the person’s wishes;
• as a managed account held by a third party (often called an individual service fund or ISF) with support provided in line with the person’s wishes; or
• as a direct payment.
  (Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014)

19. Direct payments are monetary payments made to individuals who ask for them to meet some or all of their eligible care and support needs. They enable people to arrange their own care and support to meet those needs. The council must ensure people have relevant and timely information about direct payments so they can decide whether to request them. If they do so, the council should support them to use and manage the payment properly.
20. A council can choose to charge for non-residential care following a needs assessment. Where it decides to charge, the council must follow the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and have regard to the Care Act statutory guidance. (Care Act 2014, section 14 and 17)

The key facts

21. Mr K is an adult with care needs who lives with his mother Miss J . Mr K is deaf and autistic. He can only communicate through British Sign Language (BSL).
22. In March 2023 Mr K attended an education institution. He had an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. He attended the institution three days a week where he had support from a BSL trained assistant. For two days a week a Care Provider supported him with life skills. The Care Provider did this by employing a care worker, Ms X, to support Mr K. Ms X is BSL trained. Ms X would support Mr K to access the community, helping him with tasks such as shopping and using public transport. She also helped him learn domestic tasks such as cooking and cleaning. Miss J told me that because of Mr K’s autism, he must repeat tasks frequently, for him to retain information.
23. In practice, Ms X could not support Mr K on both days, so in March 2023 he only had support in the community one day a week.
24. At the end of March 2023 Miss J contacted the Council’s adult care services asking it to assess Mr K’s care needs. His EHC Plan would end in July 2023, as Mr K was now 25.
25. The Council assigned Mr K’s case to its Early Resolution & Safeguarding Team, within its adult care services. A social worker (SW1) completed a telephone interview with Miss J, with Mr K and Ms X present. I note this followed it recording Miss J’s view, that Mr K would find a face-to-face assessment overwhelming. Miss J also told me the Council suggested it could accommodate a telephone assessment sooner.
26. During the assessment, Miss J explained the support Mr K received and that he hoped to return to education in September 2024 to continue his studies. She explained Mr K always needed a BSL translator in the community and had limited awareness of danger when out of the home. He also needed some support with personal care. Mr K wanted to continue to work with Ms X, who offered to work as a personal assistant with Mr K moving forward, via an agency.
27. During May 2023 SW1 recorded discussing Mr K’s needs on several occasions with Miss J. They contacted a Care Provider to see if it could support Mr K, but it advised it could not meet his needs. In June 2023, SW1 told Miss J the Council would explore Mr K having two days a week support from a personal assistant (Ms X). The officer’s need assessment found Mr K needed care and support across six of the Care Act domains. While it found Miss J could support some of these, it said Mr K needed a personal assistant to use facilities in the community and maintain personal relationships.
28. In August 2023 the Council recorded having a conversation with Miss J about the cost of a personal assistant. It told her she would have to pay a ‘top-up’, as Ms X charged around £4 an hour more than the Council would pay. The officer recorded Miss J saying the proposed top-up would cause her financial hardship. SW1 recorded the Council could offer Mr K a “personal assistant via direct payments fluent in BSL” but that Miss J declined this. Miss J told me that Ms X’s hourly rate compared favourably to the usual cost of using a BSL translator.
29. Later that month the Council’s finance officer confirmed it would pay more to support a personal assistant (although still less than charged by Ms X). The Council passed this information on to Miss J.
30. In September, a manager for the service considered the recommendation Mr K receive support for two days a week. Their notes recorded this was a “quite significant” package of care and they did not see Mr K’s “voice” in the needs assessment. The manager also said Mr K learnt life skills in college. I understand as a result the Council offered Mr K four hours a week support instead. Miss J rejected this, saying it was not enough. I noted there was no record of this offer in the case papers sent to us by the Council, nor Miss J’s response.
31. Miss J appealed the Council’s decision and it reallocated Mr K’s case to another social worker (SW2). They visited Mr K and undertook an assessment of need in person. Their assessment found that Mr K needed support across seven domains set out in the Care Act guidance. In addition to those needs identified by SW1, they said Mr K also needed support to access education or work opportunities.
32. At the end of November 2023, the Council said it would provide Mr K with seven hours a week support to access the community. It said, Mr K would not have to make any financial contribution to his care. However, a personal budget calculation used by the Council in early December 2024, said Mr K would receive 10 hours a week care.
33. At the end of December 2023, the Council amended its proposal. It now said it would provide Mr K with six hours a week support to access the community. A note says this was because it understood Ms X could only support Mr K six hours a week.
34. Miss J continued to challenge the Council’s assessment. She said Ms X could, at that time, only support Mr K for one day a week. But this was because she had taken on other work, while waiting for the Council to decide on Mr K’s case. By February 2024 the Council agreed to increase its offer of support to seven hours again. Miss J and Mr K accepted this. The Council began providing Mr K with a direct payment from March 2024, which Miss J managed.
35. In July 2024, the Council reviewed Mr K’s care needs. It increased his direct payments to cover three days a week (21 hours) support from a personal assistant. Miss J says this payment covers the cost of Ms X’s hourly charge only. It does not cover Ms X’s travel expenses if she takes Mr K out, and nor does it cover the cost of any activities Mr K undertakes in the community. In particular, Miss J is unhappy it does not cover the cost of Mr K visiting a gym, which he does regularly. Miss J says this has a benefit to Mr K as he gets out in the community and it supports him living healthily. The Council has recorded these benefits in its needs assessment.

Miss J’s complaint

36. In June 2024 Miss J made a complaint, saying she had found the process of securing a care package for Mr K “horrendous, upsetting and stressful”. Miss J asked the Council to consider:

• why it had closed a transition assessment for Mr K in 2018. She felt this had led to events in 2023, when he had no support in place after his EHC Plan ended;
• that it had gone back on its word to provide Mr K with 14 hours of care a week in summer 2023. She said it then frequently ‘moved the goalposts’ – offering care packages of four hours a week; seven hours, six hours and then seven hours again;
• that it was not supporting Mr K with the cost of activities he attended, such as the gym. His direct payments only covered the cost of his personal assistant’s hourly charge, not their expenses;
• that SW1 had been rude and aggressive when challenged about the outcome of their assessment;
• that delays in offering care and support had meant Ms X had fewer hours available to support Mr K.

37. In its reply, the Council:

• apologised for a lack of communication in 2018 around its decision to end a transition assessment. It suggested Mr K had care and support at that time, and so this is likely why it took no further action;
• it accepted SW1’s assessment had recommended Mr K receive 14 hours a week care, but this was “not supported by management” and it reduced its offer to four hours. It also recognised that following SW2’s assessment it had offered six hours a week care before increasing this to seven hours. It defended these decisions, but accepted Miss J had formed the “reasonable assumption” Mr K would receive 14 hours a week care, for which it apologised;
• it also recognised some “miscommunication” about the hourly cost of care it would pay;
• it said the Council could not pay for Mr K’s gym membership as it paid for his personal assistant to help him access the community. And that Mr K could use public transport and benefit from concessionary rates;
• it could not comment on the conversations Miss J had with SW1 as there was no telephone recording.

38. The Council response ended in offering Miss J a symbolic payment of £500 for her time and trouble. The Council also said it was reviewing how it provided direct payments to make that a smoother process. It had also recommended staff receive training to support young adults transitioning to adult care services and that it shared more information with young adults and parents around assessments.

My findings

The Ombudsman’s Jurisdiction

39. The term ‘jurisdiction’ refers to our legal powers to investigate a complaint. In this case I decided the passage of time meant we could not investigate how the Council supported Mr K in 2018 or thereabouts.
40. I understood Miss J raised this matter because she considered with better transition planning Mr K would not have faced the ‘cliff edge’ of his social care support ending aged 25. I considered this general point had some force and I pick up on it in my findings below. But I decided it would not be fair to the Council to investigate specific events around seven to eight years ago.
41. This was because of the law on late complaints. We expect that where someone believes the Council has not provided a satisfactory service that they make a complaint at the time. While there are exceptional reasons why this cannot always be done, the further back in time we go, the more exceptional those reasons must be. In this case I did not find Miss J had provided special reasons justifying an exception to the rule.

Use of the Ombudsman’s discretion

42. I did not consider it feasible or practical to investigate Miss J’s specific complaint about a telephone conversation she had with SW1. I used my discretion not to investigate this part of the complaint.
43. There was nothing in SW1’s notes that suggested they spoke inappropriately to Miss J. And as there was no recording of the call, there was little possibility of finding evidence that would challenge that. So, I decided an investigation would not lead to this part of the complaint being upheld.

My findings on the remainder of the complaint – was the Council at fault?

44. As noted above, I considered Miss J’s complaint raised a valid concern about how the Council prepares for those adults supported by EHC Plans, whose Plans end having turned 25. I did not consider Mr K should have been in a position where he did not know what support would be in place for him after July 2023.
45. Before then Mr K had an EHC Plan that included some care provision. So, the Council knew, well in advance, that it would have to plan and prepare for what happened after July 2023. Miss J should not have had the responsibility of contacting the Council in March 2023 to ask for a needs assessment for Mr K. The Council should have come to Mr K before then to consider if Mr K would need continuing care and support after July 2023. And if so, what role it would have in delivering that.
46. I had a concern the Council appeared not to have considered this issue when it received Miss J’s complaint. There was nothing in its reply to her complaint that suggested it had reflected on its knowledge of Mr K or consideration of his case in the months before March 2023. Nor was there anything in the case notes that suggested SW1 researched his history of contact with the Council. I have assumed Council children’s services had some responsibility for the ’care’ element in the Mr K’s EHC Plan. But whether this was so, or another arm of the Council agreed this, I could not see that anyone tried to find out the facts. Nor why it had taken Miss J to get in touch to initiate care planning.
47. I considered this was a fault by the Council. However, it need not have proved harmful to Mr K. This was because even though timescales were tight, Miss J still contacted it with enough time for a care package to be in place for Mr K from the end of July 2023.
48. I found the Council at fault that this did not happen. Its notes showed that it gave little urgency towards putting a care package in place for Mr K. The case file identified that by the end of June 2023 SW1 had completed their needs assessment and said Mr K needed 14 hours a week support. That needed management approval. But there was no sign of management involvement in the case, before September 2023.
49. Contributing to this delay were discussions SW1 had with Miss J around the hourly cost of Mr K’s care. I had concerns about what I read here. I understood the Council would use a standard figure to calculate the hourly cost of a personal assistant. But as I explained above Government guidance makes clear any costing used to calculate a personal budget must also take account of specific client needs. In this case Mr K had to have support from someone proficient in BSL. Further, it had to be someone understanding of the needs he has because of autism. I considered it unlikely the standard cost for a personal assistant would meet his needs.
50. But there was no indication the Council took account of these factors before it set its personal budget. SW1’s notes said the Council offered a payment in August 2023 to support a personal assistant proficient in BSL. But there was nothing else in the notes to suggest where this information came from. The only record of the Council consulting another care provider was that I referred to in paragraph 27. That provider said it could not meet Mr K’s needs. So, while the Council later accepted that Mr K would best receive support from Ms X (known to him and trusted), the prevarication around the hourly cost of care lost valuable time. That would not have happened had the Council set a realistic personal budget at the outset.
51. There was then further fault in the dispute that arose around the hours of care Mr K would receive. Clearly this arose from the management decision in September 2023. I did not challenge the judgement there was not enough evidence of Mr K’s ‘voice’ in the assessment. I agreed Mr K’s voice appeared marginalised in the first care needs assessment. But this was because of how the Council conducted its assessment.
52. Law and guidance do not prevent the Council carrying out a telephone assessment with a deaf service user, if they have support present. I noted that Miss J preferred a telephone assessment both for reasons of speed and because she felt Mr K might cope better with this. So, I could understand the Council’s reasons for undertaking this. But Government guidance suggests this type of assessment undesirable for a deaf service user. And later the decision not to offer a face-to-face assessment contributed to the Council’s decision to reduce its proposed package of care of 14 hours a week. Because Mr K’s voice would inevitably become more marginalised in a telephone assessment. I considered it was fault for the Council not to take its own action into account when making the decision to limit the package of care. It could instead have agreed the 14 hours proposed as a temporary measure subject to an early face-to-face review with Mr K.
53. Further, that decision also relied on a factual mistake. The Council recorded Mr K received life skills training at his educational institution. But nowhere was this recorded. Instead, the notes and assessments said Mr K received specific subject tuition while in education, and life skills training the rest of the week. So, this was a fault.
54. Making matters worse, the decision also represented a failure by the Council to keep its word. The case papers supported Miss J’s account that she understood Mr K would receive 14 hours a week support. The Council also recognised this when it upheld this part of her complaint. So, this too was a fault.
55. A further concern I had was around the audit trail for this decision. The Council did not record offering Mr K four hours a week support instead of 14 hours, nor the reasons for that. It only recorded that its manager thought the case for 14 hours a week unsupported. That flaw continued when I looked at events after September 2023. Its second assessment of Mr K resulted in an offer of seven hours a week care, and then six, and then seven again. I found limited records to explain these decisions. That was a fault.
56. Only when the Council reduced Mr K’s package of care from seven hours to six did it give a reason. It said this was because of Ms X’s limited availability of hours. This in turn highlighted another concern I had. Which was that underpinning the frequent changes in the support on offer to Mr K were concerns about the financial cost. If the Council determined Mr K needed seven hours of support, then that need did not reduce because of his personal assistant’s limited availability.
57. From the time SW1 completed their assessment, the Council gave the impression the motive for its decisions were financial rather than based on Mr K’s need. Government guidance says councils can take account of their overall budgetary position in deciding on care choices for individuals. But what that guidance also makes clear is that decisions must still take account of individual need. While I lacked enough evidence to make a finding of fault on this point, I asked the Council to note my concern.
58. The final point I considered was the scope of Mr K’s current care and support plan. As part of her complaint Miss J raised that this does not cover his personal assistant’s travel costs. Nor does it cover the cost of any activity Mr K attends, specifically the gym. Mr K’s current care and support plan identifies the Council has found that he needs care and support to make use of necessary facilities in the community including public transport and recreational facilities. Further that Mr K will do this through work with his personal assistant, Ms X. It describes Mr K particularly wanting to access certain activities and top of that list is “accessing the gym”.
59. I considered “making use of necessary facilities” could encompass more than someone accompanying Mr K to act as his interpreter and care support. It could include consideration about the cost Mr K incurs in getting to a particular setting, including any cost he must meet for his personal assistant and the cost of using a facility. It was not for me to say whether the Council should include the specific matters Miss J wanted it to, as part of Mr K’s personal budget. But I was not satisfied the Council had given those matters its considered attention. That was a fault.
60. This was because its reply to Miss J’s complaint did not address the fundamental point she made, which is that I have made above. That Mr K having the means to allow a personal assistant to escort him to the gym was not necessarily the same as him having access to the gym. Miss J brought to my attention the Council publishes a direct payments policy. This lists gym membership “to stay well” as a potential use of a direct payment, as well as using such payments to employ a personal assistant. So, the Council itself published information that suggested the two were not mutually exclusive.

Did the faults cause Mr K and / or Miss J an injustice?

61. I considered the faults above led to Mr K having no care in place for between seven and eight months when his EHC Plan ended in July 2023. The Council accepted, from March 2024, that he needed support at least one day a week with accessing the community. So, Mr K suffered a significant loss of service when he did not have that support in place. Miss J also explained to me how some of the independence skills Mr K learnt before July 2023 became forgotten in the intervening period and so had to be re-learnt. I accepted her evidence on this point and so I found the loss of service caused harm to Mr K as a result.
62. Further, because of the faults in the Council’s audit trail and record of its decision making, I could not say the seven hours support Mr K began to receive from March 2024 was enough. It later agreed a significant increase in Mr K’s care from July 2024, although Mr K also had a change of circumstances when his education ended. I did not make a finding on this point therefore. But instead, found there was uncertainty about whether the care package in place between March and June 2024 was sufficient. We consider uncertainty a form of distress, so this was a separable injustice.
63. A third injustice to Mr K flowed from my consideration above on the current scope of his care package. I considered further uncertainty arose from the position taken by the Council towards any travel costs his personal assistant incurs and the cost of gym membership.
64. I also considered fault by the Council had caused Miss J injustice. She experienced avoidable frustration and distress when acting for her son to try and secure the care he needed. In particular, given the confusing and sometimes conflicting messages the Council gave her over the support it would provide Mr K.

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Agreed action

Personal remedy

65. The Council has accepted my findings above. It had earlier recognised it had acted with fault in its reply to Miss J’s complaint, in its communications. It offered some apology for that and a symbolic payment for Miss J. I welcomed this and considered the symbolic payment fair and proportionate for her injustice. But I did not consider its apology went far enough and nor did it provide a satisfactory remedy for Mr K’s injustice.
66. So, the Council has agreed that within 20 working days of a decision on this complaint it will:
1. provide a further apology to Miss J and Mr K accepting the findings of this investigation (see paragraph 67);
2. provide a symbolic payment to Mr K of £2000 for his injustice (see paragraphs 68 and 69);
3. offer again Miss J a symbolic payment of £500 for her injustice (see paragraphs 68 and 69);
4. begin a reconsideration of the care and support it currently offers Mr K. This will specifically consider if the personal budget is enough to meet his identified care needs, taking account of my analysis above at paragraphs 59 and 60 (see paragraph 70).
67. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council will consider this guidance in making the agreed apology.
68. The agreed symbolic payment first takes account of the impact on Mr K of the loss of provision for between seven and eight months and the resulting harm. I considered a sum of £200 a month fair for this to reflect the minimum package of care Mr K would have received. So, for seven and a half months that equates to £1500. To that I added £500 for the uncertainty arising about the exact quantity of care Mr K should have received and whether the scope of his current package is sufficient. These payments will be in addition to Mr K’s ongoing direct payments and the Council will make the payment separately to his direct payments accordingly.
69. The agreed payment to Mr K is in addition to the symbolic payment the Council offered Miss J in response to her complaint. She initially declined this pending our investigation. So, the Council will now offer it again.
70. As part of the agreed action at 66d) above, the Council may want to gather information and / or meet with Mr K and Miss J. Allowing this to happen the Council should therefore ensure it has decided its reconsideration within two months of a final decision of this complaint.

Service improvements

71. The Council has also agreed to learn lessons from this complaint, to improve its service and try to avoid a repeat of the faults. So, within three months of a decision on this complaint it will:
1. review why it had not undertaken an assessment of Mr K’s care needs before July 2023 when his EHC Plan ended. It will consider if this resulted from any systemic flaws in communications between Council children and adult services (or within adult services). If so, it will recommend ways to improve these. It will also consider what advice it gives to staff who may undertake care needs assessments for adults whose EHC Plans end. It will consider if it needs to improve that advice and how it should communicate any changes in advice to staff;
2. brief staff who undertake adult care needs assessments to advise of three key findings from this investigation (see also paragraph 72).

• First, that they should consider carefully the appropriateness of a telephone assessment for any service user who is deaf, even if that person has support with their communication needs;
• second, that they should set realistic personal budgets in cases where a user of services has care needs that will demand a special skillset from those who support them. For example, those with complex communication needs;
• third, there should always be a clear audit trail to explain the rationale where it amends a proposed package of care. Notes should also explain how the Council communicates this to a user of services (or their representative) and their response.

72. The Council can deliver the briefing above in person (for example through team briefings or training events) or in writing.
73. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with all the recommended actions set out in paragraphs 66 and 71 and the advice contained in the accompanying explanatory paragraphs.

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Final decision

74. For reasons set out above I upheld this complaint finding fault by the Council caused injustice to Mr K and Miss J. The Council has accepted these findings and agreed action that I consider will remedy their injustice. Consequently, I have completed my investigation satisfied with its response.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman