Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about The Council’s sourcing of respite care for Ms X’s mother Ms Y. Of the matters complained of to the Council, investigation would be unlikely to find fault with the Council’s attempts to find respite care in January 2025. It would also be unlikely to recommend further remedy beyond the apology already offered for Council staff having attempted a home visit against Ms X’s expressed wishes.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains on behalf of her late mother, Mrs Y, and on her own behalf.
2. She says the Council misused power, lied about safeguarding issues to health professionals, bullied her in her home via microaggressions, made her feel guilty to trap her into accepting day care rather than respite care for her mother, and failed to update an assessment.
3. Ms X’s complaint to the Council concerned two matters:
1. An alleged failure to properly organise respite care for Ms Y in early 2025; and
2. Wrongly trying to gain access to her home contrary to her wishes.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who has died or 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)

5. 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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
7. I considered the matters that formed two separate complaints to the Council. I did not consider other previous matters from Ms X’s experience with the Council pre-dating November 2024 that were not part of these two complaints.

Back to top

My assessment

8. The Council’s complaint response to Ms X laid out its actions in response to her request for a two-week period of respite care for Ms Y for January 2025. It stated it had asked several care homes if they could meet the need, and that Ms X had declined the first two offers it made, before accepting an offer at the end of January 2025. The Council response also noted that Ms X’s preference for email communication slowed down the process. Were we to investigate this matter, it is unlikely we would find delay by the Council, or a failure to offer respite provision.
9. The same complaint response accepted a social worker should not have attempted to carry out a home visit without an urgent reason when Ms X had requested that this not happen. However, it is unlikely we would recommend greater remedy if we investigated. We would also not be likely to make recommendations about the ethnicity of future assigned social workers.
10. In summary, were we to investigate, this would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome.

Back to top

Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because doing so would be unlikely to lead to any worthwhile outcome.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman