Summary: Miss X complained about how the Council assessed her social care needs. We find the Council was not at fault.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about how the Council assessed her social care needs. She said the assessments have focussed on the fact she is a single mother rather than considering her disabilities and how these impact on her ability to care for her child.
2. As a result, Miss X said the support she receives is not adequate and is not meeting her needs as a single mother with disabilities.

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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 cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. I have exercised my discretion to investigate from January 2019 because Miss X did not have support of her advocate Mr D at that point, and he was subsequently delayed in bringing the complaint to the Ombudsman because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
6. 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

7. I have considered a complaint form from Miss X’s advocate, Mr D. I have asked the Council to comment on the complaint and considered its response together with Miss X’s assessments.
8. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

9. Councils must assess anybody in their area who appears in need of care services. Following an assessment, the Council must decide which needs are eligible for their support. If the Council provides support it must produce a written Care Plan.
10. The Care and Support Statutory Guidance says councils must consider three issues when deciding if someone has eligible needs:
• are the adult’s needs due to a physical or mental impairment?
• are the effects of the adult’s needs such that the adult cannot achieve two or more specified outcomes, including eating and drinking, maintaining personal hygiene, toileting, preparing meals and maintaining their home?
• if the adult cannot complete two or more basic care outcomes, does this impact on the adult’s wellbeing in a significant way?
11. Being unable to achieve one of the basic care activities includes where the adult:
• cannot achieve the outcome without help;
• can achieve the outcome without help but doing so causes the adult significant pain, distress or anxiety; or
• can achieve the outcome without help but takes significantly longer than would normally be expected.
12. Councils must arrange an advocate if the person would have difficulty in being fully involved in the assessment of care needs and there is no suitable individual available to support and represent the person’s wishes.

Background

13. Miss X suffers from complex physical and mental health needs that affect how she can care for herself. The Council historically provided Miss X support as it had assessed her as having eligible needs.

What happened

14. Miss X cancelled her package of support in December 2018. Following that, the Council completed an assessment of Miss X’s care needs in January 2019. The assessment said that since cancelling the support package, Miss X had managed independently with her partner’s help. Further, the assessor thought Miss X had improved considerably in the past year. The Council concluded Miss X did not have any eligible care needs. The assessment acknowledged that Miss X experienced anxiety and it referred her to the mental health team for this.
15. The Council said Miss X contacted the Council again in February 2019 saying her support needs had changed. The Council offered an assessment from its reablement team which it said Miss X turned down. Miss X contacted the Council for a further assessment of her care needs in May 2019. The Council said it offered to arrange an assessment but as her advocate Mr D was not available, Miss X asked the Council to delay the assessment.
16. The Council visited Miss X in July 2019 and completed a further assessment of her care needs. The assessment noted Miss X lived with her partner during the week. It said Miss X got support from a domestic abuse charity, but that Miss X did not feel she was currently at any risk from her partner.
17. In that assessment, Miss X explained she had struggled since her support stopped the previous year and she wished to rely less on her partner as this affected her mental wellbeing. The Council identified Miss X had an eligible need around personal hygiene and washing her hair. The Council suggested Miss X visit a community hairdresser to help with washing her hair every week.
18. Miss X asked for support with meal preparation. The Council did not assess this as an eligible need. It recorded Miss X as previously reporting that she would choose not to eat or prepare meals for herself. It said Miss X reported she generally cooked more in summer; but did not like cooking in winter. It noted her partner did most of the cooking. The Council suggested ongoing support from Miss X’s partner for managing nutrition or to consider buying ready-prepared items such as vegetables and ready meals.
19. In October 2019, after Miss X gave birth, the hospital contacted the Council with concerns about domestic abuse between Miss X and her partner. The Council completed a Children and Family Assessment. In that, Miss X said that after her child was born, she asked her partner not to visit but she was sometimes forced to ask for his support. Miss X could not drive so relied on her partner for much of her travel. The assessment said Miss X depended a lot on her partner for support which may lead to further pressure and domestic abuse.
20. The Council completed a new care needs assessment in November 2019. Miss X explained she believed the previous assessment was incorrect and she had not managed well independently. She also said she wanted to be self-sufficient which meant living at her own property with a care package in place. The assessment outlined Miss X’s complex health needs and emphasised that Miss X could parent if she had support to meet her own needs. This assessment concluded Miss X had several eligible needs and needed support with batch cooking, personal care twice a week and laundry. The support plan initially provided five hours weekly support, however the Council reduced that after Miss X contacted it and said she did not need support with personal care.
21. In January 2020, the Council completed a further care needs assessment. By this time, Miss X no longer received help from her partner. The assessment said Miss X wanted to keep support for cooking, cleaning and laundry. However, the assessment noted Miss X had not used the cooking support consistently so proposed to reduce this by 30 minutes. The assessment acknowledged Miss X was spending more time doing laundry for her son and agreed to discuss this with Children’s Services to see if more support was available. Following this assessment, the Council reduced Miss X’s support to 3 hours 30 minutes weekly.
22. Mr D wrote to the Council raising multiple concerns about how the Council had assessed Miss X’s needs and its reduction in her care package. He said the assessment ending her support in January 2019 was flawed. He said the assessments focussed on Miss X’s ability to cope as a single mother rather than the support she needed because of her disabilities. The Council responded the same month. It said Miss X had cancelled her care package around Christmas the previous year and had cancelled care visits in the past as she did not require the full hours. The Council said it was not aware of the domestic abuse issues between Miss X and her partner. It confirmed it had allocated a new social worker to review Miss X’s needs.
23. In February 2020, Children’s Social Care put in place a plan to address concerns around domestic abuse. That included referring Miss X to mother and baby groups to encourage her to make friendships and avoid isolation. The same month, the Council completed a further care needs assessment for Miss X. The assessment noted Miss X continued to need support with cooking, laundry and maintaining her home. The Council increased her support to 4 hours 45 minutes.
24. In March Mr D asked the Council to treat his email from January as a formal complaint. The Council responded the following month. It addressed all the points raised. It did not uphold the complaints. It said the Council had not assessed Miss X as having eligible adult social care needs in the two assessments it had completed in January and August 2019. It said following a reassessment in November 2019 the Council had provided support. It had completed further reviews in November and December following changes in Miss X’s needs. It confirmed Miss X had received additional support from Children’s Services.
25. The Council completed a further review of Miss X’s care needs in September 2020. Miss X said her physical health was affected by the weather and she was less able to perform tasks when it was cold. Miss X also said she needed an increase in help with laundry and cleaning as her son was frequently unwell. That assessment noted Miss X was no-longer receiving help from Children’s Social Care. The Council increased Miss X’s weekly support to six hours 15 minutes.
26. In September 2020 Mr D complained to the Ombudsman on Miss X’s behalf.
27. The Council reviewed the support provided to Miss X in October 2020. She said she still needed additional support. In response to enquiries the Council confirmed it increased Miss X’s weekly support by three hours following this review.

My findings

28. The care needs assessment should identify a person’s eligible needs and determine the necessary support to meet those needs. The Ombudsman cannot question the outcome of a needs assessment that has not been affected by an administrative fault. Nor can we substitute our own opinion for professional judgement.
29. Miss X said the Council’s decision to not provide support following its assessment of her in January 2019 resulted in her being reliant on her abusive partner. The Council decided Miss X did not have eligible care needs and was managing independently based on information provided by Miss X and the fact she had cancelled her care package in December 2018. I have seen no fault in how the Council made that decision.
30. Miss X asked the Council for support in February 2019. It offered a reablement assessment which Miss X declined. Given it had carried out a care needs assessment in January that was an appropriate response to further assess Miss X’s needs. The Council was not at fault.
31. The Council offered to complete an assessment in May 2019 and met with Miss X in July 2019. The Council’s August 2019 assessment only identified Miss X having an eligible need in one area. As Miss X did not have needs in two or more areas, she did not meet the threshold for services. Therefore, the Council did not need to provide support through a care plan. Although it recorded Miss X was getting support from her partner with food preparation, it did not assess this as an eligible need. Although Miss X disagrees with this assessment, I have seen no fault in how the Council reached that decision.
32. From November 2019, (after Miss X became a parent) the Council assessed Miss X as having eligible needs and put support in place. The Council has decreased and increased the support hours between November 2019 and October 2020 to reflect Miss X’s fluctuating needs. Miss X disagrees with the Council’s assessment of the support she needs. However, this is not a matter for the Ombudsman to decide, provided there is no fault in how the assessments were completed. I have reviewed the Council’s assessments and am satisfied there was no fault in how the Council assessed Miss X’s needs and provided support to meet those needs. The Council is not at fault.
33. I have not seen any evidence to support Miss X’s view that the assessments focussed on the impact of her being a single mother as opposed to the impact of her disabilities. The assessments outlined Miss X’s complex health conditions and how these impacted on her ability to care for herself. The content of the assessments reflected her changing needs and circumstances. The Council was not at fault.

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Final decision

34. The Council was not at fault in how it assessed Miss X’s care needs therefore I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman