Summary: The Council failed to respond appropriately to requests from a family struggling in their caring role. It delayed addressing escalating risks, failed to coordinate Mr Y’s case effectively and did not ensure continuity of support. It also failed to complete a carer’s assessment. This caused prolonged stress and uncertainty for the family and had a significant impact on Mr Y’s mother and a teenage sibling.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains on behalf of his brother, Mr Y. He says the Council failed to provide information about, or discuss the available options for, respite care for Mr Y. He says their mother, who provides significant support to Mr Y, is at breaking point.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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

3. I have:

• considered the complaint and discussed it with Mr X;
• considered correspondence between Mr X and the Council, including the Council’s response to the complaint;
• made enquiries of the Council and considered the response;
• considered relevant legislation;
• offered Mr X and the Council an opportunity to comment on a draft of this document, and considered the comments made.

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What I found

Relevant legislation

4. Under sections 9, 18 and 24 of the Care Act 2014, councils must assess eligible care and support needs and, where those needs are eligible, arrange services to meet them. Care and support planning should be person-centred and take account of the individual's wishes, preferences and wellbeing.
5. The Care and Support Statutory Guidance states care and support should be personalised, proportionate and designed around the individual's needs and preferences. Councils remain responsible for the quality of commissioned services and must monitor arrangements to ensure providers deliver care appropriately.
6. Respite care may be needed to enable a carer to look after their own health and wellbeing and to take a break. It should be considered a service provided to the cared-for person. (Care and support Statutory Guidance (CSSG) paragraph 11.39)
7. If a council decides a person is eligible for care, it should prepare a care and support plan which specifies the needs the council is going to meet and how this will be done. (Care Act 2014, sections 24 and 25)
8. The care and support plan must set out a personal budget. A personal budget is a statement which specifies the cost to the local authority of meeting eligible needs, the amount a person must contribute and the amount the council must contribute. (Care Act 2014, section 26)
9. A personal budget can be taken as a direct payment (DP). A DP is a cash payment to be used to purchase care and support to meet needs.

Mr X’s concerns and complaints

10. Mr Y is in his twenties. He has a learning disability and autism. He lives at home with his mother, along with Mr X, and his twin brother, both of which are teenagers in full-time education.
11. Mr Y has eligible care needs under the Care Act and receives commissioned services under a care and support plan. This includes 22 hours of personal assistant (PA) support each week to help him access the local community, develop and maintain relationships, and participate in learning and social activities. His PA currently supports him for four hours on Mondays, four hours on Fridays and five hours on Saturdays. In addition to this support, Mr Y works in a charity shop one day a week.
12. Mr X provides six hours support on Thursdays to support Mr Y’s independence at home and to help him access the community.
13. Alongside this formal support, Mr Y's mother provides support with his day-to-day care. Because of Mr Y's autism, he requires regular prompting to complete everyday tasks. He can become agitated if he spends extended periods at home, making regular activities and community access an important part of his support arrangements.
14. Mr X says his family has been left to carry an unacceptable level of responsibility for meeting Mr Y's needs without adequate support from the Council. He says this has placed significant pressure on the family, particularly Mr Y's mother, who has been close to carer breakdown. Mr X says the family is not seeking anything unreasonable but wants the relevant services to work together to provide the care and support Mr Y requires so that the family can rely on the arrangements being in place.
15. Mr X also says the family are upset by a suggestion that he, as 17-year-old sibling should help care for Mr Y to enable their mother to have a break. He says this was inappropriate because he is in full-time education, has a part-time job and is not Mr Y's carer or a trained support worker. Mr X says the suggestion shows a lack of understanding of the stress associated with caring from Mr Y and placed unreasonable expectations on him.
16. Mr X says both he and his mother contacted the Council on numerous occasions seeking help and support and to report the significant carer stress Mr Y’s mother was subject to, and that there was a real risk of carer breakdown. Mr X says he and his mother asked the Council to review Mr Y’s care arrangements. He says following review meetings, there has been a lack of progress and the situation remained unchanged. Mr X requested that staff from Mr Y’s day service, and his PA attend meetings in order their knowledge of Mr Y could help develop a support plan and identify a safety net to avoid things spiralling into what he describes as a ‘full-blown family breakdown’.
17. The Council reviewed Mr Y’s needs in August 2024, twice in August 2025 and again in October 2025. All reviews note the stress and strain his mother was experiencing.
18. Mr X says Mr Y’s behaviour has deteriorated and become increasingly unmanageable. He says the family are increasingly worried as the situation at home is deteriorating and the family have no resolution. He said his mother feels like the family had been left to cope alone, without the professional support that has been promised.
19. Both Mr X and his mother contacted the Council on numerous occasions to raise their concerns and seek help. Mr X says there has been a lack of communication between officers and his mother.
20. Mr X submitted a formal complaint to the Council on 17 July 2025, raising six separate points of complaint. The Council provided its written response on 11 August 2025. It upheld only one complaint, that a social worker had failed to respond to an email from Mr Y's mother. The Council did not uphold the remaining five complaints relating to Mr Y’s care.

The Council’s response to enquiries from this office

21. The Council says it has been involved with Mr Y and his family over a sustained period and has considered a range of respite options. It says it provided information and advice to Mr X and his mother about respite options through review meetings, correspondence and telephone discussions. It says it discussed the use of direct payments, explored residential respite, and signposted the family to other services, including the Community Learning Disability Team.
22. The Council accepts that Mr Y's mother experienced significant and increasing pressures in her caring role. It acknowledges that there were occasions when its response to the family's circumstances was not sufficiently timely, coordinated, or proactive. This was particularly evident during periods when Mr Y did not have an allocated social worker and responsibility for the case rested with the duty service.
23. The Council also accepts it did not offer Mr Y's mother a standalone carer's assessment. It says this was an omission because a separate assessment would have provided a structured opportunity to consider her needs independently of Mr Y's care planning and am opportunity to identify any additional support available to her as a carer.
24. The Council acknowledges learning from the complaint. It accepts there were occasions when social workers did not respond to the family's communications promptly. It recognises the limitations of managing a complex case through the duty system rather than through consistent social worker allocation.
25. It says it will review the management of Mr Y's case to consider whether longer-term social work allocation is appropriate. It will also offer Mr Y's mother a formal carer's assessment and says it is undertaking wider service improvements to increase the identification of carers and the completion of carer's assessments.

Analysis

26. The evidence shows the Council was aware for many months that Mr Y's mother was under increasing pressure in her role as his primary carer. Its own records repeatedly refer to concerns about carer strain and the risk of carer breakdown. Despite this, the Council's response lacked urgency and coordination. At times, Mr Y's case was managed through the Council’s duty system rather than an allocated social worker, leaving the family without consistent professional oversight during a period of escalating need. The Council has accepted its response was not sufficiently timely, coordinated or proactive. It acknowledges this caused the family to feel unsupported.
27. The Council also accepts it failed to offer Mr Y’s mother a standalone carer's assessment. This was a significant omission. A carer's assessment is intended to identify a carer's own needs, consider the impact of their caring responsibilities on their wellbeing, and determine what support may be available to help them continue in their caring role. Although the Council considered Mrs Y's mother's needs within reviews of Mr Y's care, that was not a substitute for carrying out a separate assessment of her own needs.
28. Of particular concern is Council's failure to respond despite repeated requests for help from both Mr Y's mother and Mr X. Mr X, who is himself a teenager in full-time education, repeatedly contacted the Council because he was concerned about his mother's wellbeing and the sustainability of the care arrangements. Rather than the Council taking effective ownership of the situation, the evidence shows the family was required to repeatedly chase the Council and escalate their concerns.
29. Whilst the Council reviewed respite arrangements and explored different options, this did not adequately address the immediate risk of carer breakdown or provide the family with any confidence that their concerns were being managed effectively. The lack of continuity, delayed responses and failure to assess Mr Y’s mother’s needs as a carer created uncertainty about what support was available and when it would be provided.
30. The cumulative effect of the Council's failures placed additional pressure on the family at a time when they were already under significant pressure. Mr Y's mother experienced avoidable stress, distress and uncertainty because the Council did not respond to the escalating risks in a sufficiently coordinated way or properly assess her own support needs. Mr X also experienced avoidable stress and frustration. As a teenager in full-time education, he should not have been left in the position of repeatedly advocating on behalf of his mother and attempting to secure support that the Council itself had recognised was urgently needed. While these failings did not lead to more serious consequences for Mr Y and his mother, there was a clear risk that they could have done so.

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Agreed Action

31. The Council should, within two weeks of the final decision,

• provide a written apology to Mr Y, his mother and Mr X acknowledging the faults identified in this decision and the impact they had on the family.
• commence a review of Mr Y's current care and support plan with his mother and Mr X to ensure it remains sufficient to meet Mr Y's assessed needs and provides appropriate and sustainable respite arrangements for Mr Y and his mother. The review should specifically consider whether the current respite provision is adequate in light of the family's circumstances.
• pay Mr Y’s mother £1000 to recognise the significant stress, distress, and uncertainty she experienced because the Council failed to respond appropriately to the escalating risk of carer breakdown and failed to offer her a carer's assessment.
• pay Mr X £300 to recognise the distress, frustration and avoidable time and trouble he experienced in repeatedly pursuing the Council for support on behalf of his mother and brother while he was himself a teenager in full-time education.
• complete a comprehensive carer's assessment for Mr Y’s mother and, where eligible needs are identified, prepare a support plan setting out how those needs will be met.

Within three months of my final decision, the Council should:

• remind relevant social care staff of the requirement to offer and record carer's assessments where it appears an adult may have needs for support in their caring role;
• review its arrangements for managing complex cases through the duty system to ensure cases involving escalating risk of carer breakdown are allocated appropriately and receive consistent oversight;
• remind staff of the importance of responding promptly to correspondence from service users and their families and maintaining clear communication where there are delays or changes in case allocation.

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Final Decision

32. The Council failed to respond appropriately to requests from a family struggling in their caring role. It delayed addressing escalating risks, failed to coordinate Mr Y’s case effectively and did not ensure continuity of support. It also failed to complete a carer’s assessment. This caused prolonged stress and uncertainty for the family and had a significant impact on Mr Y’s and a teenage sibling.

33. The above recommendations are suitable way to remedy the injustice caused to the family.
34. It is on this basis; the complaint will be closed.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman