Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s care assessment. This is because further investigation by the Ombudsman would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains on behalf of Ms Y. He says the Council failed to properly assess her needs when carrying out a care assessment and delayed finalising the assessment.
2. He says this has caused Ms Y to not have enough support to allow her to take care of her hygiene, cleaning and paperwork needs. He also says she does not have enough support to access the community and hospital appointments.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s care assessment in 2024. We cannot achieve the outcome Ms Y is seeking, of increased care provision. If we found fault, we could only recommend the Council carry out a new assessment. The Council has already carried out a new assessment of Ms Y’s needs and therefore our investigation would not achieve anything further.
8. In relation to Mr X’s complaint about the delay, we consider there to be insufficient injustice to warrant further investigation.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman