Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to halve the complainant’s care package to four hours of support. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s decision to reduce his support worker visits to four hours. Mr X says this has affected his mental health and he is not going out as much. Mr X would like to go back to receiving 8 hours.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (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 provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X’s eligible needs used to be met in the form of 8 hours’ worth of support workers visiting him weekly to enable him to access community facilities/amenities.
7. In June 2024 this was reduced to four hours after the Council carried out an annual review and found an improvement in Mr X’s progress.

8. The Council says it found Mr X was able to access the community independently but left him with four hours support to manage his mental health and paperwork. It checked the situation with Mr X, in December 2024 and while it noted his request to go back to eight hours, it found four hours was enough to meet his needs.
9. Although Mr X is unhappy with how the Council has assessed his needs and reduced the support provision, we will not investigate this complaint as we are unlikely to find evidence of fault. The Council took its decision after trained social work staff visited Mr X and assessed his care needs and noted his progress tin comparison to the previous review. It also checked in December 2024 with Mr X how he was coping and did not find any cause for concern.
10. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether you disagree with the decision the organisation made.
11. While I appreciate Mr X disagrees with the outcome of the annual review, there is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council reached its decision to justify our involvement.
12. Mr X has also told us he believes he is entitled to a back payment from his benefits which would clear his social care charge arrears with the Council. I see the Council has advised Mr X it can review his finances via a financial assessment. It is reasonable to expect him to take this up with the Council during the financial assessment review. I do not have enough information to reach any finding on this aspect of his complaint so Mr X should take this up with the Council first in detail before we can consider.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman