Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about alleged delay in approving a disabled facilities grant for Miss X’s child. The Council’s offer from May 2024 to assess her child’s needs rather than relying on assessments from 2022 or earlier means it is unlikely that an investigation would lead to a finding of fault in respect of that. Matters before 2024 are late and there is no good reason to investigate them now.

The complaint

1. Miss X said the Council withdrew her child’s disabled facilities grant (DFG) during the Covid-19 pandemic and has failed to give her a copy of the plans from 2020 and use these as a basis for the works needed. She said it has insisted on re-assessing her child in person, which would place her child at risk. She said the DFG process has gone on for 10 years without achieving any more than a handrail.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact 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 or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Matters before 2024 are late. The Council’s actions in 2020 or 2022 are ones Miss X could have complained of to us sooner. The correspondence I have seen shows she disagreed with a Council decision of April 2022 not to progress the DFG application. She did not complain to the Council until May 2024.
8. The Council’s responses to Miss X’s complaint stated it had re-started the process. It is clear there has since been a dispute about a re-assessment. The Council’s position is that a re-assessment in person is needed, and that the assessor could wear full personal protective equipment (PPE) or carry out an assessment away from the family home. Miss X wants the Council to use earlier plans from 2022 or before as a basis for the DFG and not to carry out an in-person assessment. If we were to investigate, it is unlikely we would find the Council’s offer unreasonable, or that it is responsible for the impasse.
9. While we expect a public body to use email rather than calling a person if requested, calls by the Council to Miss X are not likely on their own to have created sufficient injustice to warrant investigation by us.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because:

• Matters before 2024 are late and there is no good reason to exercise discretion to investigate them now;
• There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council concerning its offer to re-assess in 2024 to warrant investigation; and
• The use of the telephone instead of email is not likely to have created sufficient injustice on its own to warrant our further involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman