Summary: Although the Council did as much as it could to find respite care to help Miss X look after her disabled son, it nonetheless failed to deliver the service – for which it was at fault. Miss X was without all the support she needed, which caused her an injustice. The Council has agreed to make a symbolic payment to her which recognises this. It has also taken steps to improve its service.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Miss X, complains about the support the Council provided to her and her disabled son, whom I refer to as Mr Y.
2. In particular, Miss X says the Council failed – for a long time – to find Mr Y either respite care or a residential placement. She also says that, when it did find a placement, it caused unnecessary delays.
3. Miss X says this matter has caused her distress.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’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

6. I considered information from Miss X and the Council. Both had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

What happened

7. The Ombudsman has previously investigated a similar complaint by Miss X (22 003 925). We reached a decision in February 2023.
8. In that decision, we found that the Council’s children’s social care department had failed to deliver respite (or ‘short breaks’) care to Mr Y. Short breaks are temporary periods of care which let carers take a break from looking after disabled adults or children.
9. We also found that, although the Council had agreed to look for a residential placement for Mr Y, it had failed to find one.
10. We recommended that the Council make a symbolic payment to Miss X to recognise her injustice from the lack of short breaks. We also recommended that it proactively seek a residential placement for Mr Y.
11. In May 2023, Mr Y’s case was transferred to the Council’s adult social care department. The Council did an assessment and decided Miss X needed Mr Y to access short breaks so she could have a rest. It said there was a ‘significant risk of carer breakdown’ without support.
12. The Council told Miss X that it would find 43 nights of short breaks provision a year for Mr Y. It said it would look within its own service before trying other companies.
13. Over the following three months, the Council tried to find short breaks provision within its own service, but it was unsuccessful. The in-house provider it identified (and which Miss X preferred) felt it was unable to meet Mr Y’s needs.
14. In September, Miss X decided that, in the absence of any available short breaks provision, she wanted 10 hours a week of home care for Mr Y. She said she also wanted the Council to find a long-term residential placement for him.
15. The Council commissioned the package of home care, and it began the process of finding a residential placement.
16. Meanwhile, the Council continued looking for short breaks providers. It expanded its search to include other companies, and it contacted several. It looked for daytime provision as well as overnight.
17. Only one provider, in November, agreed to deliver support to Mr Y. This was during the day at weekends, and it started in December. But, after one session, Miss X decided she no longer wanted the service. At her request, the Council cancelled it.
18. Miss X decided she wanted to continue just with the home care package, and she asked the Council to prioritise looking for a placement for Mr Y, rather than short breaks.
19. The Council initially had little success finding a placement. However, in early February 2024, Miss X herself identified somewhere and asked the Council to look into it.
20. The Council explored Miss X’s suggestion as well as another provider. Following assessments by both providers, both – in mid-March – offered to provide residential care to Mr Y.
21. Miss X preferred the placement she had identified, and she asked the Council to arrange this immediately. But, in late March, the Council told her it had to consider both options. It said this was because, as Mr Y was over 18 and lacked capacity to make his own decisions, the Council had to make the decision in his best interests.
22. The Council told Miss X that its social worker would visit both placements, would consider the benefits of each, and would hold a meeting to discuss this later in April. Miss X was unhappy with this, and felt the process was taking too long.
23. A couple of weeks later, the Council held a ‘best interests meeting’ for Mr Y. All present (including Miss X) agreed it was in Mr Y’s bests interests to move to
    Miss X’s preferred placement.
24. In late April, the Council discussed transition arrangements with the new placement. It suggested that, as Mr Y finished school in mid-July, he should move into the placement shortly after that.
25. Mr Y moved into the new placement at the end of July.
26. As part of my investigation, the Council has provided information about improvements it has made, or is making, to its service. It says it has improved the accessibility of one of its short breaks buildings, and it is undertaking a multi-agency review of its short breaks operating arrangements.

My findings

Short breaks

27. The Council decided Miss X needed short breaks and told her it would arrange them. It should have done so within a reasonable time frame.
28. It did not do so. It took six months to arrange daytime short breaks, and it did not manage to find overnight provision at all.
29. This long delay was not because of any lack of effort on the Council’s part. It was consistently looking for support throughout the period in question, and it was repeatedly told by internal and external providers that they could not meet Mr Y’s needs.
30. Because of this, it is difficult to identify anything that, in the circumstances, the Council could have done differently.
31. However, ‘service failure’ can still happen when a council fails to provide a service as it should have done because of circumstances outside its control. We do not need to show any blame, intent, flawed procedure or bad faith by a council to say service failure has occurred.
32. In Mr Y’s case, he (and Miss X) needed a service, which it was the Council’s duty to provide. The Council does not deny this. And, despite the Council’s best efforts, it did not deliver this service. Although this was not within its control, this remains a service failure, for which it was at fault.
33. Miss X suffered an injustice from the lack of short breaks. She has consistently described a great deal of stress caused by caring for Mr Y, which the short breaks could have helped with.
34. However, the Council did go to significant efforts to arrange other forms of support (such as home care) to help Miss X out while it was looking for the short breaks provision. And, when it managed to arrange daytime short breaks, Miss X cancelled this immediately, saying she did not need it. These factors at least partly mitigate the injustice she experienced.
35. As Mr Y is now in residential care, the Council no longer needs to find suitable short breaks provision. But it should make a symbolic payment to Miss X to recognise her injustice.
36. The Council has set out the steps it has taken, and is taking, to improve its service. Time will tell whether they are effective.

Residential care

37. Although Miss X feels the Council unnecessarily delayed after a residential care provider offered accommodation to Mr Y, this was not the case. The Council acted promptly – and without fault – to consider all the options available to Mr Y. And, in any event, the proposed placement was unlikely to have started for several months while Mr Y remained in a weekly residential school.

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Agreed action

38. Within a month, the Council has agreed to make a symbolic remedy payment to Miss X of £1,000 to recognise that she was without all the respite provision she needed for a year.
39. The Council will provide us with evidence it has made this payment.

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Final decision

40. The Council was at fault for failing to provide the right support to Miss X to help her look after Mr Y.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman