Summary: We will not investigate this late complaint about the Council’s charges for arranging a care service for Mrs X. There is not a good reason for the delay in complaining to the Council and then the Ombudsman about the matter.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained the Council failed to ensure his mother-in-law, Mrs Y, understood the cost of her care. He said the Council has failed to resolve the dispute over three years, and that it has been unprofessional, has failed to take accountability and failed to properly understand the points in dispute.
2. Mr X said the matter has caused significant inconvenience for him. He wanted the Council to compensate him for his time.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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

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

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My assessment

7. Mrs Y received a statement of charges from the Council in 2022 after she began attending a day centre. Mr X emailed the Council asking it to explain the charges, as Mrs Y paid the day centre directly.
8. Mr X says it then took three years for the Council to provide any proper explanations. He met with Council officers in late 2024. He remained unhappy following this meeting, and said the Council had not provided earlier explanations nor made Mrs Y aware of charges before invoicing for them.
9. Mr X had sufficient information in 2022 to be able to raise a formal complaint about the matter. He knew there was a charge that he and Mrs Y did not understand. As he says he did not receive a suitable explanation following his email to the Council in mid-2022, it would have been reasonable for him to complain to the Council, then us, in 2022.
10. Mr X complained formally about the matter in 2025. Mr X has not provided any reason for the delay. It appears recent attempts by the Council to recover Mrs Y’s debt may have prompted his complaint. This is not a good reason to delay a complaint about the Council’s decision of 2022 to charge Mrs Y and its associated communication. We will not investigate those late complaints.
11. Any more recent decision by the Council to pursue Mrs Y for payment of arrears, which it calculates as being over £30,000, is not something with which we could find fault. We will not investigate the events of 2022 and therefore we could not say the debt is not rightly owed. The Council is entitled to decide to pursue unpaid care charges, and so there is insufficient evidence of fault in more recent events.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s late complaint because there is not a good reason for the delay in complaining to us about the matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman