Summary: We have discontinued our investigation of this complaint, concerning the assessment of and decisions about the complainant’s care needs. This is because we consider the investigation carried out by the local NHS Trust, acting on the Council’s behalf, has properly addressed the complaint, so that further investigation by the Ombudsman would not be proportionate.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Mr D.
2. Mr D complains about the way social workers have handled the assessment of his care needs, and the decisions made about the support package he should receive. He alleges they have failed to properly consider his needs, have been dishonest about the process they have followed in assessing him and submitting the assessment for consideration by the Council, and have made racist comments about him.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I reviewed the full set of complaints correspondence between Mr D, his carers, his advocate, and the NHS Trust acting on the Council’s behalf.
5. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

6. Under the National Health Services Act 2006, the Council has delegated some of its adult social care duties to a local NHS Trust. The Council retains legal responsibility for these duties, and for this reason they remain in the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction, but in this case, it is the NHS Trust which has directly provided the services about which Mr D complains. This includes addressing his complaint.
7. Therefore, although I will refer to ‘the Trust’ here, it is the Council which bears responsibility for these matters.
8. Mr D submitted his complaint to the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) in May 2021. In April 2022, the PHSO referred the complaint to the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) as being potentially a matter for joint investigation. After considering this, we determined there were some points of Mr D's complaint (relating to Council duties) which fell into our jurisdiction, but that we would consider these separately.
9. This decision statement therefore stands only for the points of Mr D’s complaint which involve the Council’s duties.
10. Mr D has mental health problems and is under the care of the local NHS mental health trust. His condition is such that he has social care needs.
11. In June 2020, Mr D submitted a complaint to the Trust, which covered both delegated social care and health matters. His social care complaint included that social workers had mishandled his care needs assessment and been dishonest with him about this, meaning he was not receiving the care he needed. He also made various accusations that Trust staff were racist or had otherwise acted inappropriately.
12. The Trust investigated this and provided Mr D with a detailed response in October. This Trust agreed there had been an unreasonable delay in submitted Mr D’s care needs assessment to the Council panel for consideration, which had taken nearly a year, but did not uphold any other significant points of complaint.
13. After further correspondence from Mr D, and supporting letters from his carers, the Trust allocated his complaint to an investigator. The investigator re-examined all his detailed points of complaint and interviewed six members of staff involved in the matter. She then finalised her report in December, upholding or finding she could not definitely draw conclusions on some minor points of complaint, but largely not upholding it.
14. In March 2021, the Trust then wrote to Mr D again to clarify some further points.

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Analysis

15. Although I understand Mr D is dissatisfied with the Trust’s response to his complaint, I do not consider the Ombudsman should investigate further here.
16. The Ombudsman’s role is, fundamentally, to review how councils (or bodies acting on their behalf) have made their decisions. We may criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant information, or not properly explained a decision. However, we are not an appeal body. We do not make decision on councils’ behalf, and we cannot criticise a council decision just because somebody disagrees with it.
17. And, as a publicly-funded body, we must be careful to use our resources responsibly. This means, amongst other things, that we will not investigate a complaint where we consider the council’s own investigation was satisfactory.
18. That applies in this case. Mr D has raised many different points of complaint, but the Trust has investigated them properly and provided logical, well-reasoned responses to each point. The second stage investigation was particularly thorough and included interviews with all relevant members of staff, and the Trust followed this up further with an itemised response to a list of questions Mr D had submitted.
19. As I have said, I appreciate Mr D does not agree the Trust has properly answered his complaint. However, any investigation by the Ombudsman would simply re-tread the ground already covered, several times, by the Trust. There is no reason at all to believe we would find different evidence, draw different conclusions, or produce a different result. Under such circumstances, it would not appropriate or proportionate to carry out yet another stage of investigation at public expense.
20. I will therefore discontinue my investigation here.

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Final decision

21. I have discontinued my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman