Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to not disregard a property he co-owned with his late mother Mrs Y when determining her care fee contributions, or other related complaints. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant an investigation. There is insufficient evidence of other matters complained of causing a significant personal injustice to justify us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mr X is the late Mrs Y’s son. They shared ownership of property A, holding 50 percent each. Mr X and his family moved from their home nearby to property A several years ago, to live with Mrs Y. Mrs Y received domiciliary care there until she went into a care home in early 2023. The Council did a financial assessment of Mrs Y to determine what contribution she should be required to make to her care home fees.
2. Mr X complains the Council:
1. communicated poorly with them when Mrs Y was receiving domiciliary care;
2. took a long time to do Mrs Y’s financial assessment and did not answer his questions about property A during the assessment process;
3. failed to properly consider his family’s circumstances or use its discretion when deciding not to disregard property A from Mrs Y’s financial assessment;
4. made unworkable, inconsiderate and upsetting suggestions to his family about accommodation options;
5. did not grant him a meeting.
3. Mr X says the matter has caused stress, anxiety and upset for all involved, particularly his children. He has massive financial concerns and considers he is at risk of losing his home. Mr X says the situation could have affected one of his children’s examination results. He says he could not give sufficient care and attention to Mrs Y due to the extra worry.
4. Mr X wants the Council to disregard Mrs Y’s share in property A when determining what care fees her estate owes. He also wants the Council to review how it deals with families in similar situations and change the guidance to make it clearer.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. 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 us investigating; or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

6. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information from Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The core issue in, and key reason for, Mr X’s complaint is the Council’s decision not to disregard property A from Mrs Y’s financial assessment when determining the level of care fees she was required to pay. The Council considered Mr X’s submissions requesting a property disregard within Mrs Y’s financial assessment. Officers set out its decision step by step on whether a mandatory disregard would apply. They explained why the property would not be disregarded under the legislation and guidance, applying this to Mr X’s family’s specific circumstances. The Council then considered Mr X’s further request for a discretionary disregard of the property. Officers considered the individual circumstances of Mr X and his family, including his ownership of another property, and their medical and personal situations. The Council declined to use its discretion to disregard the property. Officers decided the family’s specific circumstances did not justify the Council maintaining the property asset by using public funds by disregarding the shared property from Mrs Y’s financial assessment.
9. We may only go behind a council decision where there is evidence of fault in its decision-making process and but for that fault a different decision would have been made. So we consider the processes councils follow to make their decisions. The Council gathered and considered the information from Mr X about the disregard requests and applied the relevant law and guidance to reach its decisions. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process here to warrant us investigating. We realise Mr X disagrees with the Council’s decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
10. Mr X has raised various issues with us about Mrs Y’s domiciliary care and other matters related to the disregard process. These are issues a), b), d) and e) in paragraph two above. It is not clear if Mr X also raised any of these issues with the Council. None of them have a bearing on the core disregard decision issue.
11. Mr X does not give details of the communications errors regarding Mrs Y’s domiciliary care. In any event, any injustice from issue a) can no longer be remedied for Mrs Y since her death. There is insufficient evidence of this matter causing a significant personal injustice to Mr X or others to warrant us investigating it now.
12. Mr X also complains about the time the Council took to complete its financial assessment and not answering questions about the property during the process. Mr X does not say how long the assessment took. The Council must have completed the assessment by July 2023, prior to its final response on the property disregard matter. The Council could not answer Mr X’s questions about what would happen about property A within the assessment until it was finalised and officers had considered his disregard requests. Any delay caused solely by the Council in the financial assessment process is unfortunate. But there is insufficient evidence of a significant injustice caused to Mr X or his family by issue b) which would now warrant an investigation.
13. Mr X objects in issue d) to the Council’s inclusion of alternative options for his family’s housing in its disregard decision. The Council was required to explain its decision. It would have been fault for it not to do so. As Mr X had asked for a discretionary disregard, part of the Council’s decision involved considering Mr X’s family’s specific circumstances, and saying why it decided not to grant it. This required officers to include the options for Mr X to provide alternative housing to his family, as well as the various ways Mrs Y’s care fees could be met. We recognise it has been Mr X’s preference to stay in property A. But it was not fault for the Council to include its consideration of this issue in its decision, as its response to the discretionary disregard request required it.
14. In issue e), Mr X says he requested a meeting with officers about the property disregard matter but this was declined. The Council gave its detailed response to Mr X’s representations in writing. There is no general duty on officers to have meetings with someone during a decision-making process. It is not fault for them to decide not to hold a meeting and is a decision they are entitled to make.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process to warrant an investigation; and
• there is insufficient evidence of other matters causing a significant personal injustice to justify us investigating.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman