Durham County Council (25 019 569)
Category : Adult care services > Charging
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 28 Apr 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about social care charging as the injustice arising from any Council fault is not sufficient to warrant our further involvement.
The complaint
- Mr X complains that due to an administrative error by the Council, he had to pay a backdated bill for his son’s care of around £4000. Mr X considers he should have not had to pay.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 any alleged fault has not caused significant injustice to the person who complained (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by the complainant.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- The Council’s complaint response to Mr X indicates that a manager had agreed to pause the client contribution for Mr X’s son’s care while Mr X appealed against the calculated cost of the care package. The Council said however that this was not the Council’s policy and should not have been agreed at the time.
- I recognise Mr X is unhappy about having to pay off arrears and that in part, the arrears accrued due to the Council pausing its collection of the fees. However, the fees remained payable and that Mr X was required to pay them is not in itself an injustice that would warrant our further involvement nor could we ask the Council not to collect the outstanding fees. We will not therefore investigate.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because that there is insufficient injustice arising from it to warrant our further involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman