Summary: Ms X complained the Council was incorrectly taking into account the cost of her adult son’s residential college placement in the way it calculated his contribution to his care charges. We have ended our investigation. Mr Y’s financial contribution is calculated as zero, so the injustice is not significant enough to warrant any further investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council was taking into account part of the cost of her adult son, Mr Y’s, educational placement when carrying out a means tested financial assessment of his contribution to his care costs. This meant Mr Y incurred a charge and it caused them unnecessary distress and worry.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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

3. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Council.
4. I gave Ms X and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The relevant law and guidance

5. A child or young person with special educational needs may have an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan. This document sets out the child or young person’s needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them.
6. Sections 9 and 10 of the Care Act 2014 require councils to carry out an assessment for any adult with an appearance of need for care and support. The assessment must be of the adult’s needs and how they impact on their wellbeing and the results they want to achieve.
7. Where a council arranges care and support to meet an adult’s needs it may charge the adult. How it charges is different depending on whether someone is in a care home, their own home or another setting. Where it decides to charge, the council must follow the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and have regard to the Care Act statutory guidance. (Care Act 2014, section 14 and 17).
8. Where a council has decided to charge for care, it must carry out a financial assessment to decide what a person can afford to pay. Councils can take disability-related benefit into account when calculating how much someone should pay towards the cost of their care. For non-residential or temporary stays, a council should make an assessment to allow the person to keep enough benefit to pay for necessary disability-related expenditure (DRE) to meet any needs it is not meeting.

What happened

9. Mr Y is a young adult who attends a residential educational placement which is named in his EHC Plan. Mr Y also received some social care support during non-term time.
10. The Council carried out a financial assessment to calculate Mr Y’s contribution to his care charges. In doing so it treated Mr Y’s residential placement as permanent and took into account part of the cost of the educational placement. Ms X complained to the Council that the educational placement should not be considered in the financial assessment.
11. In its complaint response the Council did not accept it was at fault for including the placement cost in the assessment. However, it said it had wrongly classed the educational placement as permanent. It said it had amended this and would therefore take Mr Y’s DRE into account in the financial assessment.
12. The Council reassessed Mr Y’s financial contribution in October 2024. Taking into account his DRE, it calculated his contribution as nil.

Analysis

13. Following Ms X’s complaint, the Council recalculated Mr Y’s contribution to his care costs as nil. Our primary purpose in investigating complaints is to remedy injustice caused by council fault. If we find fault, causing an injustice we make recommendations to try to put someone back in the position they would have been if not for the fault.
14. As the Council has recalculated Mr Y’s contribution to his care costs as nil, the injustice to Mr Y is not significant enough to warrant any further investigation of this complaint. I have therefore ended the investigation.

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Decision

15. I have ended the investigation as the injustice is not significant enough to warrant any further investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman