Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about matters relating to her father’s care home fees. The complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and there are no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider it now.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs X, complains her father received an unexpected bill for care home fees of over £10,000 in early 2019, due to the Council’s delay in communicating the outcome of his financial assessment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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)

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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. Mrs X complains on behalf of her father Mr Y. She is his attorney for property and financial affairs.
8. Mrs X says the Council’s delay in communicating the outcome of Mr Y’s financial assessment led to him receiving an unexpected care bill of over £10,000 in February 2019.
9. Mrs X complained to the Council about this in February 2020. The Council sent its stage one response in March 2020, but Mrs X did not receive it and chased it up with the Council in October 2020. The Council found no evidence it contacted Mrs X in response to this. Mr Y’s care provider emailed the Council in August 2021, on Mrs X’s behalf, to ask if the issue had been resolved. This referenced an earlier email it sent in February 2021 which, due to the method by which it was sent, likely arrived in the officer’s junk mailbox.
10. The Council then considered the complaint at stage two. It sent its final response to Mrs X in October 2021. This clearly signposted Mrs X to this office if she remained dissatisfied with its response. It also included information on the 12 month time limit on making complaints to this office.
11. Mrs X complained to us in April 2023.
12. This complaint lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late. Mrs X first became aware of the matter in early 2019. The law says a complaint should be made to us within 12 months of a person first becoming aware of the matter. Even taking account of the delay between the stage one and stage two complaint I still consider Mrs X could have been reasonably expected to have complained to us much sooner. The Council’s 2021 final response included information about the 12 month time limit but the complaint was not made to us until 18 months later, over 4 years after Mrs X first became aware of the matter. I see no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider this very late complaint now.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. It lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late and I see no good grounds to exercise discretion to consider it now.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman