Summary: The Council was at fault for reducing the social care support it offered to Miss X and her disabled son without warning. Before our involvement, it also accepted failings in how it carried out occupational therapy and carer’s assessments. It has agreed to provide Miss X with remedies for the injustice these matters caused her. However, it was not otherwise at fault for how it provided support to Miss X’s son, or for how it dealt with her application for adaptations to her home.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Miss X, complains about how the Council provided support to her and her disabled son (Y).
2. Miss X says the Council:

1. Agreed to provide 10 hours of weekly support to Y, but then reduced this to eight hours without a proper explanation.
2. Agreed to provide additional support to Y over school holidays, but then did not do so.
3. Failed to do a full carer’s assessment of Miss X.
4. Made its own decision on her application for home adaptations, rather than referring her to the proper authority (which was her local district council). This led to significant delays to her application.
5. Conducted an occupational therapy assessment which was did not meet statutory requirements. It failed to take Miss X’s views into account.

3. Miss X says the Council failed to meet Y’s needs and caused her a great deal of distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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)
6. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
7. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered:
• Information from Miss X and the Council.
• Relevant government guidance
• The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
9. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Council’s investigation of Miss X’s complaint

10. Miss X first complained to the Council in 2019. The Council responded under the three-stage Children Act complaints procedure. The second stage involved an independent investigation.
11. The independent investigator upheld part of Miss X’s complaint. He said the Council:
• Caused delays in its handling of Miss X’s application for home adaptations.
• Failed to inform her earlier that she could commission her own occupational therapy assessment.
• Carried out an occupational therapy assessment which had significant flaws. It did not address Miss X’s views on the adaptations Y needed and did not set out clearly why those adaptations may or may not have been suitable.
• Failed to carry out an adequate carer’s assessment of Miss X.
12. The Council accepted the investigator’s findings. It offered Miss X an apology and a new carer’s assessment. It also set out how it intended to improve its service.
13. Although Miss X escalated her complaint to stage 3 of the procedure – an independent review panel – the panel upheld all the investigator’s findings. It provided no significant detail in doing so.

My investigation

14. If a complaint has already been through the Children Act complaints procedure, this means the complainant has already had access to an independent investigation.
15. We are not an appeal stage and do not simply add another independent investigation to the previous one as a matter of course. We will not normally re-investigate such a complaint unless we have reason to believe the previous investigation was flawed in a way which disadvantaged the complainant.
16. At the outset of my investigation, I was not satisfied that Miss X’s complaints had been addressed in full. This was primarily because the stage 3 panel’s views on Miss X’s complaint were not entirely clear.
17. I have now considered the case records provided by the Council, and, on reflection, have decided that part of Miss X’s complaint was dealt with properly before she approached us. Specifically:
• Part of complaint D (delays to her application for home adaptations).
• Complaint E (inadequacies with the Council’s occupational therapy assessment).
18. The independent investigator already identified failings in how the Council dealt with these matters and therefore further investigation is unlikely to lead to a different outcome for Miss X.
19. The flaws the investigator identified in the Council’s occupational therapy assessment do not necessarily mean the professional opinion of the occupational therapist was wrong. The investigator has already made this clear, and I certainly cannot comment of the merits of a social care professional’s judgment.
20. However, I have considered whether the Council has properly remedied the general injustice these matters – including any delay – caused Miss X. I have also investigated her remaining complaints (as summarised at the start of this decision statement).

My findings

Complaint A: Y’s weekly support

21. Miss X’s complaint is that, in 2019, the Council’s ‘disability resource panel’ agreed to provide 10 hours of weekly support to Y. But, she says, this was then reduced to eight hours without a proper explanation.
22. The Council’s records show that:
• Its panel, when recommending respite care, did not mention a set number of hours.
• However, the Council completed an assessment shortly afterwards which specifically said 10 hours would be provided. The manager who signed off the assessment said this was discussed with the panel beforehand.
• After the panel hearing, emails between the social worker and other professionals (including those working elsewhere in the Council) referred to looking for at least two daily hours of support (which, I assume, was for weekdays).
• At no point, until (two months later) the Council put eight hours of support in place, was Miss X told that the number of hours would be lower than the 10 originally proposed to panel.
23. On balance, I am satisfied that the Council did agree to provide 10 weekly hours of respite care to help Miss X. I am equally satisfied, therefore, that the eight hours the Council delivered was different to what it had agreed.
24. This was fault by the Council. And it likely caused Miss X an injustice, because she felt she needed more support, and she believed – with good reason – that she should have been getting more than she was. This went on until March 2020 (almost a year later), when the Council increased the support hours to 10.
25. The benefit of the extra support can no longer be recovered so long after the event. So the Council should apologise to Miss X, and should pay her a symbolic financial remedy for her distress.

Complaint B: Support during school holidays

26. Miss X’s complaint is that the Council agreed to provide additional support to Y over school holidays, but then did not do so.
27. The Council’s records show that:
• It carried out an assessment (in July 2020) and said it would increase the support available to Miss X over the school summer holidays.
• It then took steps to put the extra support in place. It discussed this with the care agency which was already supporting Y.
• However, during a home visit in which the social worker offered this extra support to Miss X, she refused it.
28. Whatever Miss X’s reasoning, I am satisfied that the Council took reasonable steps to offer her extra support – as promised – and therefore it was not at fault.

Complaint C: The carer’s assessment

29. Miss X’s complaint is that the Council has failed to do a proper carer’s assessment of her needs.
30. The Council has already accepted that it failed to do an adequate assessment. In response to her complaint, it offered to do a new one.
31. The Council’s records show that it has completed the assessment. Miss X disagreed with the outcome. However, the Council’s social worker’s role was to exercise her professional judgment, irrespective of whether Miss X agreed with her findings.
32. Although the Council was at fault for the failings in its previous assessments (which it has already accepted), it has now completed the new assessment and therefore need take no further action.

Complaint D: Miss X’s application for home adaptations

33. Miss X’s complaint is that the Council, despite not being the authority responsible for the decision-making on home adaptations, failed to refer her to the proper authority (her local district council) when she wanted to apply. Instead, she says, it took its own decisions on Y’s case, despite these decisions being outside its jurisdiction.
34. In 2013, the government approved a ‘good practice guide’ for councils to consider when dealing with requests for disabled adaptations. This was in force at the time of Miss X’s complaint and was non-statutory. However, it was issued in the hope that councils would use the good practice recommended in the guide.
35. Under the guide, ‘disabled facilities grants’ (DFGs) were awarded by housing authorities to make adaptations to homes which were ‘necessary and appropriate’ to meet disabled occupants’ needs, where it was ‘reasonable and practicable’ to carry out such adaptations.
36. The guide explained that the duty to consider and deliver disabled adaptations lay with housing authorities. Consultation took place with social services authorities (if they were separate), but housing authorities always made the final decisions on what could be funded by DFGs.
37. In two-tier administration areas (such as Miss X’s), the county council (which is the focus of her complaint) is responsible for social care. The district council is the housing authority. The guide said there should have been a local protocol, developed by both authorities in partnership, which set out the DFG application process.
38. Miss X’s district council has such a protocol (which was in place in 2019 and remains so). It says that, to start the DFG process, the applicant will need an assessment from an occupational therapist. This assessment will be arranged by the county council. If the occupational therapist supports the application, they will send a referral to the district council.
39. With this in mind, I have found no fault in the Council’s decision to conduct an occupational therapy assessment before referring Miss X’s application to her district council. Although the district council was the ultimate decision-maker, the Council was following the local protocol.

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Agreed action

40. Within a month, the Council has agreed to:
• Apologise to Miss X for reducing the support it delivered to Y without warning.
• Make a remedy payment to Miss X of £250 to recognise the distress she likely experienced from receiving less support than she believed she was entitled to.
• Make a further remedy payment to Miss X of £500 to recognise the distress she likely experienced from the failings it has already accepted in its occupational therapy and carer’s assessments (including delay).
41. The Council will provide us with evidence it has done these things.

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Final decision

42. The Council was at fault, and Miss X suffered an injustice.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman