Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision not to disregard a property in the financial assessment of adult social care charges. This is because there is not a significant enough injustice to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr D says the Council has failed to properly consider the discretionary disregard of property in the financial assessment for adult social care costs for his relative, Mr E. Mr D has spent time and trouble trying to sort this out. Mr D wants the Ombudsman to tell the Council it must disregard the property.

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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 injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We previously investigated a complaint from Mr D and asked the Council to re-make the decision whether to disregard Mr E’s property from his financial assessment, having proper consideration to its discretion. The Council has now completed that, and decided not to disregard the property, Mr D disagrees with this decision.
6. The Ombudsman cannot make the Council’s decisions for it, so we cannot achieve the outcome Mr D wants as we cannot tell the Council it must disregard the property or exercise its discretion differently.
7. We do not investigate all complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
8. Although Mr D has had some time and trouble, this is not a significant enough injustice to justify an Ombudsman investigation. The Council has assessed Mr E can pay toward his care costs from his income, irrespective of the property, so there is no significant injustice to Mr E. If Mr E’s circumstances change the Council will assess again. The Ombudsman would not expect the Council to make an ‘in principle’ decision in anticipation of any future change.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr D’s complaint because there is not enough injustice to justify our involvement. It is unlikely investigation would lead to a different outcome, and we cannot achieve the outcome Mr D wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman