Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council has failed to provide appropriate services for the complainant’s family. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part to warrant investigation.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss X, complains that the Council has failed to provide appropriate services for her family.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X’s family were the subject of a referral to children’s services in 2023. This referral related to Miss X’s daughter, who I will refer to as Y. Y subsequently made allegations against a sibling. Miss X says she has asked the Council for support which it has unreasonably denied.
6. The complaint correspondence shows that Miss X has requested the provision of respite, a dedicated disability social worker for Y and a 52-week residential school placement for her. She believes the Council has denied these requests for financial reasons.
7. It is not for the Ombudsman to express a view on what support, if any, the Council should provide to Y or other family members. That is a matter for the professional judgement of the Council’s children’s services officers. The complaint correspondence indicates that the Council has considered Miss X’s requests. The question for the Ombudsman is whether there is evidence of fault in the way it did so.
8. The evidence shows that the Council’s children with disabilities team decided that Y did not meet its threshold for the provision of services. The correspondence also shows that the Council offered direct payments to be used for the provision of respite, but that Miss X regarded the offer as insufficient. Regarding the request for a 52-week placement, the Council pointed out that Y has an Education Health and Care plan which does not indicate that such a placement is appropriate.
9. These were decisions for the Council’s officers to make and there is no evidence of fault in the way they exercised their professional judgement in doing so. That being the case, the Ombudsman cannot intervene to criticise the decisions they made or to substitute an alternative view. There is no evidence that the cost of provision was a factor in the Council’s decisions. In the circumstances, we cannot find that the Council was at fault in its response to Miss X’s requests for support.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault on the Council’s part.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman