Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s decision there was a deprivation of assets. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council wrongly decided she had deprived herself of assets. She said the capital in question did not belong to her and the Council’s decision had caused her worry and stress.

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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 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 investigating.

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

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

What happened

5. Ms X needed care and support from early 2023 and the Council carried out a financial assessment to determine whether she needed to pay towards the cost of that care. As part of that assessment, Ms X provided bank statements, which showed a number of payments to a relative, Y. The Council made enquiries about those payments, following which the Council’s panel considered whether the payments amounted to a deprivation of assets.
6. The Council’s panel considered:
• a report from the allocated social worker, who did not consider there was a deliberate deprivation of assets;
• information about Ms X’s health and whether she had an expectation of needing care during the period she had made the gifts that she could reasonably expect to pay for; and
• the pattern of gifts and Ms X’s account of her reason for making them, which was that Z had promised an inheritance to Y, but Z had not made a will so Ms X had inherited money and gave some of that to Y in line with Z’s wishes.
7. The panel decided that gifts of £30,000 made before Ms X was admitted to hospital following a stroke, would not amount to a deprivation. However, gifts made after that did amount to a deprivation because she would have had a reasonable expectation of needing care after that. This meant the Council treated Ms X as still having £16,450 that she had given away, when deciding what she had to pay towards her care costs. The Council wrote to Ms X with its decision.
8. Ms X asked the Council to review its decision. The Council did so but upheld the original decision. It set out its reasons in detail, including how it had considered the questions set out in the relevant statutory guidance on deprivation decisions.

My assessment

9. We are not an appeal body. It is not our role to say whether the Council’s decision was correct. Unless there is fault in the decision-making process, we cannot comment on the decision reached.
10. The relevant statutory guidance sets out the questions councils should consider when making decisions about deprivation of assets. The records show the Council considered those questions, including Ms X’s account of her motivation for the gifts, the fact the money was legally hers as she had inherited it and the absence of evidence of Z’s wishes.
11. The Council has considered the factors we would expect, in line with the relevant statutory guidance, and it wrote to Ms X to explain its decision. Although it did not explain its reasons in detail in its initial decision, this was put right in its review decision. There is no evidence of undue delay in the decision-making process. Therefore, we will not consider this complaint further because there is insufficient evidence of fault in the way the decision was made to justify our involvement.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s decision because there is insufficient evidence of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman