Bath and North East Somerset Council (24 011 514)
Category : Adult care services > Charging
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 24 Mar 2025
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s assessment of Mrs Y’s social care charges. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.
The complaint
- Ms X complains about the Council’s assessment of Mrs Y’s care charges. She says the Council has included pension benefit payments in its financial assessment despite Mrs Y not being in receipt of these.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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)).
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- A council can choose to charge for social care following a person’s needs assessment. Where a council has decided to charge for care, it must carry out a financial assessment to decide what a person can afford to pay.
- The Council’s policy on charging confirms that as part of its assessment, it will consider any welfare benefits that a person is receiving or is entitled to receive.
- In November 2024, the Council wrote to Ms X to say that it will amend the financial assessment. This was after the Department of Works and Pensions said that Mrs Y was entitled to pension credit from November 2023 onwards.
- There is insufficient evidence of fault regarding the assessment from the Council into Mrs Y’s care costs. It can consider benefits payments that Ms Y was entitled to receive even if she was not actually receiving these payments. It follows that I will not investigate this matter.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman