Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s response to his requests for more support with his caring role and the way it dealt with his complaint about that. He says this caused him much stress. At this point, we find that the Council caused Mr X injustice in the way it dealt with him and his complaint. It has agreed to apologise, pay Mr X £150, and review its training for staff and information for people using Council services.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complained that the Council:
• Did not respond to his repeated requests for support from July 2020 until August 2021.
• Did not deal adequately with his complaint about this.
2. Mr X says the Council only responded to him when he applied for a carers one off payment, and it declined this. This triggered a reassessment of his needs in August 2021 and the Council agreed to increase his carers direct payment and backdate it to April 2021. Mr X is a carer for his wife and children and says he did not receive enough support and struggled to fulfil his caring role adequately throughout this time from July 2020. This also negatively affected his mental health. Mr X would like the Council to backdate the increase in his direct payment to July 2020 when he first asked for help. He would also like the Council’s contact process to be improved so people can receive help without unnecessary delay.

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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 consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in the decision making, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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

5. I considered information from the Complainant and from the Council.
6. I sent both parties a copy of my draft decision for comment and took account of the comments I received in response.

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What I found

Background

Carer’s Assessment

7. Where somebody provides or intends to provide care for another adult and it appears the carer may have any needs for support, the council must carry out a carer’s assessment. A carer’s assessment must seek to find out not only the carer’s needs for support, but also the sustainability of the caring role itself. This includes the practical and emotional support the carer provides to the adult.
8. As part of the carer’s assessment, the council must consider the carer’s potential future needs for support. It must also consider whether the carer is, and will continue to be, able and willing to care for the adult needing care. (Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014)

Carers’ Budgets and Respite

9. The Care Act 2014 says the council may meet the carer’s needs by providing a service directly to the adult needing care. The carer must still receive a support plan which covers their needs, and how the council will meet them. The carer’s personal budget must be an amount that enables the carer to meet their needs to continue to fulfil their caring role. It must also consider what the carer wishes to achieve in their day-to-day life. Part of the planning process should be to agree how the carer will use the personal budget to meet their needs. (Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014)

Complaints handling

10. Councils should have clear procedures for dealing with social care complaints. Regulations and guidance say they should investigate a complaint in a way which will resolve it speedily and efficiently. A single stage procedure should be enough. The Council should say in its response to the complaint:
• how it has considered the complaint; and
• what conclusions it has reached about the complaint, including any matters which may need remedial action; and
• whether the responsible body is satisfied it has taken or will take necessary action; and
• details of the complainant’s right to complain to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

(Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009).

What happened

11. Mr X lived at home with his wife, Mrs X, and their children. For seven years, he received a one off personal budget.
12. In February 2020, the Council assessed Mr X’s needs. It noted that Mr X cared for his wife and children and that he needed some time away from home and to spend time with his youngest child. The assessment noted that because of his caring duties for his wife and children, his own health had worsened. It noted a high level of risk with imminent, severe impact. This assessment found that in addition to a personal budget paid through a weekly direct payment, Mr X should have a one off personal budget of £250.
13. From July 2020, Mr X says he could not contact the Council. He says he phoned the Council to ask for support but each time he left a message and no one got back to him. Unfortunately, he has no records of these calls. Mr X feels the Council call centre system is “set up to fail” as it can take months to get through to a social worker.
14. The Council’s records show no contact from Mr X until mid January 2021 when he called to say his carer’s grant had not been paid for 2020. At the time, Mr X received a £36.25 weekly direct payment. The Council confirmed that £250 had been added to his budget in March 2020. Mr X had not realised it had been combined.
15. In February 2021, Mr X submitted an online carer assessment form and officer 1 from the Council contacted him a week later to arrange an assessment. Mr X said he was applying for a one off payment. Council records show officer 1 explained “that we don’t normally commission both financial outcomes of the assessment unless there are exceptional circumstances and that if we do, we would need to deduct this from his annual direct payment account”. Mr X had received a one off payment in 2020 so was concerned officer 1 was giving the wrong information. Officer 1 arranged for the carer’s service manager officer 2 to speak to Mr X.
16. Mr X remained unhappy after officer 2 confirmed officer 1’s explanation. Officer 2 noted that Mr X conveyed his stress with the situation and that he became “flippant”. He expressed how disappointed he felt that the Council had not been in touch with him as an informal carer to which officer 2 suggested he raise a formal complaint. Mr X did agree to an assessment. He asked for this to be face to face as he felt he would find it difficult to convey the information over the phone. Officer 2 agreed to request this.
17. The following day, officer 3 contacted Mr X to arrange a face to face assessment. Mr X expressed his ongoing concerns about the Council’s approach and the previous day’s calls. Mr X said the Council could “tear up” his application for the one off payment. He said he felt “undervalued” as a carer and said he had not received any support during the COVID-19 lockdown. Officer 3 explained the reason why an assessment was necessary. Having listened to Mr X’s concerns, officer 3 said they would not discuss Mr X’s concerns about the previous calls further. Mr X declined an assessment again and said he would complain.
18. Officer 3 discussed the case with officer 2 and noted that Mr X had not said he could not continue in his caring role. They took this as indicating there was no significant risk in the situation. They decided to cancel the reassessment as requested by Mr X, and to take no further action pending the annual review.
19. The Council also sent Mr X written information about carers assessments and direct payments. Mr X told us he is dyslexic and struggles to read and write. Towards the end of February, Mr X did telephone to complain and spoke to officer 2. He raised some issues about the carers assessment pages on the Council’s website and declined a reassessment again.
20. The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint at the end of March. It offered to arrange a conversation with someone in the carers team or the carers lead officer. The Council received no response from Mr X.
21. In July, Mr X complained again and agreed to a reassessment of his needs.
22. In early August 2021, a community support worker (CSW) spoke to Mr X and he expressed concerns about the support he had received during the COVID-19 restrictions. Mr X said he had not received letters the Council had sent with details of helplines and advice on what to do. They discussed what Mr X did with the money he received as a “leisure payment” which the CSW said was not a helpful description. They agreed to increase it from £15 to £25 with detailed costs for activities and other support such as gardening and agreed to make referrals for other support. Mr X said he was not clear about what he could spend his budget on, and the CSW explained his support plan was the guide to that and referred him to the direct payment agreement. They discussed how Mr X had used his budget when his usual activities were not available and how it was important to be transparent with expenditure. The CSW removed the personal budget page online so they could review the content which Mr X had found confusing.
23. The Council assessed Mr X’s needs and noted that his health and wellbeing was affected by his caring duties for his wife and children. It noted that since his last assessment, Mr X had to provide more support to both his wife and youngest child. Mr X said he would like more money so he could take his youngest child out and spend time with his eldest child, have time to himself and to go to the gym. The assessment found Mr X should have a weekly personal budget. The Council agreed a budget of £65.13 per week. This included money to pay for gym membership, a gardener, days out for respite and a sitting service so Mr X could run errands or spend time with his youngest child.
24. The Council paid the backdated amount to Mr X’s budget, but he says it paid more than it had agreed. Mr X alerted the Council, and it took back the money but gave no breakdown and he could not understand how it had calculated the amount. Mr X is frustrated that the Council reacted immediately when it had overpaid him but took a long time to respond on other occasions. The Council wrote to Mr X with information about carers assessments and who to contact for further information. The letter explained the process including the following comments:
• “If a carer is eligible for support staff are encouraged to use the support sequence to creatively and efficiently meet the identified unmet carers needs”.
• “An indicative personal budget is determined by using our Resource Allocation System/Tool (RAS/RAT) . This indicative budget is a guide to the amount of budget that may be available to meet carers needs, this is an only an indication, and other solutions will be explored before using this budget.”.
25. The Council says it did not know Mr X was dyslexic and had difficulties with communication; this was not noted in his assessment or in other records. It said had it been aware of this, it would have communicated with him differently. It has now added this information to its records.

Was there fault which caused injustice?

26. There is no evidence to support Mr X’s position that he telephoned the Council many times to ask for more support and got no response. It was difficult time with the COVID-19 restrictions, and, on the balance of probability, the Council was not responding as it might normally. However, without evidence of the degree to which this happened to Mr X, I cannot say this was fault. The Council does have a record of contact in January 2021 which was before Mr X submitted the online application for a one off payment. However, this was a query about his 2020 carer’s grant, not a request for more support. I cannot therefore agree that Mr X’s increased personal budget should be backdated beyond April 2021.
27. When the Council did receive the application from Mr X, it did respond promptly and offered an assessment. The Council did provide the correct information to him over the telephone and sent him written information. Mr X has difficulty with written information so was dependent on the verbal explanations he received from Officers 1, 2 and 3. Officer 1’s explanation was complicated and unclear according to their record. However, I have concluded, on the balance of probability, Mr X is likely to have understood that he could not have a one off payment and weekly budget. This is because he said in 2020, he had received a carer’s grant as well as a weekly payment and he felt the information they gave could not be correct for this reason. Mr X did not help matters by declining an assessment without which the Council was not obliged to agree any more support.
28. Mr Y was experiencing much stress and anxiety and it is not surprising he felt overwhelmed and did not fully understand. The Council had information about Mr X’s circumstances and knew it was likely to have worsened and his needs therefore increased. Yet all Mr X heard was that he could not have as much money as he had the previous year. I appreciate that this was not what the Council was telling him, but this is what he heard. Although Mr X did not say he could not continue caring for his wife and children, it was clear he was struggling.
29. The Council’s response to Mr X’s complaint simply presented the reassessment and backdated payment as the response to his complaint. It did not look at what had gone wrong or consider whether there was any other action needed. This was fault and left Mr X with more stress, anxiety and frustration. It should have considered the complaint before deciding what was an appropriate remedy. However, the backdated payment did remedy much of the injustice. This was appropriate action to take and remedied much of the injustice it caused. I have recommended actions to remedy any injustice to Mr X that remains outstanding.

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Agreed action

30. To remedy the injustice caused, I recommended the Council:
• Apologise to Mr X by phone.
• Pay Mr X £150 for the stress and anxiety it caused.
• In light of the information the Council now has about Mr X’s communication needs, it should ensure he has clear written information to reference.
• Ensure relevant staff are adequately trained in explaining policies and procedures in easy to understand language. This should include dealing with people under significant stress and who are at risk of disengaging without any support they might need.
• Review the Council’s written information about personal budgets and direct payments to ensure that it provides easily understood information.
• Review the complaint handling in this case and ensure learning informs future practice.
• Complete the first three actions within one month, and the remainder within three months of my final decision. Also, provide evidence to me by these deadlines. Suitable evidence would be confirmation and record of the phone call(s) apologising and making sure Mr X is clear about the process. Also, confirmation of the payment and an action plan showing progress with the remaining actions.

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Final decision

31. I have completed my investigation and uphold Mr X’s complaint. There was fault by the Council which caused injustice to Mr X. I am satisfied the action the Council will take is sufficient to remedy his injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman