East Sussex County Council (24 012 637)

Category : Adult care services > Charging

Decision : Closed after initial enquiries

Decision date : 14 Mar 2025

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a Personal Expense Allowance because there is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision, so we cannot question the outcome.

The complaint

  1. Mrs X complains the Council wrongly refused to include an oil that she uses for pain management in her Personal Expense Allowance for care charging. She says the oil is necessary to manage her symptoms and the expense should be considered Disability Related Expenditure.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. 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

  1. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
  2. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

  1. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the process an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether you disagree with the decision the organisation made.
  2. I have considered the steps the organisation took to consider the issue, and the information it took account of when deciding to include the oil as Disability Related Expenditure. There is no fault in how it took the decision and I therefore cannot question whether that decision was right or wrong.

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Final decision

  1. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault in how the Council made its decision, so we cannot question the outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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