Summary: There was no fault by the Council in how it handled the care needs of Mrs X’s daughter. It regularly reviewed her care and support needs and it considered whether her mental capacity meant it should take action under rules that can see restrictions placed on a person’s liberty.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about how the Council has handled her adult daughter’s care and support needs. In particular, Mrs X says that the Council:
• failed to complete a Care Act reassessment when her daughter, Miss K, moved to supported living accommodation in 2022, and failed to review the existing assessment regularly;
• took too long to consider whether it needed to authorise a deprivation of liberty because Miss K could not leave the accommodation unsupervised.
2. Mrs X says that as a result of the Council’s shortcomings, Miss K’s needs were not properly assessed or met in the supported living accommodation. Her independent living skills deteriorated as well as her physical and mental health.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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)
5. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who cannot authorise someone to act for them. The complaint may be made by:
• their personal representative (if they have one), or
• someone we consider to be suitable. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2) and 34C(2), as amended) 
6. Mrs X has lasting power of attorney to deal with Miss K’s affairs and so we consider her a suitable person to bring a complaint on Miss K’s behalf.

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What I have and have not investigated

7. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
8. Mrs X complains about the Council’s needs assessments and reviews from 2022. Mrs X made a formal complaint to the Council and to the Ombudsman in July 2025. She tells me that she had not known that the Council had not reassessed her daughter’s care needs until June 2025. This means that although Mrs X complains about events from several years ago, she did not know of these until June 2025 and she complained immediately to the Council and then to the Ombudsman. This means that I am able to investigate events relating to the assessment and review of Miss K’s care needs from 2022 to July 2025

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Mrs X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Mrs X 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

The law and guidance

Care Act assessments and reviews

11. 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.
12. The Care Act 2014 gives councils a legal responsibility to provide a care and support plan. The care and support plan should consider what needs the person has, what they want to achieve, what they can do by themselves or with existing support and what additional care and support they need. 
13. Section 27 of the Care Act 2014 says councils should keep care and support plans under review. Government Care and Support Statutory Guidance says councils should review plans at least every 12 months. Councils should consider a light touch review six to eight weeks after agreeing and signing off the plan and personal budget. 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.

Mental Capacity and deprivation of liberty

14. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is the framework for acting and deciding for people who lack the mental capacity to make particular decisions for themselves. The Act (and the Code of Practice 2007) describes the steps a person should take when dealing with someone who may lack capacity to make decisions for themselves. It describes when to assess a person’s capacity to make a decision, how to do this, and how to make a decision on behalf of somebody who cannot do so.
15. The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards provide legal protection for individuals who lack mental capacity to consent to care or treatment and live in a care home, hospital or supported living accommodation. The DoLS protect people from being deprived of their liberty, unless it is in their best interests and there is no less restrictive alternative. The legislation sets out the procedure to follow to obtain authorisation to deprive an individual of their liberty. Without the authorisation, the deprivation of liberty is unlawful. It is the responsibility of the care home or hospital to apply for authorisation. For people being cared for somewhere other than a care home or hospital, deprivation of liberty will only be lawful with an order from the Court of Protection. The DoLS Code of Practice 2008 provides statutory guidance on how they should be applied in practice.
16. The Supreme Court defined deprivation of liberty as when: “The person is under continuous supervision and control and is not free to leave, and the person lacks capacity to consent to these arrangements”.
17. If there is a conflict about a deprivation of liberty, and all efforts to resolve it have failed, the case can be referred to the Court of Protection.
18. Once there is or is likely to be a deprivation of liberty, it must be authorised under the DoLS scheme in the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

What happened

19. Miss K is disabled. She is active and independent, but needs support to go to activities and to make sure she is taking care of her personal hygiene. She was living with her mother but in 2022, she went to live in residential supported living accommodation. Here, Miss K shared a house with other disabled people. The house was managed by a care provider with onsite staff to support Miss K in accordance with her care and support plan.
20. Miss K had a Care Act assessment from 2019. The Council has explained that this assessed her care and support needs, and did not assume any type of support was already in place. This meant that the resulting care and support plan would accurately set out Miss K’s support needs whether she was living at home with Mrs X, or whether she was in supported living accommodation.
21. The Council reviewed the care and support plan before Miss K moved to the supported living accommodation in May 2022. It then reviewed the support plan again in November 2022 to make sure that Miss K’s needs were being met in her new home. These reviews did not find that Miss K’s needs had changed. However, she was having to share some of her care with other residents and she was finding this difficult. The Council said that Miss K should have a weekly meeting with the care provider so that she could raise any issues she was having, and to agree what activities she would like to do.
22. The Council’s case notes say that Mrs X first raised concerns at the beginning of 2023. She said that Miss K was sharing her care with another resident and she was not getting support to do activities she wanted. The Council asked the care provider to keep a log of what it was offering Miss K and whether she engaged with the support.
23. However, Mrs X continued to raise concerns including that some of her daughter’s new behaviour was self-harming. Mrs X contacted the community learning disability team (CLDT) for advice on this.
24. The Council met with the care provider and Mrs X to review Miss K’s care and support plan again in March and July 2023. The latter review noted that Miss K was slightly more settled, but that her support may not be fully meeting her needs.
25. Mrs X continued to raise concerns about her daughter’s personal hygiene. She reported that Miss K was stressed in the supported living accommodation, and that she could not go out and do the things she wanted to do because her care had to fit around other residents who she did not get on with.
26. By October 2023, the CLDT had assessed Miss K and so the Council decided to include that team in a further review of Miss K’s care and support plan. This review added support for Miss K to call her mother regularly. It also said the Council would do a mental capacity assessment and assess whether any restriction on Miss K being able to go out amounted to a deprivation of liberty that would need authorisation to continue. The CLDT would assess whether Miss X’s supported living accommodation was contributing to the decline in her mental health and in the meantime, the Council would start the search for different accommodation.
27. The Council started to hold regular meetings that involved Miss K, Mrs X, the care provider, the CLDT, and the day centres Miss K attended. It established that Miss K wanted to move to new accommodation. The CLDT was supporting Miss K with strategies to help manage her emotions and had referred her to a psychiatrist for further assessment. The Council was concerned that Miss K was still not getting all her 1:1 support.
28. By December 2023, Miss K and Mrs X had viewed a flat but Miss K decided she did not want to live alone. The Council also arranged for Miss K to have an advocate to help her express what she wanted and needed from the support services.
29. By January 2024, the Council had established that Miss K was getting her 1:1 hours across two evenings per week, but these were not supporting her to take part in activities she enjoyed. The Council suggested that Miss K work with the care provider each week to decide on a weekly schedule. The Council completed another review of Miss K’s care and support plan. Miss K, her advocate and the CLDT attended the review.
30. Throughout 2024, the multi-disciplinary team meetings continued. Miss K was meeting with the care provider to decide on a weekly schedule, and her advocate was helping to make sure that this aligned with her wishes. In early 2024, the Psychiatrist concluded that it would be hard for Miss K’s mental health to improve in the supported living accommodation, and all parties including Miss K agreed that she should move. Miss K decided that she wanted to live in a different supported living accommodation rather than have her own flat with support workers visiting.
31. Mrs X again raised that Miss K was not able to leave the house when she wanted. The Council said that as Miss K has mental capacity, the DoLS authorisation would not apply to her.
32. At a review of Miss K’s care and support plan in September 2024, the Council saw that Miss K was accessing some activities, but that decided she needed a full review to look at her core support hours. The Council noted at the multi-disciplinary in February 2025 that Miss K needed more structured activities.
33. In June 2025, the Council completed a new Care Act assessment of Miss K’s needs. Mrs X and Miss K attended the review along with the Council, the CLDT and the Care Provider. The assessment notes that Mrs X and the care provider felt the current package of care was not meeting Miss K’s needs. Her support was mainly used to resolve conflicts between Miss K and her housemates. The assessment concluded that Miss K needed a more structured weekly routine and increased 1:1 support to maintain this, increase her independence and her communication skills and decision-making. Mrs X raised that her independent living skills had decreased since she moved out of home, suggesting that Miss K’s support was not right.
34. In June, the Council completed the assessment. It was then that Mrs X became aware that the Council had not reassessed Miss K’s needs since 2019. In July 2025, Mrs X, complained to the Council that it had not reviewed Miss K’s care act assessment regularly and she was not able to leave the accommodation. The Council told Mrs X that the legal process for adult social care complaints says it will not normally accept complaints about events that happened more than 12 months ago. It told Mrs B she could complain to the Ombudsman.
35. Later in July, the Council considered whether it should authorise a restriction on Miss K’s ability to leave the accommodation under the DoLS rules. It completed a mental capacity assessment, with Mrs X present. It said that to keep Miss K safe, her care is arranged in a way that restricts her liberty. The Council found that Miss K could make decisions about her care and where she should live. Miss K understood that she could not go out alone for her safety and she was happy with this arrangement and that being supported by staff at all times was in her best interests.
36. In August 2025, Miss K moved back to her mother’s home to live with her family.

Was there fault by the Council causing an injustice to Miss K or to Mrs X?

37. The Council does not have to complete a new needs assessment, but it must regularly review a care and support plan. Mrs X was raising legitimate and understandable concerns. Although the Council did not reassess Miss K’s needs between 2019 and 2025, it regularly reviewed whether her care and support plan was meeting her needs. The Council also made sure that all parties concerned with Miss K’s care met regularly to review how the care package was working, and arranged an advocate for Miss K to make sure her wishes were being expressed. The Council has shown that it had a good oversight of how Miss K’s care package was being delivered and whether it was meeting her needs. There was no fault by the Council in how it handled the assessments and reviews.
38. The Council considered whether it needed to assess if Miss K had the capacity to decide on whether she should come and go from the house, and whether it needed to authorise restrictions under the DoLS rules. The Council first explained to Mrs X in October 2023 and later in August 2024, that DoLS would not apply because Miss K had capacity to make these decisions for herself. However, it had also said that it would complete a mental capacity assessment, and in October 2024, the Council’s case notes say that this assessment was scheduled. Later in June 2025, the regular multi-disciplinary meeting again decided that there should be a mental capacity assessment to see if the Council needed to consider DoLS rules. The assessment was not completed until July 2025, and this found that Miss K does have the capacity to decide not to leave the house without support.
39. So overall, the Council first suggested the mental capacity assessment in October 2023, but did not formally complete this until July 2025. I can see Mrs X’s concern, but the Council had regular contact with Miss K and her care provider. Its practitioners had a good understanding of Miss K’s capacity, and the Council did explain to Mrs X that DoLS would not apply because Miss K had mental capacity. The Council then revisited this when it was clear that the care package was not meeting her needs. There was no fault in how the Council considered Miss K’s capacity and whether it needed to take any action under DoLS rules.
40. At the heart of this complaint is Mrs X’s very understandable concerns that her daughter’s needs were not being met in the supported living accommodation, and this was having a detrimental effect on her mental health, her behaviour, and her wellbeing.
41. All parties agreed that the placement was not working well enough. The Council worked with Miss K, her advocate, the care provider, and the CLDT to try to understand better what was needed. The Council ultimately concluded that more support hours or a different care package would not improve the situation, because this was largely driven by disagreements with other residents. The Council did seek alternative types of accommodation, but Miss K decided that these would not be suitable. It took some time for the Council to work through these different options and to attempt to find better ways to support Miss K. However, there is no clear fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman