Summary: Ms B has complained about the way the Council has assessed her son X’s contributions to his care and support package. There were some errors in the way the Council considered the assessments, but it has already taken appropriate action to remedy any injustice to X.

The complaint

1. Ms B complains that:
• The Council has been inconsistent in the way it has assessed her son X’s contributions to his care and support package.
• The Council has not properly considered the allowances for G’s disability-related expenditure - as a result he has to spend some of his minimum guaranteed income on items which should be disregarded.
• Trying to deal with these matters has caused Ms B considerable stress and anxiety.

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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. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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

4. I have considered Ms B’s written complaint and supporting papers and discussed her complaint with her. I have made enquiries of the Council and considered its response. I have had regard to the statutory guidance and the Council’s policies. I have also sent Ms B and the Council a draft decision and considered their comments.

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What I found

Legal and administrative background

Charging for social care services: the power to charge

5. A council has a duty to arrange care and support for those with eligible needs, and a power to meet both eligible and non-eligible needs in settings other than care homes. A council has discretion to charge for non-residential care following a person’s needs assessment.

Financial assessment

6. Where a council has decided to charge, it must follow the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and have regard to the Care Act 2014 statutory guidance. It must conduct a financial assessment to decide what a person can afford to pay. It must then give the person a written record of the completed assessment. A council must not charge more than the costs it incurs to meet a person’s assessed eligible needs.

Minimum Income Guarantee

7. People receiving care and support other than in a care home need to retain some income to cover their living costs. After charging, a person’s income must not reduce below the minimum income guarantee (MIG) - a weekly amount set by the government. A council can allow people to keep more than the MIG.

Disability Related Expenditure

8. Where a council takes disability-related benefit into account, it should allow a person to keep enough benefit to pay for necessary disability-related expenditure (DRE) to meet any needs the council is not meeting. The statutory guidance says any reasonable additional costs directly related to a person's disability should be included, and should not be limited to what is necessary for care and support.

What happened

9. Ms B’s adult son, X, has development disabilities, including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyspraxia and Dyscalculia. He moved into his present home in social housing in April 2018.
10. The Council assessed his needs and agreed a care package, comprising four hours a week of paid support with domestic tasks. His mother supports him with other tasks including managing his benefits and paperwork.
11. The Council has undertaken a series of financial assessments to determine the contributions that X should pay towards the cost of his care package. It has taken into account his capital and income, and deducted the MIG, together with allowances for DRE which the Council considers appropriate.
12. The Council assessed X’s contributions for 2018/19 as £2.68 per week. The following year – 2019/20, it assessed X’s contributions as £0.00, £2.68, £71.88, £6.03, and again £0.00 per week, based on adjustments to his income and DRE. X accrued a deficit on his account but the Council cancelled this when by adding a credit to the account to reflect the decrease in assessed charge.
13. As X would reach the age of 25 in summer 2020, his care would then be transferred from the Council’s Transition Team to the Adult Social Care Team. Ahead of this transfer, a social worker visited Ms B and assessed X’s needs in February 2020. The written assessment was briefer than earlier assessments, but no changes were made to X’s care plan. However, the Council then started charging X £67.20 per week.
14. In April 2020, the financial assessment team wrote to Ms B and explained that X’s assessed charge would increase to £124.07. This reflected the removal of most of the agree DRE allowances, leaving just the Council’s standard DRE allowance of £20.00 per week.
15. Ms B complained that the Council had stopped DRE allowances it had previously agreed. She explained X’s needs and the costs he incurred. The Council said the Adult Social Care Team would need to approve any DRE and asked Ms B for evidence in order to get the team’s approval. It responded to Ms B’s complaint in June 2020 and advised her to continue to engage with the Financial Assessment Team so it could review the financial assessment.
16. In February 2021, Ms B provided copies of requested documentation and details of the payments which she considered should be regarded as DRE.
17. The Council reviewed the financial assessment, agreed several items of DRE and reassessed X’s contribution down to £32.52 from December 2019 and to £34.02 from April 2020. As X could not afford to repay the charges already accrued, the Council agreed, as a goodwill gesture, to write off the £1,931.27 balance accrued.
18. Ms B then complained to the Ombudsman. The Council has provided a breakdown of the charges and payments received as of 29 November 2021.

Why were there repeated changes in the assessed charges?

19. Ms B found the assessment process unclear and confusing with numerous changes to the assessed contributions.
20. The Council has explained that officers carried out assessments and reviews due to changes in X’s income and where his needs were being met. Each time, it reviewed the assessments in full. These reviews sometimes highlighted an error in the previous assessment.
21. The changes in assessed contributions may have been confusing and the fault in some of the assessments caused Ms B unnecessary stress. But the Council was entitled to reassess X’s contributions based on the information available to it. It was also entitled to seek supporting evidence of DRE and reduce the allowance to the standard rate while it awaited that evidence.
22. The Council:
• has now corrected the contributions due and payments made over the period;
• did not take action to recover unpaid contributions; and
• has written off £1,931.27 in charges as a goodwill gesture.
23. Given the above, I see no grounds to seek a further remedy for the stress caused.

Has the Council properly considered X’s allowances for DRE?

24. Ms B has complained that the Council did not agree all the requested allowances for DRE. In particular it reduced X’s allowances for his car and mobile phone.

Transport

25. Ms B has provided a figure of £66.62 per week for the cost of leasing the car, service plan and insurance plus £10.00 per week for petrol. She later advised that X’s transport costs exceeded those submitted. She says she has looked around but cannot find any cheaper leases.
26. The Council first agreed a transport allowance of £48.27 per week. It increased this to £90.00 plus £10.00 petrol allowance from July 2019. In December 2019, it reduced the transport allowance to £43.02 and removed the petrol allowance. In April 2020, it applied its standard DRE allowance of £20.00 when requesting supporting information from Ms B. It then restored the transport allowance of £43.02 in February 2021 on receipt of the requested evidence.
27. The Council says its decision to increase the allowance to £90 per week was wrong. It says it had allowed this sum, which covered all the claimed costs for X’s car, but it did not have evidence of those costs.
28. The Council recognised that X would find it challenging to use public transport, so it agreed the claimed £66.62. It then deducted X’s £23.60 Personal Independence Payment for mobility to give a transport allowance of £43.02. It decided not to allow for petrol, as most people would incur some transport costs, irrespective of disability.
29. In response to Ms B’s suggestion that X’s actual costs were higher than claimed, the Council declined to allow the full costs as it considers that an alternative would be available at lower cost.

Mobile phone

30. Ms B says that X needs a brand of phone with a specific operating system. She says he has used this brand for 11 years, is familiar with it and uses it to play his music streaming service which helps to calm him. She therefore considers the specific brand of phone a disability-related need. She says she cannot find a phone with a reasonable data allowance for the £10.00 a month allowed.
31. The Council originally agreed a phone allowance of £10.62 per week. It removed it in July 2019, and then awarded a weekly allowance of £2.31 in December 2019. In April 2020, it removed the allowance and applied its standard DRE allowance of £20.00 while requesting supporting information from Ms B. On receipt of the requested evidence, it restored the £2.31 phone allowance in February 2021.
32. The Council says that most people of X’s age would have a mobile phone and so would incur such costs. It would not generally provide a mobile phone allowance unless there was a specific disability-related need. In the Council’s view, X’s preference for the specific brand / operating system is more a preference than a disability-related need.
33. That said, the Council accepts that X needs a contract phone. It notes that there are contract phones available at around £10.00 per month. For this reason, it has allowed what it considers the reasonable cost of a contract.
34. The Council has, however, noted that it gave Ms B misleading information in an April 2020 email about the amount it might allow. It says the correct position is that depending on need and/or disability and individual circumstances, it may allow up to £20 per month as DRE. As a goodwill gesture, it agreed to review X’s previous assessments to include £20 per month retrospectively, and to credit his account.

Conclusion

35. When determining allowances for DRE, the guidance says that the Council should allow any reasonable additional costs directly related to a person’s disability. So:
• it is for the Council to decide what is a reasonable expense; and
• the Council may decide how much of any claimed expenses relates to a person’s disability and whether all or part of the claimed expenses might also be incurred by a person without a disability.
36. As regards the cost of X’s mobile phone, the Council has considered the information Ms B provided. It has allowed an amount which it considers a necessary disability-related expense, as opposed to an expense that anyone might incur. I see no fault in the way the Council has considered this matter, so I cannot question its decision. I consider the reimbursement of a £20 allowance of is a suitable remedy for the misleading information provided.
37. As to the transport allowance, the Council has allowed the full amount that Ms B claimed for the cost of leasing, servicing and insuring X’s car. It has not allowed for further costs, as it considers that there are cheaper leases available. Having checked leases on the internet, the Council’s position here seems reasonable. I see no fault here.

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Final decision

38. I have closed my investigation because I consider that the Council has already taken suitable action to remedy any injustice caused to X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman