Summary: I find fault with the Council for failing to carry out timely reviews of Mr Y’s financial assessment. However, the Council has already remedied this injustice. I find no fault by the Council in applying its policy for disability related expenditure.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council has unreasonably increased his son Mr Y’s care fees after failing to review his financial assessment for five years.
2. Mr X also says the Council has failed to consider disability related expenditure when calculating Mr Y’s new care costs.
3. Mr X says this has caused significant financial strain on his son and the family, and has prevented Mr Y from being able to access services to meet his care needs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
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/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

7. I have not investigated the financial assessment that was carried out in October 2025. This occurred after Mr X bought his complaint to us and is a separate matter. If Mr X is unhappy with this assessment, he should make a new complaint to the Council.
8. I have not investigated historic financial assessments. This is because any issues with previous assessments would be late. I have started my investigation from the point at which the Council realised it had not completed timely financial review in February 2025.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. I invited Mr X and the Council to comment on my draft decision, and considered any comments that were received.

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What I found

Legislation and guidance

11. If a council decides a person is eligible for care, it should prepare a care and support plan which specifies the needs identified in the assessment, says whether and to what extent the needs meet the eligibility criteria and specifies the needs the council is going to meet and how this will be done. The council should give a copy of the care and support plan to the person. (Care Act 2014, sections 24 and 25)
12. Statutory Guidance explains a council should review a care and support plan at least every year, on request or in response to a change in circumstances. The purpose of a review is to see how a care and support plan has been working and to decide if any revisions need to be made to it. The council should act promptly after receiving a request for a review. (Care and Support Statutory Guidance, Paragraphs 13.19-21 and 13.32)
13. The Care Act spells out the duty to meet an adult’s eligible unmet needs (needs which meet the eligibility criteria that are not being met by a different source). (Care Act 2014, section 18)

Disability Related Expenditure

14. Councils can take disability-related benefit into account when calculating how much someone should pay towards the cost of their care. When doing so, a council should make an assessment to allow the person to keep enough benefit to pay for necessary disability-related expenditure (DRE) to meet any needs it is not meeting. The Care and Support Statutory Guidance sets out a list of examples of such expenditure. It says any reasonable additional costs directly related to a person's disability should be included. What counts as DRE should not be limited to what is necessary for care and support. For example, above average heating costs should be considered.
15. Disability Related Expenditure (DRE) are expenses that a person has to pay connected to their disability. They are an allowance in a person’s financial assessment and reduce their weekly charge. DRE can include specialist items and services such as wheelchairs. They can include extra heating or laundry costs, equipment and aids and regular payments such as wheelchair insurance and gardening costs. Statutory guidance says:

• A council must leave a person with enough money to pay for necessary DRE to meet needs that are not being met by the local authority
• The care plan may be a starting point for considering DRE, but councils need to be flexible. (Care and Support Statutory Guidance Annex C, 39 and 41)

16. The Council’s financial assessment policy says it will ask about

• income
• savings
• other assets (such as property)
• money spent on rent or mortgage and council tax
• any money spent because of disability or illness (Disability Related Expenditure DRE)

17. Once the financial assessment is completed, the Council will give an indication of costs to pay towards care that is agreed as part of the Care Plan. The Council will ask applicants to provide evidence documents to support the information given within 1 month. The Council will contact the applicant to ask for further information or to confirm how much they will have to pay

What happened

18. Mr X’s son, Mr Y has a care and support plan from the Council.
19. In November 2020, the Council carried out a financial assessment for Mr Y. It said he had care and support needs which he needed to contribute to. Based on his income, and disability related expenditure (DRE), Mr Y needed to contribute £9.35 per week to his care.
20. The financial assessment for Mr Y in November 2020 acknowledged he had DRE of £29.55 per week and said these were unverified but accepted by the Council and counted towards the financial assessment. The DRE was for specialist clothing and laundry costs.
21. The Council contacted Mr X in February 2025 to arrange a new financial assessment. The Council acknowledged it had not done one for some time, and said it needed to carry one out.
22. The Council carried out a financial assessment for Mr Y, with Mr X acting as his representative. The assessment considered that Mr Y’s benefits had changed in this time, as had the price of care services. It did not account for any DRE, as Mr X was not able to provide evidence for these.
23. The outcome of the February 2025 financial assessment was that Mr Y needed to contribute £48.45 per week and there was no DRE.
24. Mr X appealed the financial assessment and said Mr Y could not meet the new costs of his care. He also said the Council hadn’t accounted for DRE. The Council told Mr X it would consider any DRE if he could provide evidence of this but Mr X said he did not have any receipts for the expenses.
25. In April 2025, Mr X sent a list of DRE expenses to the Council and asked the financial assessment outcome be reviewed. The Council confirmed it had received Mr X’s information.
26. In May 2025, the Council asked Mr X to provide evidence of the DRE expenses to support his request. It wrote to him and said that to calculate any DRE, it needed further information and receipts of the DRE. Mr X responded to the Council to say he could not provide receipts of the DRE and felt it was unreasonable for the Council to ask, as he did not keep and provide receipts prior. The Council told Mr X it could not approve any DRE without evidence of costs, and therefore the charges remained the same.
27. Mr X complained to the Council in August 2025. In his complaint he said

• The Council had increased Mr Y’s care charges from £39per month to £200 per month.
• The Council had not taken into account any DRE, and had not considered that Mr X was unable to obtain any receipts due to family circumstances and the practicality of it.

28. The Council carried out a review of the financial assessment in August 2025. As part of the review, the Council offered to arrange alternative care services for Mr Y to alleviate some of the pressure and responsibility Mr X was under to care for his son. Mr X declined this support. Mr X told the Council Mr Y was not attending the care services in his care plan due to the increase in costs.
29. The review outcome remained that Mr Y needed to pay increased costs towards his care, and that there was no evidence of DRE.
30. The Council’s complaint response to Mr X said

• It acknowledged it should have been carrying out financial assessments on a yearly basis. It was likely that if it had done this, the costs would have increased yearly, in line with Mr Y’s benefits increases.
• The Council had used its discretion to not apply backdated charges for the increased costs in the years before when it should have carried out assessments.
• Mr Y had had plenty of opportunity to provide evidence of the DRE, but as he had not done so, the Council needed to apply its DRE policy which required evidence of DRE for it to be considered.
• The Council will reconsider at any DRE in the future if Mr Y can provide evidence. Until then, the charges remain.

31. Mr X remained unhappy and bought his complaint to the Ombudsman.

Analysis

32. 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 processes 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.
33. It was fault by the Council to not carry out timely financial assessments for Mr Y. However, there is no injustice to Mr Y for this part of the complaint as the Council has said it will not charge the increased costs in the years it did not carry out the financial assessment.
34. I appreciate the previous financial assessment accepted Mr Y’s DRE without verifying them, and Mr X would not have known any different until told so. Therefore, it was reasonable for the Council to make Mr X aware of the need to provide evidence according to the policy as part of the financial assessment, and offer to consider this against the charges if he could evidence this.
35. In making its decision, the Council took account of the relevant guidance, its own policies and information from Mr X. The organisation followed the appropriate procedures when making this decision and I cannot therefore criticise it.
36. I also consider the Council has taken into account the circumstances of the family as it offered alternative support to Mr X when he told the Council that he was struggling to manage, and therefore could not gather the evidence.

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Decision

37. I find fault with the Council for failing to carry out timely financial assessments, however the Council’s actions have already remedied any injustice. I do not find fault with the Council for its implementation of its DRE policy.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman