Summary: Miss X complained about the Council’s management of her late mother’s (Mrs Y) charges for non-residential care. We identified one area of fault because the Council failed to confirm whether it intended to pursue Mrs Y’s estate for unpaid client contributions from 2019. This caused Miss X uncertainty and distress. To remedy this injustice, the Council has agreed to apologise and confirm its position about this matter in writing. We found no fault with the Council’s response to more recent unpaid invoices.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s poor handling of her late mother’s charges for domiciliary care and her direct payment account. In particular, she complains about:
1. the failure to provide written confirmation of the Council’s decision to write off a historical debt;
2. confusing information about recent outstanding invoices; and
3. delay in processing Miss X’s redundancy payment.
2. Miss X says dealing with the Council about these matters has caused significant distress, uncertainty and frustration, particularly as she was coping with the loss of her mother.

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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 future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
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/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. 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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What I have and have not investigated

7. Part of Miss X’s complaint is late. Although 1a (above) relates to Mrs Y’s client contribution from 2019, I have decided to exercise my discretion to investigate this part of the complaint. This is because Miss X says she was unaware of the matter until more recently and had been seeking confirmation from the Council of the debt being written off as part of her recent formal complaint.
8. I have not investigated 1c (above). This is because:

• the redundancy payment has now been made and the Council has apologised for the delay in progressing the case; and
• and there is no significant outstanding fault or injustice that requires further investigation by the Ombudsman.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I have:

• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Miss X;
• discussed the complaint with Miss X;
• considered the comments and documents the Council has provided in response to my enquiries;
• considered the relevant law and guidance; and
• invited comments on a draft of this statement from Miss X and the Council, that I considered before making my final decision.

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What I found

10. The Care Act 2014, the Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014 and the Care Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 set out the Council’s duties towards adults who require care and support, and its powers to charge.
11. Councils must carry out a financial assessment to make a decision about the charges. This will assess the person’s capital and income.
12. Once a council completes the financial assessment, it must give a written record of the assessment to the person or their representative. It should explain how the assessment has been carried out, what the charge will be, how often it will be made and if there is any fluctuation in charges, the reason. Councils should ensure that this is provided in a manner that the person can easily understand, in line with its duties on providing information and advice.
13. In this decision statement, I have referred to the amount of money that Mrs Y was assessed as being able to pay towards the cost of her non-residential care as her “client contribution”.

Direct payments

14. 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.

What happened

15. This is a summary of key events and is not intended to detail everything that happened.
16. Miss X’s late mother, Mrs Y, had care and support needs. Mrs X died in February 2023. Miss X dealt with her mother’s financial affairs.
17. In 2019, Mrs Y’s care at home was funded via a direct payment. She had a financial assessment. She was expected to pay her client contribution into a bank account that had been set up to manage the direct payment.
18. The Council says Miss X (acting on behalf of Mrs Y) failed to pay the client contribution and told her £500 was owed. Miss X says she was told the debt was considerably more.
19. Miss X says she was not told about the need to make a client contribution and so should not have to pay. She says she was told at a meeting this would be written off but was not confirmed in writing. This has left her worried the Council will decide to pursue this debt in future.
20. In 2022/2023, Mrs Y also received care from a private care agency arranged by the Council. The Council issued invoices for Mrs Y’s client contribution every four weeks.
21. Shortly after Mrs Y’s death, the Council wrote to Miss X, as the executor of her mother’s estate, advising her several invoices had not been paid.
22. Miss X told the Council her there was no money left in Mrs Y’s estate and her bank account had been closed. Because of this she was unable to provide bank statements that had been requested by the Council. Miss X explained she had paid for Mrs Y’s funeral with her own credit card.
23. Miss X says she was given conflicting and confusing information about what was owed. Initially she was told there were nine outstanding invoices. This was later reduced to five. Miss X says the Council should write off the debt as a gesture of goodwill in acknowledgement of poor customer service.

Miss X’s complaint

24. Miss X complained to the Council about how the Council dealt with these matters. In response, the Council said:

• it would consider writing off the debt if Miss X provided copies of Mrs Y’s bank statements and funeral bill. This would prove there were insufficient funds in the estate to settle the debt; and
• Mrs Y’s client contribution on her direct payment account could not be written off because it was not a formal debt.

Analysis

The direct payment account

25. Miss X says she was told not about the need to pay Mrs Y’s client contribution into her bank account.
26. The Council has provided a letter from May 2019. This explained Mrs Y should pay £160 per month into the direct payment account. Based on this evidence, I am satisfied Miss X was made aware of this obligation.
27. Mrs Y was advised in November 2019 that some payments had not been made. In January 2020, Mrs Y was told £561 remained outstanding. Again, I have been provided with a copy of the letter sent to Mrs Y about this.
28. Miss X says she was told verbally this had been written off and the debt was more than £500. I have seen no evidence to confirm this, although I have no reason to question Miss X’s recollection of what she was told.
29. In response to my enquiries, the Council has said the direct payment contribution “is not a formal debt as such and so cannot be subject to formal write off”.
30. This is an unclear position. Either money is owed, or it is not. The letter sent in January 2020 says there are arrears of £561 “still owing”. It was reasonable for Miss X to assume this may still the case, in absence of any written confirmation saying otherwise.
31. I can only assume, by the fact the Council did not write to Mrs Y or Miss X since January 2020, that that it has no intention of pursuing this matter further. I see no reason why the Council could not have explained this to Miss X. This would have put an end to the uncertainty she experienced.
32. This lack of clarity is fault.

Outstanding invoices from 2022/2023

33. Miss X accepts she did not pay two invoices before her mother passed away. But disputes three others were not paid. She says the Council originally claimed nine invoices were outstanding, but this was “whittled down” to five. For this reason, she does not trust the Council’s assertion that more than two invoices were not paid.
34. The Council has provided copies of the original invoices sent to Mrs Y. It has also provided a copy of the internal ledgers relating to the unpaid invoices. These show reminder letters were sent. Unfortunately, the Council has been unable to retrieve copies of these letters from its system. I have seen no evidence to show the Council reduced the number of unpaid invoices, as claimed by Miss X.
35. This dispute could have been easily resolved if Miss X was able to prove she had paid the invoices by producing Mrs Y’s bank statements. Miss X says this is not possible because the online account was closed soon after Mrs Y passed away.
36. In the absence of any evidence showing the three disputed were paid, I find it is more likely they were not.
37. The outstanding balance the Council is asking Miss X to pay from Mrs Y’s estate reflects the fact she did not pay all her assessed charges. While I appreciate it is distressing for Miss X to have to deal with these matters after her mother passed away, in the absence of fault by the Council, there are no grounds for the Ombudsman to ask the Council to waive any of these charges as requested by Miss X.

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Agreed action

38. The Council has agreed to take the following action within four weeks from the date of my final decision.

• Apologise in writing to Miss X for failing to clarify whether any money was owed by Mrs Y for unpaid client contributions on her direct payment account.
• Write to Miss X confirming its position about the unpaid client contribution.

39. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

40. I have found the Council to have acted with fault and the Council has agreed with my recommendations to remedy the injustice to Miss X. On this basis, I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman