Summary: Mr C complained about the way in which the Council decided to remove four hours a week of sitting support. He also complained about the way in which the Council responded to his complaint about this. The Ombudsman found fault with the way through which the Council made its decision. The Council has agreed to apologise and pay Mr C £1,320, because he was unable to go out in the evening, once a week, since November 2018 (66 weeks).

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr C, complained to us on behalf of his himself and his mother, whom I shall call Mrs M. Mr C complained the Council failed to carry out a proper care review, in line with the requirements of the Care Act and corresponding Statutory Guidance, before it decided to take away four hours of ‘sitting support’ per week. Sitting support is support provided by paid care workers to enable an unpaid carer to have a break from caring.
2. Mr C says the social worker who carried out the review, behaved in an unprofessional manner.
3. Mr C is also not satisfied with the way the Council investigated his complaint about the above. Mr C said:
• The Council’s complaints handler provided wrong information to him and behaved unprofessionally.
• The Council’s complaint response failed to provide a (sufficiently detailed) response to all the issues he had raised in his complaint.

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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 an injustice, 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)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered the information I received from Mr C and the Council. I shared a copy of my draft decision statement with Mr C and the Council and considered any comments I received, before I made my final decision.

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What I found

The Council’s decision to take away the sitting service

7. Mr C is unhappy about the Council’s decision to remove four hours of sitting support. Mr C lives with his mother and is his mother’s unpaid carer. His mother goes to a day centre from Monday to Friday. However, Mr C says that:
• When his mother is at home, she cannot be left alone.
• As such, he needs the flexibility of a sitting service to enable him to go out in the evening, or at the weekend, once a week.
8. Mr C complained the Council made its decision, because it failed to carry out a proper care review, in line with the requirements of the Care Act and corresponding Statutory Guidance. Mr C said:
• The social worker failed to meet with his mother, to enable her to sufficiently assess his mother’s needs, and determine if her needs or circumstances had changed.
• The social worker failed to have a proper discussion with staff at the day centre, to explore if they believed his mother’s needs had changed. The social worker only asked staff over the phone “if everything was OK with her”.
• The social worker failed to properly assess / review his needs as a carer and determine if there had been any changes. The social worker failed to properly establish what he used the four hours of sitting service for, and what impact it would have on him if the Council would remove this.
• The social worker was not interested in what he had to say and became offended when he challenged her view.
• The social worker said he did not need four hours of sitting support, because “he could do outdoor activities when his mother was at the day centre”.
9. Mr C told me that, since the Council’s decision:
• He no longer has the flexibility to go out when he wants or needs to. This has had an impact on his ability to socialise, or go to the gym, in the evening or at the weekend. Instead, he has to provide four more hours of support and supervision for his mother every week.
• He had to organise and pay a person (from his own money) to stay with his mother, when he goes out in the evening or at weekends.
10. According to the Council’s records, the case was allocated to a social worker in October 2018 to carry out a six months review of Mrs M’s direct payments. The social worker recorded that she first “called the Day Centre to ascertain if her care with them was going ok. I was informed that all was fine”.
11. The social worker subsequently carried out a visit to Mr C. However, there is a difference of opinion between the social worker and Mr C (and his partner) as to how this meeting progressed. The social worker said:
• She explained to Mr C and his partner why she had visited and discussed the sitting support. Mr C’s partner said Mr C uses the sitting service on days when his mother is unsettled at the day and she needs to be picked up early.
• She explained that the sitting support should not be used for that and that it is meant to give Mr C a break from his caring role.
• She explained to Mr C that he has enough of a break from his role as a carer, and therefore enough opportunities to do things, when his mother is at the day centre five days a week. Furthermore, his mother did also have three care support visits per day at the weekend.
• Mr C’s partner understood what she was explaining, but Mr C did not agree that he did not need the four hours of sitting support per week.
• Mr C said he wanted to make a complaint, became aggressive, shouted that the meeting was over, and said he wanted her to leave, which she did.
12. However, Mr C and his partner have told me that:
• They did not tell the social worker that they were using the sitting support as a ‘fall back option for the day centre’. Mr C cannot recall one day when he had to pick up his mother early from the day centre. Furthermore, the sitting support needed to be pre-arranged and could not be requested at such short notice (on the day itself).
• He told the social worker that he used it mostly at the weekend, but not exclusively.
• Mr C’s partner never said or indicated that she accepted the social worker’s view.
• Mr C did not shout or become agitated or use any threatening or abusive words or actions or do anything that could have been remotely interpreted as otherwise.
• The social worker was abrupt, condescending, and rude; not professional at all.
• His partner was not living at his mother’s property at the time.
• The social worker immediately told the homecare agency to stop the sitting service.
13. Information I requested from the day centre confirmed that, between April and October 2018, there were only two occasions when the day centre tried to contact Mrs M’s family to pick up Mrs M early because she was unwell. In the end, the family only arrived at the normal time of 5pm. This supports Mr C’s view that he did not tell the social worker he used the sitting support as a fall-back option.
14. Mr C made a complaint about the above in January 2019.
15. Following a deterioration in Mr C’s health, which affected his ability to care for his mother, the Council agreed in April 2019 to increase his mother’s care support. However, this did not include sitting support.
16. Following a hospital admission of Mrs M in July 2019, the Council carried out a six weeks care review in September 2019. It states that Mr C said the package of support was meeting his mother’s needs. The social worker offered Mr C a carers’ assessment, but he said everything was ok at the moment.
17. The Council told me that:
• The social worker said that the homecare agency who provided the sitting support, had told her that Mr C had not recently used this support. This cemented the social worker’s decision to remove this service provision. 
• The Team Manager accepts the Council should have made further attempts to contact both Mr C and his mother. The team manager accepts the Council should have carried out a full review of Mrs M’s care and support, to ensure that the views of her and her son were explicitly represented in the review process, before making a decision to remove the sitting support. 
• Adult Social Care have taken steps to ensure that this is not repeated. The Council would like to apologise for any upset or distress its approach may have caused. Adult Social Care will use the learning from this to inform work with persons and their families where a dispute over reductions in services is known.
18. The records from the care agency show that I requested showed that, between June and October 2018, Mr C was regularly using the sitting support. He used it once a week on Thursdays (and twice on a Sunday), for four hours each time.

Assessment

19. A decision to reduce support should not be made without a thorough comprehensive care review. This did not happen in this case, which is fault. The care review consisted of a rather basic telephone conversation with the day centre, followed by a visit to Mr C to discuss the sitting support. Based on the records, it is clear the Council failed to sufficiently assess Mrs M’s needs and circumstances, to come to a view whether her support needs had changed.
20. A council should not assume that an unpaid carer is willing or able to (continue to) provide any care, including additional care arising from a reduction in overall support. The Council was at fault for making a decision to take away the sitting support, without having carried out a comprehensive assessment of the carer (Mr C) and without accurately clarifying (and recording):
• What impact the decision would have on him, and
• Whether he would be ‘able and willing’ to provide any additional care (four hours a week).
21. Furthermore, if a council, as a result of a review, reduces the overall support, it should be able to provide a detailed explanation why it made this decision. The records show that important factors in the Council’s decision were that: Mr C was using the sitting service inappropriately (as a fall-back option) and that he had not been using it recently. However, both were not true.
22. It is clear that Mr C did not want to provide an additional four hours of support a week and wanted to be able to continue to leave the house, once a week, for four hours in the evening (or at the weekend). As such, the Council should have ensured that it continued to provide the support Mrs M needed during these four hours (i.e. the sitting support).
23. I found that the way through which the Council made the decision to stop the sitting support was fault. No longer having sitting support had a negative impact on Mr C. He no longer had the flexibility to use this to enable him to go out in the evening (or at the weekends), once a week. In addition, this more or less forced Mr C to provide four more hours of care each week, even though he did not want to.
24. There are two different versions of events as to how the social worker and Mr C behaved themselves during their meeting in October 2018. As such, I am unable to come to a view as to what was said, and to what extend this was appropriate.

Complaint investigation:

25. Mr C called the Council’s customer services in January 2019 to make a complaint about the above events. Mr C says the call handler told him that he would have to send his complaint to the Council by email. Following the call, Mr C read the Council’s complaints policy, which said that it is possible to make a complaint over the telephone. Mr C called customer service’s again. He told me:
• He spoke to the same call handler and asked if he could make a complaint by telephone. However, the call handler said this was not possible.
• He explained that the complaint policy said that he can, and that he wanted to proceed in that way. However, the call handler insisted that he could not do this, and her tone of voice became increasingly annoyed.
• The call handler checked the Council’s complaint policy and confirmed it referred to complaints by telephone. However, she would ‘get someone to look into whether complaints by phone was permitted later but not now’.
26. Mr C also said he told the Council that he would prefer if his complaint was not investigated by local management. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and the Council did not explain why (with reference to any specific policy).
27. The Council’s complaint response of 5 March 2019 said, amongst others, that it listened to the calls between Mr C and the call handler and discussed with the call handler where the conversation did not meet the Council’s expectations. It said the team is fully aware of all the ways how a complaint can be taken. The Council did not criticise the detail or thoroughness of the care review.
28. However, it apologised if Mr C felt the social worker was forceful in her decision about the sitting service. It also apologised if Mr C felt the social worker was taking too much time to pack her belongings and leave.
29. The Council told me that its complaints policy states that, at Stage 1, complaints should be investigated by an investigating officer within the service, normally a manager. This investigation was undertaken by a team manager with experience of dealing with complaints. The complaint response was reviewed by peer managers.
30. Mr C was unhappy with the response he received to the complaint. He said that it was not detailed enough and failed to provide a response to some of the specific issues he had raised.
31. The Council told me that it accepts that the information provided by the customer advisor was incorrect. It said the response of the customer services advisor did not meet the expected standard, for which the Council apologises. It added that it has since provided further direction to the staff member about handling complaints.

Assessment

32. There is no fault with the Council’s explanation in paragraph 29. However, it would have been good practice to have explained to Mr C why the response was from local management.
33. There was a lack of detail in the Council’s complaint response about what specific concerns were upheld. With regards to his complaint about the call handler, the Council only mentioned it had identified shortcomings, but did not explain what these were and how they linked to the complaint Mr C had made.
34. It was also not appropriate to state that “the team was fully aware of all the ways that a complaint can be taken”, when this complaints handler did not know that Mr C could make a complaint over the telephone.
35. The complaint response said the social worker acted correctly by contacting the day centre. However, that was not the issue. Mr C complained that the social worker failed to obtain a sufficient amount of detailed information about his mother, from this contact.
36. There was no fault in the social worker telling Mr C that it would be inappropriate for her to note and submit his complaint, about her behaviour, to the Council.

Agreed action

37. I recommended that, within four weeks of my decision, the Council should:
• Provide an apology to Mr C about the above faults and the impact this has had on him.
• It should pay Mr C £1,320, because he was unable to go out in the evening, once a week, since November 2018 (66 weeks). In addition, he was in affect ‘forced’ to carry out an additional four hours of support a week to his mother.
38. The Council has told me it has accepted my recommendations.

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Final decision

39. For reasons explained above, I decided to uphold Mr C’s complaint. I am satisfied with the actions the Council will carry out to remedy this and have therefore decided to complete my investigation and close the case.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman