Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council delaying in delivering his replacement height-adjustable armchair, and not providing support to his wife and family prior to her having an operation. The Council’s fault regarding the delivery of the chair caused insufficient personal injustice to warrant us investigating. The support complaint is premature for us to investigate until the Council has responded to it.

The complaint

1. Mr X lives with his wife and child. They all have disabilities. Mr X requires a height‑adjustable armchair. He complains the Council:
1. delayed in delivering a new replacement armchair;
2. failed to give support to his family when his wife was about to undergo major surgery and said there would be a six-month wait for it.
2. Mr X says the family is traumatised and he has been left with an unsafe chair. He wants the Council to apologise, accept the systems failed them and pay for a carer for them as compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate 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 continue 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.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. The Council ordered Mr X a replacement chair to be delivered within a week of it first becoming aware of his need for one. The officer placing the order with its contracted supplier gave it Mr X’s old address in error, which was fault. Mr X therefore did not receive the chair on 13 September as planned. Delivery was rearranged for 15 September but the supplier firm cancelled this because their driver was ill. Mr X made his unhappiness with the service and the supplier known to the Council. Ultimately, he told the Council he no longer wanted the chair and asked for the involvement of its occupational therapist (OT) to be cancelled, and he would seek support elsewhere. Mr X had not received a new chair by the end of the Council’s complaint process. The Council’s final response advised Mr X that he remained eligible for the replacement chair and that it would arrange for its delivery by its contracted supplier.
6. We recognise that Mr X, carers and other members of his household were caused inconvenience and annoyance by the problems with the delivery of his replacement chair in mid-September. But the Council’s fault resulted in a delay of a few days. The level of personal injustice caused by that fault in the service is not sufficiently significant to warrant us investigating. The Council has sought to resolve the matter by rearranging the chair’s delivery, but Mr X has declined this. He has been without the replacement chair since September. Mr X was entitled to decide not to receive the new chair. But his not having the chair since September is not an injustice to him caused by Council fault.
7. Mr X has also complained to us that the Council failed to give support to his wife who was about to have major surgery and told him there would be a six-month wait for that support. Mr X mentioned his wife’s circumstances in emails to the Council while it was considering his complaint about the chair. He also mentions in those emails that his GP had offered support. Where someone is due to have an operation, any support required at that time is normally provided by the NHS through their GP or the hospital which will be providing the medical procedure. But the issue of such support from the Council, and the claimed delay in its provision, did not form part of Mr X’s complaint to the Council. This issue is premature so is not one we can investigate at this time. We are required to give councils appropriate opportunity to consider and respond to complaint issues before we can investigate them.
8. If Mr X considers the Council had a duty to provide support to his wife or family and failed to do so, he may raise that complaint with officers. He may wish to explain what support he was looking for which was not being provided by any existing care provision his family was receiving or was not offered by his GP. If Mr X remains dissatisfied with the outcome of the Council’s complaint process, he might then bring the matter to us, and we would deal with it as a new complaint.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is insufficient personal injustice caused by the Council’s fault regarding the delivery of the chair to warrant us investigating; and
• the additional support complaint is premature for us to investigate until such time as the Council has responded to it.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman