Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about delays in the Council providing information he requested about a friend’s care. He also complains about the Council’s decision not to uphold his complaint. This is because an investigation would not lead to different findings or outcomes. In addition, the accepted fault has not caused Mr X significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council delayed in providing information he requested about a friend’s care. He also complains about the Council’s decision to not uphold his complaint despite agreeing there was delay in responding to his enquiries.

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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:

• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(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.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X first contacted the Council at the beginning of October to request information about his friend’s care package and how much it cost. The Council accepts it failed to pass this request to its Adult Social Care (ASC) team and apologised to Mr X.
6. Mr X called the Council a couple of days later and asked them to explain how much his friend’s care package cost and what other services his friend might be entitled to. The Council passed Mr X’s query to the ASC team to respond to.
7. Mr X complained as he did not get the information from the Council. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint at the end of October. The Council accepted it took a little while for Mr X to get a response and that Mr X had to make a complaint due to the lack of communication. The Council apologised for this. The Council also provided the full information Mr X requested in its response.
8. Despite the Council acknowledging some delays in responding to Mr X’s query, the Council did not upheld Mr X’s complaint. I agree this does not appear to be a logical finding given the Council accepted there was a delay. However, it would not be a proportionate use of the Ombudsman’s limited resources to investigate this matter.
9. Further, Mr X wants compensation due to the time taken to contact the Council to get a response to his queries. However, we would only consider recommending a remedy to recognise the time and trouble taken where the time and trouble involved in dealing with the Council was significant, unnecessary, and avoidable. We do not make recommendations just because someone has had to raise a complaint as it is accepted the complaints process will always cause some time and trouble to the complainant.
10. In this case, it took the Council just over three weeks to provide Mr X the information he asked for. While the Council accepts it could have provided the information quicker, I am satisfied that the timeframes involved are not so great as to have caused Mr X significant enough injustice to justify an investigation.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because an investigation would not lead to different findings or outcomes. In addition, the fault has not caused Mr X significant injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman