Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council including a home’s value in a financial assessment for social care charges. We cannot achieve more about the Council’s delay and its misdirecting Miss X to the wrong Council procedure. The Council properly reached its decision not to disregard the home’s value.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s assessment of her mother Mrs X’s finances to calculate charges for Mrs X’s social care. Miss X cites delay, the Council wrongly directing her to the complaint procedure and refusing to use its discretion to exclude the value of Mrs X’s home from the financial assessment. Miss X states this leaves her facing homelessness because at some stage her mother’s home will probably have to be sold to pay the care costs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we are satisfied with the actions an organisation has taken or proposes to take. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(7), as amended)
3. 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

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Miss X has lived for most of her life in a home owned by her mother, Mrs X. Miss X and Mrs X both lived there until Mrs X needed to move into residential care.
7. The Council must assess what Mrs X should pay for her care. Its assessment of Mrs X’s finances must include the value of Mrs X’s home unless one of two conditions applies.
8. The first condition is if any of the circumstances apply in which the law says the Council must disregard the property’s value. This is a “mandatory disregard.” None of those circumstances apply in this case.
9. The second condition is if the Council decides it is proper to use its discretion to disregard the property’s value in the individual circumstances. This is a “discretionary disregard.” Government guidance says councils can do this, but “…will need to balance this discretion with ensuring a person’s assets are not maintained at public expense.” (Care and Support Statutory Guidance, Annex B, paragraph 42)
10. The Council apologised to Miss X for delays in the financial assessment and in the appeal procedure for decisions about financial assessments. It also apologised for misdirecting Miss X at one stage to its complaint procedure rather than the next stage of the relevant appeal procedure. The Council then put the matter into the correct procedure. The Council’s apologies and corrective action adequately put those matters right. The Ombudsman could not achieve anything significantly different by pursuing those points about the process.
11. Miss X also complains about the result of the Council’s consideration of whether to disregard the value of her mother’s home from the financial assessment. The Council said it would not disregard the property’s value.
12. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. It is not our role to decide whether the Council should give a discretionary disregard. As paragraph 3 explained, our role is to consider whether the Council reached its substantive decision properly.
13. The Council considered the matter at both stages of its appeal procedure. Its final response said the Council had considered all the information it had and all Miss X’s representations. It concluded there was no statutory reason to disregard the property’s value. That was correct because, as explained above, the mandatory disregard grounds were not met. The Council’s final decision also said the Council found “… no exceptional circumstances that warrant the Council using its discretion to disregard it [the property].” So the Council had correctly recognised it had discretion here. Its decision took account of that, and of the information and arguments it had received. The Council was entitled to decide it was not persuaded the circumstances merited disregarding the property.
14. Therefore the Council properly reached its decision. I appreciate the decision was unwelcome to Miss X and she is entitled to disagree with the decision. However, that does not enable the Ombudsman to criticise the decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman