Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about charging the complainant’s parents for their care fees. This is because the substantive complaint is made late and there are no good reasons to exercise the Ombudsman’s discretion to consider it now. Additionally we could add nothing further to the Council’s response to the issue of delay in its complaint handling.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to here as Mr R, says that the Council:
• Unfairly assessed his father as being responsible for paying his own care fees before his death in September 2012;
• Unfairly assessed his mother as being partly responsible for paying her nursing home fees between September 2012 and July 2013; and
• Made errors and caused delays in its handling of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Mr R and I have sent him a draft decision for his comments.

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What I found

6. Mr R’s parents entered residential care, and were separately financially assessed by the Council, to establish whether each of them was liable for all or part of their care fees.
7. The Council assessed Mr R’s father, F, as being responsible for paying his own care fees. This continued until his death in September 2012.
8. It assessed Mr R’s mother, M, as being partly responsible for her nursing home fees in September 2012. This continued until her death in July 2013.
9. Mr R complained to the Council in 2013-14. He was dissatisfied with the response, and asked for a review in 2015.
10. Mr R finally received a full response in 2019. The response did not uphold the complaint about the financial assessments, but did uphold his complaint regarding the delay in responding to him. It accepted that the officer involved left the Council before responding to his review request, and that the matter was forgotten. It has offered Mr R a time and trouble payment of £100.
11. Mr R remains dissatisfied, and has now complained to the Ombudsman, but we will not investigate the complaint. This is because the substantive matter is late. We cannot investigate matters known to the complainant more than 12 months previously, unless there are good reasons to do so. In this case, Mr R was aware of the assessments in 2012. His complaints were rejected and he asked for a review in 2015. He received no response. At this point Mr R could have gone back to the Council or approached the LGSCO. I have seen no good reason for delaying until 2019 to do so, and his complaint is therefore late, despite a response from the Council in 2019.
12. Mr R also remains dissatisfied with the Council’s response to his complaint about the delay in responding to his review request. He says it took the Council 6 years to provide a full response, but he had an initial response by 2015. When his review request did not receive a response, he could have pursued it before 2019.
13. Consequently, I regard the Council’s apology for the delay and offer of £100 as an appropriate remedy. We could not add anything further to the Council’s investigation and response.

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Final decision

14. I will not investigate this complaint. This is because the substantive complaint is made late, and we could not add anything further to the Council’s investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman