London Borough of Harrow (23 002 104)
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint that the Council did not give her mother, Mrs X, clear information about care charges. This is because the Council has agreed to a proportionate remedy.
The complaint
- Ms Y complains the Council did not give her mother, Mrs X, clear information about care charges before care started. Mrs X was distressed on finding she incurred a cost. She says she would have asked family for help, rather than pay for care, had she known.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X, Ms Y and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- If we were to investigate it is likely we would find fault causing Mrs X injustice.
- Councils should be clear and transparent so people know what they will be charged and they should provide information in a suitable format.
- The Council says it gave Mrs X information about charges verbally before care started. This alone would not be sufficient. The Council acknowledges Ms Y was to deal with any written correspondence for Mrs X. However, it did not send written information to Ms Y until many weeks later. Upon finding charges applied, Mrs X cancelled the care package.
- We therefore asked the Council to consider remedying the injustice caused by its actions. We invited the Council to carry out the following actions within one month:
- Provide Mrs X with a written apology for not providing clear information about charges before care started;
- Waive Mrs X’s bill for care charges for the period 6 May 2022 to 24 June 2022.
Agreed action
- To its credit the Council agreed to resolve the complaint and will complete the actions outlined at paragraph 8 to put things right.
Final decision
- We have upheld this complaint because the Council has agreed to resolve the complaint early by providing a proportionate remedy for the injustice caused to Mrs X.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman