Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s assessment of his mental health. The Council has apologised for errors made and corrected its report. This is the outcome we would have sought had it not already been provided. There is no different outcome an Ombudsman investigation would achieve on other parts of the complaint, and not enough evidence of fault by the Council which would have changed the outcome of Mr X’s request for support, to warrant investigation. Mr X also complains about the management of his housing which is outside our jurisdiction so we cannot investigate.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives in a housing association flat with a communal entrance. He complains:
1. a Council officer wrote an inaccurate and false ‘Mental Health Needs Assessment’ of him;
2. officers failed to provide a promised updated assessment and apology;
3. the Council unlawfully shared the assessment in a database;
4. an officer failed to respond to some of his emails;
5. the Council discriminated against him on the basis of his mental health and medical history;
6. his social worker was rude to him during a home visit;
7. his housing association has failed to deal with security issues in his property.
2. Mr X says he has been suicidal. He says he has three or four collapsing blackouts per week which have been worsened by the Council’s actions. He wants the Council to provide the promised apology and amendments to the assessment, and compensation for its discrimination against 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:

• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information from Mr X, and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X says the Council wrote an inaccurate and false ‘Mental Health Needs Assessment’ of him. He says the Council then failed to provide an updated assessment and apology as it had promised. The Council has issued Mr X with the apology he sought from the social worker involved. It has issued an amended report on his mental health, with changes to the original wording which had concerned him Mr X has received the outcomes he sought from making his complaint on these points. I note Mr X is concerned the Council implies it changed the report only because he requested this. But officers have changed the parts of the report Mr X asked them to. There is no different or additional outcome an investigation would achieve for Mr X on these issues so we will not investigate them.
7. Mr X complains Council officers did not respond to some of his emails. The Council has apologised for not replying. This is the outcome we may have sought had we investigated and the Council had not already apologised. There is no different outcome investigation would provide for Mr X here so we will not investigate this part of the complaint.
8. Mr X says the Council unlawfully shared the assessment in a database. It is not clear how Mr X believes the Council broke the law in how it shared that document. But in any event, we cannot make findings on whether a council has broken the law. Only a court can decide whether someone has broken the law. We could not achieve an outcome from investigating this part of the complaint, so will not do so.
9. Mr X considers the Council discriminated against him on the basis of his mental health and medical history. The Council has accepted errors in the way it dealt and responded to Mr X. I recognise Mr X believes the Council made those errors because it was discriminating against him. But there is not enough evidence to support that view. There is not enough evidence to show the Council’s actions were based on discrimination against Mr X to justify us investigating.
10. Mr X says his social worker was rude to him during a home visit in March 2022. The Council asked the social worker about this matter and they denied being rude. If we were to investigate this issue, we could not determine which version of events at the home visit is correct. There is no additional evidence we could seek to make a finding on this incident. We will not investigate it because we could not add to the Council’s own investigation or achieve a different outcome on it.
11. I understand Mr X says the provision he wants from Social Services is ‘emotional support’, someone to call and speak to him for five minutes about once a week. Mr X says the officer who visited him in early 2022 advised the Council did not offer a welfare ‘phone call package’. After some delay and Mr X chasing the Council for a response, he says the Council told him that service is not available from the Council, closed his file, and advised him to contact other therapy services or his landlord for further support.
12. Councils will only provide a package of support where it is warranted by the person’s assessed needs. The Council asked about and considered Mr X’s circumstances and the type of support he wanted. It reached the view that the information they gathered did not meet the threshold for them to provide a service. They then suggested alternative sources for the support he had requested. We can only go behind a council’s decision where there has been fault in its decision-making which, but for that fault, a different decision would have been made. The Council has apologised for some faults including the way it communicated with Mr X or failed to, and how it initially worded its report. But those faults did not have a bearing on its decision on Mr X’s request for provision. The Council gathered relevant information about Mr X and the kind of support he wanted, to reach its decision. There is not enough evidence of Council fault in its decision-making here to justify an investigation.
13. I recognise Mr X is concerned about his security in his property because of illegal activity in the communal areas. He says his medical condition, causing him to have blackouts, has been caused by these concerns. He wants his housing association to do works to the building to make it safer. We cannot investigate this part of Mr X’s complaint because it is about the management of his property, which is outside our jurisdiction. Mr X may wish to contact the Housing Ombudsman about this issue. They would then consider if it is a matter within their jurisdiction that they should investigate.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• the Council has provided the appropriate remedy for the accepted errors; and
• there is no different outcome an Ombudsman investigation would achieve; and
• there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council which would have changed the outcome of Mr X’s request for support; and
• the complaints about his housing association’s management of the property are outside our jurisdiction and so we cannot investigate them.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman