Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about his mother, Mrs Z’s, domiciliary care as these complaints are late. We will also not investigate Mr X’s complaint that the Council told the family Mrs Z’s care would be free but then charged her. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about care his mother, Mrs Z, received between the end of January 2024 and her death in mid-March 2024. The complaints related to poor timekeeping, bathing and food requests.
2. He also complains the Council told the family Mrs Z’s care would be free but later charged for it.
3. Mr X says that if the family had known Mrs Z would be charged, they would have stopped using the care provider identified by the Council and used a private one.
4. He wants the Council to remove the charges.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

5. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. 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, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. Mrs Z needed care at home from January 2024. The Council spoke to her family representative at the end of January and explained she would have to contribute to the costs of her care. It sent the representative a financial assessment to complete in February which the representative returned at the beginning of March. Mrs Z died shortly afterwards and on 20 March the Council informed the family what her contributions had been.
10. Mr X complained about the care Mrs Z had received. He also said the family were told Mrs Z’s care would be free.
11. The Council responded in October 2024. It said its records showed it had informed the family that Mrs Z would have to pay for her care and, therefore, it would not waive what was owed. It provided responses to Mr Z’s complaints about Mrs Z’s care and said it would have beneficial if these had been raised whilst Mrs Z was still alive. Mr X said he had done so but could not provide evidence of this.
12. Mr X complained to us in March 2025.
13. Mr X’s complaints about Mrs Z’s care are late. This is because he had been aware of them for more than 12 months before he complained to us. He received the Council’s final response signposting him to us five months before he took any further action. Therefore, I can see no good reason to exercise discretion and investigate his complaints now.
14. Moreover, even if we did investigate and find fault, any injustice was experienced by Mrs Z and not Mr X. Mrs Z had died, which means we could achieve nothing meaningful for her by investigating now.
15. Mr X says the family were told Mrs Z’s care would be free. However, the Council’s records specify it told the family representative Mrs Z would have to contribute towards the costs. Mrs Z received the care, and so she, or her estate, should pay what is owed. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints about Mrs Z’s care costs because on balance, there is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints. Some of them are late. There is not enough evidence of fault to justify an investigation into the others.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman