Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his social care account and poor complaint handling, including the absence of any reasonable adjustments during its complaint investigation. A further investigation is unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile.

The complaint

1. Mr X’s representative, who we will call Ms Y, complained on his behalf.
2. Ms Y complained the Council has only partially credited his social care account and has not explained how the credits were calculated.
3. Ms Y also said the Council took too long to respond to Mr X’s complaint and did not offer any reasonable adjustments to Mr X during its complaint investigation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 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

5. I considered information provided by Mr X, Ms Y and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms Y complained the Council has only partially credited Mr X’s social care account.
8. However, during its consideration of Mr X’s complaint, the Council recently sent him a letter showing the credits on his social care account. It said it sent the letter in a format suited to Mr X’s reasonable adjustment needs, and it apologised to him for not doing this previously.
9. The Council also said it has recorded the reasonable adjustment needs disclosed by Mr X and Ms Y. However, it said Mr X or Ms Y can contact it if Mr X needs any additional reasonable adjustments.
10. It is open to Mr X or Ms Y to contact the Council and explain what other reasonable adjustments Mr X needs and how these should be specifically implemented by the Council.
11. We will not investigate the Council’s complaint handling alone as this would not be a good use of our limited public resources.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because an investigation is unlikely to achieve anything worthwhile because the Council has now sent Mr X a letter showing the credits on his social care account.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman