Birmingham City Council (24 010 750)
Category : Adult care services > Direct payments
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 13 Feb 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council stopping her Direct Payment in 2021. The complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and there are no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider it now.
The complaint
- The complainant, Ms X, complains the Council stopped her Direct Payment in 2021 without telling her it was going to do so.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
- The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
- 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)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The matter Ms X complains about happened in 2021. Ms X first complained to the Council about it in March 2022. She submitted a further complaint to the Council in April 2023.
- This complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late. The law says a complaint should be made to us within 12 months of the person affected first becoming aware of the matter. Ms X has clearly been aware of the matter since early 2022 at the latest and I see no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider this complaint now so long after the event complained about.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it lies outside our jurisdiction and there are no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider it now.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman