Summary: Ms C complained about the way in which the Council carried out her son’s care review and its decision to subsequently cut his support hours from four to eight. The Ombudsman did not find fault with regards to the process through which the Council reached its decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shalll call Ms C, has made a complaint on behalf of her son, whom I shall call Mr X. Ms C complains her son is unhappy with the Council’s decision to reduce his care from 8 to 4 hours a week. Mr X says his needs have not reduced and he needs 10 hours instead.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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. 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)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

What I found

What happened

6. Mr X has a learning disability and Autism and lives in a flat on his own. He stays with his mother two days a week. Before the care review, he received a support package of eight hours a week, which he used for:
• One visit of four hours a week to go shopping with a care worker and for the care worker to cook meals for him for the whole week, which he could freeze and reheat.
• Four hours each Friday to take him to a disco / social event where he listened to music, danced etc amongst peers who experienced similar issues to him.
7. Ms C says that:
• Because of her son’s autism, it is extra important that he knows, in advance, what will happen, who will visit him, when the visit will take place and why. However, the social worker who carried out her son’s care review, failed to inform him in advance that she would come on 13 September 2019, or that the purpose of that visit would be to carry out a care review. This was wrong and failed to consider his needs as an autistic person.
• The social worker only explained the purpose of the visit at the end of the review.
• The social worker also failed to inform her (Ms C), that she would come and carry out a care review on that date. It was important for her to be informed of the review / visit because she is her son’s informal carer and can also provide support to her son during the review.
8. In response, the social worker told me that:
• She called Mr X in advance and asked him who he wanted to be present at the review. Mr X said he wanted his mother present, and he would contact her to tell her of the date and time agreed.
• The visit was actually on 29 August 2019 and was completed with Mr X and his mother present.
• She explained the purpose of her visit at the start, which was to complete his annual review.
• She gathered information from Mr X and his mother, and also spoke to the manager of the care agency.
9. His care review in 2018 already mentioned that he was independent and able to use public transport without support.
10. The records of the care review say that:
• Visit on 29 August 2019.
1. We talked about having visual prompts (for daily tasks), and Mr C thought this was a good idea. He would do a task rota for himself that he can stick on the wall.
2. His mother said he manages very well on his own and is able to go out by himself. However, he doesn't really have many friends. He will go to the local pubs and people will talk to him there. The shopping and cooking support works well.
• Spoke to the care agency manager, who said the support that he gets was working well for him. He also goes out once a week, which he really enjoys and gets him to meet his friends. He would not go on his own and would be at risk of becoming socially isolated.
• He enjoyed going out into the community and would often go to a pub where he knew people. He would go to a disco every Friday evening; he enjoys going and socialising with his peer group. The social worker spoke to Mr X about finding other venues to attend that he would feel more comfortable with. He goes out to various places on his own. However, he would not attend social groups unless another adult was with him. He finds it difficult to access facilities within the community when there is a crowd, and does not always realise social boundaries when he is talking to others
• He volunteers in a local shop. There is no need for support to access the community as he is fully able to do this himself. He has lots of associates he meets with regularly at the pub from different groups that he attends. He does not have any friends he invites home. He is independent when accessing the community and can travel on bus and train with familiar routes and to his regular activities.
• He goes to a different activity every day by bus or train, including Art class, Drop-in group, etc, and he meets a friend in town.
• Mr X was able to take part in the review with the support of his mother. I had no reason to doubt his capacity.
11. The record of the support planning meeting on 27 September 2019 said that:
• The social worker discussed the review with her manager and decided the support would be cut.
• The social worker explained that Mr X was able to attend the community and activities / groups independently. He goes out a lot on his own during the week and does not need support of another to do this. As such, the support to go to the Friday disco would stop. Mr X was disappointed with this. However, he confirmed he goes to the local pub most nights on his own, which his mother was not happy with. Ms C said she would support her son to go to the disco if he wanted to continue going there.
• Mr X said he had been ‘saving support hours’ to go on a city break with his support worker. The social worker said this indicated he was not using / needing all the eight hours he previously received.
12. The Council organised another visit on 3 December 2019, which was attended by Mr X, his mother and his care agency. The record says the purpose of this meeting was to discuss any Disability Related Expenses that Mr X may have. However, Ms C wanted to talk about Mr X needing more support hours, because she said he was very vulnerable. Ms C said that, although her son accesses the community, he was very vulnerable doing so. Mr X said he makes sure he does not drink more than four pints per week when he goes to the pub and goes there most evenings. He knows people in the pub and enjoys going there. Ms X did not want a carer assessment, because she said she did not see herself as her son’s carer.
13. Ms C told me her son can usually go into town by bus on his own. However, he would not go to the disco alone. If unaccompanied, he would not feel able to go alone because he was still terrified of one person who goes there. Ms C says her son loved the disco, which has been very important to him and his wellbeing. It was the only way for him to socialise and be around people who are ‘like him’. Going to a pub is not a suitable alternative to replace this and meet that need, because there is a completely different type of crowd there, there is alcohol etc.
14. In response, the social worker told me that the assessment showed that Mr X did not need support to meet his need to access the community and socialise. The review showed that Mr X independently attends many activities in the community. He also met up with a friend once a week for lunch in town and went to his local pub most evenings. He advised that it was important for him to go and see the locals in the pub. He enjoyed doing this and it was important to him.
15. The Council says the review has shown that Mr C has a very active social life and he advised he is out most days.
16. Ms C says the social worker told her that her son must order his food via the Internet. However, Ms C says that:
• Experience shows her son cannot use a computer effectively.
• Given a choice of food, he would end up always asking for / ordering the same meal every day.
• Her son needs to be supervised when shopping, because he has a restricted diet, based on medical advice. He needs to avoid gluten and milk protein and it would be very difficult for him to identify from food labels and online if any food contains this. He therefore needs help with shopping.
17. Ms C also says her son cannot cook. She says:
• He has no sense of timing or sequencing when carrying out a procedure, which is why he has never been able to learn how to cook. Left alone to do it, he may eat burnt or raw meat. She knows this from experience.
• It was also suggested that her son "buys an internet-controlled voice activated system" for cooking instructions. However, he does not follow verbal instructions easily and needs a lot of visual monitoring by a second party to deal with practical matters in sequence.
18. The social worker says that:
• Mr X can heat a meal in the microwave. She also discussed the possibility of ordering food online. However, it was apparent that this would be difficult for him, because of his dietary requirements. Therefore, the Council kept the four hours allocated for shopping and cooking together with Mr X so as to prepare his meals in batches for the week.
• They discussed if online technology would be useful to set reminders for Mr X to complete tasks around the home. However, Ms C felt this would not work. We also discussed having visual prompts around the home. Since then, Mr X prepared a rota, which he has displayed in his kitchen. Mr X said this is a great help for him and he has stuck to it and has been able to do tasks around his home to maintain it independently.
• Although Mr X has Autism, he is very able and independent.
19. Ms C says that four (or even eight) hours once a week is not enough. In addition to the above, she says the Council needs to add a second visit of two hours a week (to the eight hours he received before) to enable PAs to:
• Support her son with correspondence and bills
• Support her son with cooking a second batch of different food. He would otherwise eat the same meal 7 times in a row, which is not meeting his nutritional needs.
• Provide the time needed to enable PAs to do things at home “together with” her son, such as supporting him with household tasks, enable him to help with cooking, support him with cleaning, rather than the PAs doing all these things quickly themselves. This will support her son to become more independent.
20. The Council says that:
• All of Mr C’s bills are paid through direct debit.
• The hours allocated are sufficient to support Mr C with cooking more than one different type of meal
• He is able to complete his own household tasks and does so each week. He has made up a rota each day that he is able to follow and complete the household tasks himself. Care workers monitor this during visit and take appropriate action when needed.
21. Ms C says only his council tax is paid by direct debit. Gas and electricity are in her name.

Analysis

22. This is a decision for the Council to take on the merits of the case. The Ombudsman cannot substitute his judgement on what would be right, for what a council has decided. He must consider whether there was fault in the way a council reached its decision (see paragraph 3 above).
23. I found there was no fault with the way through which the Council made its decision. The Council carried out a care review that captured Mr X’s needs and involved Ms C and the care agency. The Council considered Ms C’s comments and concerns and concluded that Mr X no longer had an eligible need around accessing the community and maintaining personal relationships. While the Council recognised the disco was important to Mr X, he was able to access the community independently and was involved in a wide range of social activities. As such, his needs in this area would be sufficiently met without the disco. The Council also considered Ms C’s concerns around shopping and cooking and concluded that the four hours of support for this has worked well and will therefore continue.
24. There was also no fault with the way in which Ms C was invited to the care review meeting. Furthermore, although Ms C said the social worker failed to explain the purpose of the visit at the start of the visit, the social worker said she did. Without further evidence either way, I am unable to come to view on this point.

Back to top

Final decision

25. For reasons explained above, I found there was no fault in the Council’s actions and have therefore closed the complaint.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman