Summary: Miss D complained about her contact with the Council about any adult social care support to which she may be entitled. She considered the Council did not provide the support she needed, was not clear in its explanations and did not handle her complaints properly. There was some fault by the Council but it did not cause significant injustice to Miss D.

The complaint

1. I call the complainant Miss D. She complained the Council:
• Did not appropriately respond to her safeguarding referral after suffering physical and emotional abuse from her mother. And the officers lacked compassion;
• Wrongly decided she was not eligible for support, and its communication during the assessment was confusing and unhelpful;
• Signposted her to inappropriate bodies to support her needs. This included her housing association and a drug and alcohol service;
• Misled her when it proposed to transfer her to a different social work team after initially agreeing it would not transfer her there;
• Poorly handled her complaint in that it did not support her appropriately to make the complaint as she had limited access to the internet. And it asked the wrong questions and changed her answers when taking her complaint down in meetings. She says the Council said it did not understand her complaint and did not attempt to clarify it with her.
2. Miss D said the issues caused her significant distress and worsened her mental health. And the complaint handling caused her inconvenience at having to visit the Council offices to discuss her complaint. Miss D wanted the Council to acknowledge its fault, apologise and add an addendum to its records to clarify any inaccurate notes about her in its records.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), 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 complaint and documents provided by Miss D and spoke to her. I asked the Council to comment on the complaint and provide information. I sent a draft of this statement to Miss D and the Council and considered their comments.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

7. Sections 9 and 10 of the Care Act 2014 require local authorities to carry out an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support. They must provide an assessment to all people regardless of their finances or whether the local authority thinks an individual has eligible needs. The assessment must be of the adult’s needs and how they impact on their wellbeing and the results they want to achieve. It must also involve the individual and where suitable their carer or any other person they might want involved.
8. The Council must carry out the assessment over a suitable and reasonable timescale considering the urgency of needs and any variation in those needs. Local authorities should tell the individual when their assessment will take place and keep the person informed throughout the assessment.
9. The format of the assessment can be flexible and should be appropriate and proportionate to the person. It should help the individual to understand their situation, needs, strengths and capabilities, and the support available to them in the community or through other networks and services. But the guidance requires that the Council provides in advance, and in accessible format, the list of questions to be covered in the assessment.

The Council’s policy

10. The Council’s adult social care assessment model is built on three conversations which focus on people’s strengths, and what community assets there are, helping frontline colleagues have three distinct and specific conversations:
• One: to explore peoples needs and connect them to personal, family and community support;
• Two: a client-led conversation, to assess levels of risk, plus any crisis contingencies that may be needed, and how to address them;
• Three: focuses on long-term outcomes and planning, built around what a good life looks like to the user, and how best to mobilise the resources needed (including personal budgets), and the personal and community assets available.

Summary of the key events

11. Two Council officers visited Miss D in October 2018 following contact from her about needing support. The notes of the visit show the officers concluded Miss D did not have social care needs.
12. Miss D complained about this in January 2019. Following meetings with Miss D the Council responded in May. Over the summer officers visited Miss D several times at home about her continuing requests for support and an incident involving her mother.
13. The Council sent a further response to Miss D in January 2020.
14. Miss D was unhappy with the response from the Council and complained to us.
15. In July 2020 the Council wrote to Miss D saying her only point of contact with the Council should be through the Council’s legal services section.

Analysis

Assessment of needs

16. A key part of Miss D’s complaint was that she considered there had not been a proper assessment of whether she had social care needs for which the Council should provide support. And it had not explained how it decided she did not have needs which required support.
17. The Council’s approach to carrying out social care assessments is by way of what it terms the three conversation approach. The Council has discretion as to how it should conduct assessments and the guidance is that the approach should be flexible and proportionate.
18. The Council’s responses to me on this point were not consistent. It initially said it had carried out an assessment. But it then clarified that what happened was a contact assessment where it established Miss D did not have the appearance of the need for care and support so the Council did not proceed further. There was not fault in the way the Council reached this decision and it was made clear to Miss D at the meeting. But it was not followed up in writing and that was fault.
19. However the Council’s later correspondence with Miss D did make its position clear. The Council was also clear that if Miss D’s needs change then it can carry out a further assessment.

Incident in summer 2019

20. There was an incident in summer 2019 between Miss D and her mother involving her phone. Miss D contacted the Council as she felt she was at risk from her mother.
21. The Council explained why it did not consider it needed to be involved further in this incident as Miss D was safe and not at risk. There was no fault in the action by the Council.

Transfer between teams

22. Miss D considered she had been passed between social work teams and the Council was not clear about what was happening.
23. In its complaint response in January 2020 the Council explained what had happened. Miss D was transferred to a different team because of complaints she made about the home social work team. But there would be a possibility that she would be transferred back to the original normal geographical team.
24. There was no fault by the Council here, it was trying to respond to Miss D’s concerns and explained the situation.

Signposting to other organisations

25. During its contact with Miss D officers suggested Miss D contact other organisations and also made direct contact itself. Miss D considered this was unhelpful and inappropriate.
26. As I say above there was not fault in the Council’s decision that Miss D was not eligible for social care support. What it could then do was therefore going to be limited. There was no fault in the contact the Council made or the information it gave to Miss D about this.

Limiting point of contact

27. In July 2020 the Council’s legal section wrote to Miss D saying her only point of contact with the Council should be through legal services. The letter said officers who had had contact with Miss D had faced various problems arising from her behaviour. It said that despite the involvement of different officers Miss D had made the same and repeated complaints. It concluded the Council could no longer assist her and she should make her own arrangements for assistance.
28. We would expect a council to have a policy on how it will manage contact from people who it considers are unreasonably persistent. The Council said it did not have a policy but was drawing one up. The failure to have a policy in place is fault.
29. It said that in this case given the number of complaints Miss D made about the officers she had contact with and the issues raised it was appropriate to limit her contact to one officer. If she raised any significant points they would be pursued.
30. I understand Miss D felt intimidated by being approached by the Council’s legal services section and then felt unable to have any contact with the Council. There was not fault in the decision to limit the contact but if Miss D’s needs have changed then she can contact the Council through the normal adult services contact point.

Complaint handling

31. Miss D made two complaints over the period I considered. The first in January 2019. The Council responded on 22 May. However there was considerable telephone contact with Miss D and a meeting before then. I do not consider there was any fault in how the Council handled the complaint.
32. Miss D made a further complaint in November 2019 to which the Council responded in January 2020. So there was some delay but there was no fault in the response itself.

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Final decision

33. There was some fault by the Council but it did not cause significant injustice to Miss D.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman