Summary: We have found fault in the Council’s actions. The Council delayed re-assessing Mr B’s needs for care and support. As a result, there was a delay in Mr B receiving the support he needed. The Council has agreed to apologise to Mr B, pay a financial remedy and carry out a service improvement.

The complaint

1. Mr B says that:
• He asked for a review assessment of his needs for care and support in October 2024 but the Council delayed the review and did not carry it out until a year later.
• The Council told him in March 2025 that he was receiving support via an app, even though he had informed the Council in June 2023 that the app was not meeting his needs and that he had stopped using it.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have spoken to Mr B. I have considered the evidence he and the Council have sent and the relevant law, policy and guidance.
5. Mr B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Law, guidance and policies

6. The Care Act 2014 and the Care and Support Statutory Guidance 2014 (CASS Guidance) set out the Council’s duties towards adults who require care and support.

Assessment of needs, care plan and personal budget

7. The Council has a duty to assess adults who have a need for care and support. If the needs assessment identifies eligible needs, the Council will provide a care plan which outlines what services are required to meet the needs and a personal budget which sets out the costs to meet the needs.

Financial assessment

8. Councils must carry out a financial assessment if they decide to charge for the care and support. This will assess the person’s capital and income.
9. Generally speaking, if a person has capital over £23,250, they will have to fund their own care. Regardless of capital, residents may also have to pay a contribution from their income towards the fees.

Eligibility for care and support

10. The threshold for eligibility is based on identifying how a person’s needs affect their ability to achieve relevant outcomes, and how this impacts on their wellbeing. Council must consider whether:
• The adult’s needs arise from a physical or mental impairment or illness.
• As a result of the adult’s needs the adult is unable to achieve 2 or more of the specified outcomes.
• As a consequence of being unable to achieve these outcomes there is a significant impact on the adult’s wellbeing.

Outcomes

11. The outcomes are:
• Managing and maintaining nutrition
• Maintaining personal hygiene
• Managing toilet needs
• Being appropriately clothed
• Being able to make use of the home safely
• Maintaining a habitable home environment
• Developing and maintaining family or other personal relationships
• Accessing and engaging in work, training, education or
• Making use of necessary facilities or services in the local community
• Carrying out caring responsibilities for a child.

Assessment of needs

12. Eligibility determinations must be made on the basis of an assessment, and cannot be made without having first carried out an assessment.
13. The financial assessment may in practice run parallel to the needs assessment, but it must never influence an assessment of needs. Local authorities must inform individuals that a financial assessment will determine whether or not they pay towards their care and support, but this must have no bearing on the assessment process itself.
14. Section 27 of the Care Act 2014 says councils should keep care and support plans under review. The CASS Guidance says councils should review plans at least every 12 months. They should carry out reviews as quickly as is reasonably practicable in a timely manner proportionate to the needs to be met. Councils must also conduct a review if an adult or a person acting on the adult’s behalf makes a reasonable request for one.

What happened

15. Mr B is an adult man who has neuro-divergent and mental health conditions. The Council assessed Mr B’s needs for care and support in October 2023 and concluded that Mr B had eligible needs under the Care Act and his indicative personal budget was £295.
16. The social worker emailed Mr B on 2 October 2023 and said the proposed care plan was that Mr B would receive 2 hours support per week from a personal assistant. The social worker explained that this proposal had not been approved yet and she would have to apply for approval for the funding of this proposed plan. The Council would also carry out a financial assessment of Mr B to decide what his assessed charge would be.
17. The Council assessed Mr B’s finances on 16 October 2023 and noted that he owned capital over £23,250 so he was not eligible for Council funding.
18. The Council completed a care plan dated November 2023, but this was a cut and paste care plan from a previous care plan from 2022, when Mr B was offered the use of an app to meet his needs. Mr B stopped using the app in June 2023 as he said it did not meet his needs. It is my understanding that Mr B’s subscription to the app was therefore cancelled. The care plan of November 2023 referred to the use of the app throughout the care plan and did not mention a personal assistant. The personal budget in the November 2023 care plan was updated to £295 although it did not say what this related to.
19. Mr B contacted the Council a year later, in October 2024, asking for a review of his needs as a year had passed since his last assessment and as his circumstances had changed. Mr B sent in a self-assessment form which explained the change in his circumstances.
20. The Council emailed Mr B in December 2024 stating that it was aware of his request for a reassessment but not could provide a time frame for his request.
21. Mr B contacted the Council on 26 March 2025 and said his circumstances had changed as his capital was now less than £23,250 so he was eligible for Council funded care.
22. The duty social worker spoke to Mr B on the following day. The case note for the conversation stated: ‘Looked at his current package of care, gets £23.49 per week through tech support, app’. Mr B told the social worker that he was not using the app anymore. Mr B said he wanted the review to be carried out as soon as possible and for a direct payment to be set up.
23. Mr B emailed the Council on 14 April 2025 chasing the review. The Council responded on the same day and said his case was on a waiting list and would be allocated. The Council did not provide a timescale.
24. Mr B emailed the Council on 26 April 2025 asking for support in raising a complaint about the ongoing delay in his review. He said he would accept a review by 9 May 2025 as a settlement of his complaint. The Council responded on 14 May 2025 and said it could not offer him a review within his preferred timescale and attached the Council’s complaint procedure.
25. Mr B complained on 15 May 2025. Mr B said:
• The Council should have provided him with a review of his needs in October 2024 and had still not done so.
• The Council had told him that he was receiving support from an app when the use of the app was stopped in June 2023.
26. Mr B sought these outcomes:
• The assessment dated October 2023 recommended that he receive support from a personal assistant. Mr B asked that this care plan should be honoured and paid for by direct payments. (Note: councils can provide a service directly or can offer a person a direct payment which allows the person to organise and pay for the service.)
• The Council should provide his review in May or early June.
27. The Council responded on 17 June 2025 and said:
• It apologised for the delay. Mr B was still on the allocation waiting list and the Council could not say when his review would be completed. Mr B was previously assessed as a self-funder and, if his finances remained the same, he would still be a self-funder.
• Mr B had been offered the support of the app so ‘it is correct that you are receiving support, even if you do not feel it is working for you at this time.’
• It would not rely on the previous assessment from October 2023, but offered a reassessment. It could not say whether it would pay direct payments as this would depend on various factors such as Mr B’s financial situation and it was likely, unless there was a significant change in Mr B’s needs, that he would be offered reablement services first.
• It was unable to say when the review would take place.
28. The Council carried out a financial assessment of Mr B in October 2025 and decided that he was eligible for Council funded services and he did not have to pay a contribution towards the cost of the services.
29. The Council completed a needs assessment of Mr B in October 2025 and said he had eligible needs and was entitled to 5 hours support a week from a personal assistant. The personal budget was £195.

Analysis

30. The Council should have carried out a review of Mr B’s needs in October 2024. Mr B asked for a review and explained that his circumstances had changed. Also, it had been a year since the Council carried out the previous assessment of Mr B’s needs and formulated his care plan dated October/November 2023. This delay of a year was fault.
31. I accept that Mr B would not have been eligible for Council funded services in October 2024 as his capital was still over the threshold of eligibility, but, nevertheless, the Council had a duty to assess him and the CASS Guidance is clear that the duty to assess occurs regardless of what the person’s financial status is.
32. There was also fault in the Council’s continued insistence both during the telephone conversation with Mr B on 27 March 2025 and in its complaint response on 17 June 2025 that Mr B had a care plan in place which consisted of the use of an app. I agree that Mr B had been offered the use of the app in 2022, but he had told the Council in June 2023 that the app did not meet his needs and that he had stopped using it.
33. I think this fault is wider and is linked to the Council’s failure to update its records after the October 2023 assessment of Mr B’s needs. The November 2023 care plan still referred to the use of the app when this was out-of-date incorrect information.
34. The November 2023 care plan did not mention the fact that the social worker recommended a care plan of 2 hours support per week by a personal assistant following the October 2023 assessment. I accept that this proposed care plan was never formally agreed as it then transpired that Mr B was not eligible for Council funding. Nevertheless, there should have been some record of the cessation of the app and the new proposed care plan.

Injustice and remedy

35. I have considered the injustice Mr B has suffered because of the fault and what the remedy should be. The aim of the Ombudsman’s remedy is to put the complainant in the position they would have been if the fault had not occurred.
36. I accept that, even if the Council had re-assessed Mr B’s needs in October 2024 and provided him with a care plan, Mr B would not have been eligible for Council funded care so he did not miss out in that respect.
37. However, it would have meant that, when Mr B became eligible for Council funded care in March 2025, the Council could have started the care package.
38. I think it is fair to say that Mr B missed out on a care package from March 2025 onwards. The Council assessed Mr B’s needs in October 2023 and said he was eligible for 2 hours support and it re-assessed him in October 2025 and said he was eligible for 5 hours support so it is likely that, if he had been re-assessed in March 2025 that he would have been eligible for support. Certainly, one could argue that he was at least entitled to 2 hours support as that had been the recommended outcome from his most recent assessment.
39. I have explained to Mr B that the Ombudsman does not provide financial compensation and it is not a court. We also do not base our remedy on what the cost would have been to the Council if the care package had been put in place. In a complaint such as this one, where there is no direct financial loss because of the fault, we can offer a symbolic financial remedy and I recommend the Council pays Mr B £500.
40. I have also considered whether there is any service improvement I can recommend to the Council. I will recommend the Council reminds staff of the importance of good record keeping so that the records always reflect the current status of a person’s needs and their care plan.

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Action

41. The Council has agreed to take the following actions within one month of the final decision. It will:
• Apologise to Mr B in writing for the fault I have identified.
• Pay Mr B £500.
• Ensure all relevant staff understand the Council’s duty to keep appropriate records in adult social care. It will provide training or guidance as needed.
42. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

43. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy the injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman