Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s adult social care team. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing sufficient injustice to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s Adult Social Care (ASC) team. He said:
• it had not put his care and support on a proper footing since his previous complaint to us;
• it had given him conflicting information about whether his direct payments were lower than they should be or whether he was overspending on his account;
• it was using an alleged overspend to justify saying he does not have capacity to manage his direct payment account; and
• Occupational Therapy involvement closed because he did not respond quickly enough, despite the Council being aware of his processing difficulties.
2. Mr X said the Council’s failings had caused anxiety and affected his mental health. He said he has not got a stable and accurate care package that meets his needs, and his housing-related needs have not been addressed.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Mr X’s earlier complaint covered the period to mid-August 2025. In this complaint, I have considered the period from mid-August to November 2025. November 2025 is the date of the Council’s final response to this complaint.

Care and support planning

7. Mr X asked the Council to carry out a fresh assessment of his care needs, rather than reviewing his care and support plan, and the Council agreed to do this.
8. Mr X asked it to carry out the assessment by email, rather than by telephone or in-person, as a reasonable adjustment. The Council agreed. The social worker could only ask about one aspect in each email and Mr X did not always answer the questions asked. This caused a delay in getting the information needed to complete the assessment. The assessment was completed in late August 2025.
9. The assessment records Mr X had not agreed to discuss his care and support plan. However, Mr X did have concerns about his direct payments, so the social worker prepared an interim plan to consider the costs of his care. This was completed in November 2025. It led to an increase in Mr X’s direct payments so he could pay his personal assistant a higher hourly rate.
10. Whilst the Council has not yet issued a final care and support plan, this is because it has worked flexibly in the way Mr X asked it to do. Mr X has not missed out on care and support because the support is provided by his personal assistant, who has remained in place throughout.

Direct payments

11. The Council confirmed the personal assistant was paid at the correct rate to October 2024. It paid an extra £340 to Mr X’s direct payment account to back-date the increase in his personal assistant’s hourly rate to October 2024.
12. The Council also raised concerns with Mr X about him using his direct payments for purposes not set out in his care and support plan. For example, Mr X was using them for taxis, which was not agreed in his plan. As a consequence of using the direct payments for purposes not in his plan, the direct payment account was out of funds, and the Council made an extra payment of £1,700 in November 2025 to ensure his essential care could be paid for.
13. The social worker has been working with Mr X since July 2025 to help him understand what he can and cannot use the direct payments for. They have suggested Mr X has an advocate to help him, but Mr X has declined this. They also suggested a managed account, which is where a third-party organisation manages the direct payments on Mr X’s behalf. Mr X declined this.
14. The Council has raised concerns about the direct payments not being enough to pay the correct rate to the personal assistant and has also said Mr X was overspending. I appreciate this caused Mr X confusion, but it was appropriate for the Council to raise these matters with him.

Capacity for handling direct payments

15. Due to its concerns about whether Mr X can manage his direct payment account, the Council said it may need to carry out a Mental Capacity Assessment (MCA) to determine if he has capacity to manage it. If it found Mr X did not have capacity, it would make a Best Interests decision about how the direct payment account should be managed.
16. The Council has not yet carried out an MCA as the social worker is working with Mr X to try to resolve the issues with the direct payment account. However, it was appropriate for it to consider this.

Occupational therapy involvement

17. Mr X sought occupational therapy (OT) to consider what adaptations he might need in his property. OT involvement ended in March 2025, and the Council replied to an earlier complaint about this in April 2025. The Council said it could not agree to adapt Mr X’s current property because Mr X wanted to be rehoused, so it could not be sure he would stay there long enough to justify doing the work. We considered the question of adaptations in an earlier complaint, so will not consider it again now.

Summary

18. In summary, having considered the issues Mr X has raised, there is insufficient evidence of fault causing sufficient injustice to justify further investigation.

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Final decision

19. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault causing sufficient injustice to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman