Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s complaint-handling. It is not a good use of public funds to consider complaints processes in isolation. In any event, the substantive matter Mr X complained to the Council about would now be too late for us to consider, and there is insufficient evidence of fault or injustice in other more recent elements of the complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council did not respond when he complained in April 2023. He said the Council closed the complaint without investigation, then reopened it and issued a complaint response that did not reflect his complaint. He said the Council had not met with him to gain clarity on his complaint.
2. Mr X said he did not agree with the outcomes in the Council’s final complaint response. He said poor complaint-handling would adversely affect society. He wanted the Council to make service improvements to ensure it follows its procedures, and to consider his complaint properly.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, 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))

5. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who has died or who cannot authorise someone to act for them. The complaint may be made by:

• their personal representative (if they have one), or
• someone we consider to be suitable.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2), as amended

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

Matters that are late

8. The substantive issues Mr X complained to the Council about included concerns about whether his mother-in-law (Mrs Y) was able to provide valid consent to having been moved into a care home in late 2022, and how her placement was arranged and made permanent.
9. Mr X’s substantive complaint is largely late. The law says people must bring complaints to us within 12 months of first becoming aware of the matter. Mr X complained to us 17 months after Mrs Y moved into the care home.
10. I have accounted for the Council’s role in the delays in the matter being brought to the Ombudsman. However, Mr X began his complaint to the Council five months after the events. He also continued raising peripheral matters with the Council after it had sent him a final response in January 2024, rather than contacting us. This added a further three months.
11. There is not a good reason for the delay and we will not consider a complaint about these matters now. Mr X was discussing his concerns with the Council in late 2022, and the communications between him and the Council show he was not incapable of complaining to us sooner.

Insufficient evidence of fault or injustice

12. Part of Mr X’s complaint to the Council was about its more recent decision to apply to the Court of Protection to become deputy for Mrs Y after she lost capacity to make financial decisions. This is not fault. In any event, Mrs Y passed away before this process concluded, and so even if there were fault, this did not cause an injustice.
13. Part of Mr X’s complaint was that the Council had not engaged with a comment he had made about there being an outstanding debt for Mrs Y’s care charges. The Council told Mr X it would discuss Mrs Y’s care charges with the executors of her estate. This is not fault, as the executors are the people with the legal authority and responsibility to deal with the matter. We would also decide, if we proposed to investigate a complaint about Mrs Y’s care fees, that the executors would be the appropriate representatives.
14. Mr X did not explain in his complaint to us what any personal injustice to him may have been. Injustice to society is not a significant personal injustice that would warrant the Ombudsman’s involvement.

Likelihood of achieving a different, worthwhile outcome

15. In any event, it is unlikely if we investigated that we could achieve a meaningful outcome that differs significantly from the outcome of the Council’s internal complaint process.
16. The outcomes Mr X sought from complaining to us related to the complaint process only, which we will not investigate for the reasons set out in the following section.
17. The matters Mr X raised in his complaint to the Council would not lead to a decision by us that Mrs Y’s care fees were not rightly owed. While Mr X did not explicitly say this is the outcome he sought, the complaints he raised with the Council related to this and I have therefore considered this as one possible injustice related to the matters he has complained about.
18. Any injustice Mrs Y experienced, aside from any quantifiable financial impact, would not now be something we could remedy as she has died.
19. The Council has apologised to Mr X and offered him a symbolic payment of £200 to recognise his frustration and uncertainty. This is in line with our Guidance on Remedies and it is unlikely we would achieve anything more.

Complaints about complaint processes

20. We will not investigate complaints about complaint procedures in isolation. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

21. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is not a good use of public resources to consider complaints about complaint processes in isolation. There is insufficient evidence of fault and injustice, or likelihood we could achieve a different outcome, for those parts of the substantive complaint that are not late.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman