Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about an invoice for care charges the Council sent to Miss X and the way it followed its debt recovery procedures. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about a bill the Council sent her for accrued care charges which totals over £45,000. She says the Council sent the bill for a period covering several years and says it did not send a bill previously. Miss X says the matter is causing her distress as she cannot afford to make the payments. She wants the Council to review the matter and offering her help whereby she can make manageable payments.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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/care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. Miss X received homecare services arranged by the Council since at least 2016. The Council completed a financial assessment in 2016 and wrote to Miss X to confirm how much she needed to pay towards her care costs.
7. The Council completed financial assessments annually up to 2024 and sent a letter to Miss X confirming how much she needed to pay noting any changes in costs or her circumstances. The Council said Miss X did not make any payments towards her care despite sending her final demands for payment regularly.
8. In January 2025 the Council sent Miss X a letter of claim for the debt totalling over £40,000 at the time. Miss X’s representative contacted the Council to say Miss X wanted to pay in instalments. The Council sent Miss X an income and expenditure form on three separate occasions, but it said she did not return the form.
9. The Council wrote to Miss X in August and said it intended to refer the debt to a debt collection agency. It said it did not receive any contact from Miss X or her representative, so it referred the debt to the collection agency in October.
10. The Council considered a complaint from Miss X in November and said it could not consider her complaint about her view she did not owe the care charges because she said she was told she was eligible for healthcare funding years earlier. The Council considered the complaint late but signposted Miss X to the health authority responsible for considering a retrospective claim for healthcare funding.
11. The Council considered a further complaint from Miss X about the way it had followed its debt recovery procedures. It did not find fault in its processes and referred Miss X to us.
12. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about whether she should have paid towards her care because the complaint is late and there are no good reasons to investigate now. Miss X was aware she needed to contribute to her care costs and received letters confirming how much she should pay. If could have raised the issue about her eligibility for healthcare funding earlier.
13. We will not investigate this complaint about the way the Council followed its debt recovery procedures. On balance, the Council sent Miss X several reminders about the amount she owed for care charges which appears to have accrued because of non-payment. Miss X had several opportunities to share her income and expenditure when the Council sent her the form three times. From this should could have arranged an affordable repayment plan. When Miss X did not do so the Council referred the matter to a debt collection agency in line with its procedures. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman