Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Councils decision to charge the complainants son for a contribution towards the cost of his care. This is because there is insufficient fault in how the Council carried out its assessment.

The complaint

1. Mrs X brings raises her complaint on behalf of her son, who I will call Mr Z. Mrs X complains about the Council’s decision to charge Mr Z a contribution for his care. Mrs X says the Council failed to carry out a proper face to face assessment and its communications with her were poor.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Councils can make charges for care and support services they provide or arrange.
6. Councils must assess a person’s finances to decide what contribution he or she should make to a personal budget for care. They must comply with the principles in law and statutory guidance. Charges must not reduce people’s income below a amount known as the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG).
7. If a person incurs expenses directly related to any disability he or she has, the Council should take that into account when assessing his or her finances
8. I will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to charge Mr Z a contribution for his care costs. This is because there is insufficient fault in how the Council carried out its financial assessment. The Council’s assessment included a list of all of Mr Z’s income, took into account expenses related to his disability and assessed these against the correct level of MIG.
9. I will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the Council failed to carry out a face-to-face assessment. This is because this decision was not affected by fault. The Council explained to Mrs X that it was not carrying out face-to-face assessments due to the risks associated with COVID-19. This is an approach it is entitled to take. Furthermore, I do not consider this caused Mr Z an injustice, because I do not consider the assessment it carried out was affected by fault for the reasons explained above..
10. I will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint that the Council’s communications about the outcome of the assessment were poor. This is because the Council has accepted there were errors in how it communicated with Mrs X and apologised. It is unlikely that any further investigation could add to the Council’s responses in relation to this point.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman