Summary: Mrs X complains the Council failed to deal properly with the reopening of services during the first COVID-19 lockdown, resulting in it failing to meet her son’s needs for longer than was necessary. There was a lack of communication with families during the lockdown, which caused Mrs X avoidable distress. Mrs Y’s son should have been able to return to his Day Centre sooner than he did. The Council has agreed to apologise.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mrs X, complains the Council failed to deal properly with the reopening of services during the first COVID-19 lockdown, resulting in it failing to meet her son’s needs for longer than was necessary.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mrs X;
• discussed the complaint with Mrs X;
• considered the comments and documents the Council has provided in response to my enquiries; and
• shared a draft of this statement with Mrs X and the Council, and invited comments for me to consider before making my final decision.

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What I found

What happened

5. Mrs X’s son, Mr Y, has autism and a learning disability. He needs support with most activities. He lives with his parents, both of whom work full-time, and his siblings, one of whom also has autism. His parents meet his needs for care and support when they are not working.
6. In March 2020 Mr Y was attending college three days a week. Based on a care and support plan agreed in 2018, the Council funded day services on the other two weekdays to meet his eligible care and support needs. He went to a Community Farm on one of those days (commissioned by the Council) and a Day Centre for people with learning disabilities on the other day (paid for by Mr Y using a direct payment from the Council).
7. When the country went into lockdown on 23 March, the day services closed, as did the college. Mr Y continued to pay for the Day Centre. Mrs X says this was to ensure it would reopen.
8. The Council called Mrs X on 1 May. She said Mr Y was not coping well with the closure of the day services. She said they were also finding it difficult working from home while meeting the needs of their two sons with autism. She said Mr Y was taking medication for anxiety again.
9. The Council wrote to day centres on 14 May asking for their plans to reopen services so it could consider them within the context of its own plans and any changes it “may seek to make with regards to how [we] will commission services going forward in light of Government guidance and the requirement to socially distance, and to ensure the continued safety and wellbeing of service users”.
10. Mr Y started going back to the Community Farm on Mondays from 18 May.
11. On 28 May the Council wrote again to day centres. It said they needed to tell the Council of the measures they intended to take to ensure social distancing so they could deliver services as safely as possible. The Council said it would decide whether individuals could return to day centres or not (i.e. based on reassessments of needs). It says this was to ensure any return to building based services was managed as safely as possible and that enough places were available for those most in need.
12. On 31 May the Day Centre told Mrs X the Council had told it on 28 May that no one, including her son, could return until the Council had reassessed their needs.
13. The Day Centre told Mrs X it had been planning to reopen on 1 June but had been prevented from doing so by the Council’s e-mail of 28 May. It offered to provide 1:1 support to take Mr Y out on 2 June, which Mrs X accepted.
14. On 1 June Mrs X contacted her son’s last Social Worker who said she was no longer working in that role and advised her to call the Council’s Contact Centre.
15. Mrs X e-mailed the Council asking it to clarify its plans for reopening day centres. She said she had expected Mr Y to return to the Day Centre on 2 June but had now been told that could not happen until the Council had had reassessed him.
16. On 2 June the Council said it was working with day centres but had not yet approved any of their plans for reopening and had told them not to agree dates with people until the Council had reassessed them. It told Mrs X it would assign someone to reassess Mr Y. It said it had already identified him as a priority for returning to the Day Centre when satisfied it was safe.
17. Mrs X complained to the Council about its handling of the reopening of day centres. She asked why:
• she had been told her son’s funding would end in mid-May;
• she had only just been told the Council would be reassessing her son’s needs;
• there had been so little contact from the Council during the lockdown.
18. The Council called Mrs X on 3 June. She said the changes had had a massive impact on Mr Y’s mental health. The Council said Mr Y was overdue (by a year) a review of his needs. It said it would do the review over the telephone and when able would visit to meet Mr Y (possibly in the garden). Mrs Y suggested doing everything over the telephone to speed it up. The Council agreed to send Mrs X a copy of its last assessment from May 2018. They arranged to do a telephone review on 8 June.
19. On 4 June the Community Farm told the Council it could offer Mr Y an extra day a week.
20. On 8 June the Day Centre told the Council Mr Y’s family had turned down community support at the start of the lockdown, but it had supported him on 2 June and would be supporting him again on 9 June. It said he could return to the Day Centre as soon as required.
21. When the Council reassessed Mr Y’s needs, it agreed he should continue to attend day services two days a week. It also agreed to fund an extra day a week (Wednesdays) at the Community Farm from 15 June to 20 September (when the college was expected to reopen). This reflected the fact Mr Y could not be on his own for long periods of time. The assessment also says Mr & Mrs X would be eligible for respite services, if they wanted this. Afterwards the Council sent them information about respite services.
22. On 10 June the Day Centre confirmed Mr Y could return the following week.
23. On 17 June the Council sent Mrs X a letter about reopening day services. This said the day services were doing risk assessments to identify how many people they could support and were now in a position to offer a limited number of places. It said it may ask people to attend only one day service to reduce the risk of spreading the virus between different services. It said it would be reviewing people who had previously attended day services and was prioritising people having the most difficulties with the current arrangement. It said there was no need to respond unless there was a need for immediate support. By this time Mr Y was attending day services three days a week.
24. When the Council responded to Mrs X’s complaint on 2 July, it said:
• it had only called Mrs X once after the lockdown started and put this down to the difficulty of offering suitable advice in a rapidly changing situation;
• it accepted it could have communicated more quickly with families to offer reassurance about how it was managing things;
• there were no plans to cut Mr Y’s funding; and
• it had followed the Care Act 2014 when deciding to reassess Mr Y’s needs.
25. The Council accepts it failed to comply with the public sector equality duty under Section 149 of the Equality Act 2000, as it did not do an equality impact assessment before the reopening of day centres. The Council started an equality impact assessment in November.

Is there evidence of fault by the Council which caused injustice?

26. The Council accepts it could have communicated better with families during the time day services were closed. Some councils made weekly or more frequent welfare calls. This enabled them to:
• arrange support in the community for those most in need (including families in need of respite) before day services reopened; and
• keep people informed of plans and timescales for reopening services.
27. Mrs X was left to get information from others, which increased her anxieties about what was going on.
28. I cannot find fault with the Council for wanting to reassess Mr Y’s needs. This reflects the fact it made changes to his care and support plan, had not assessed him since 2018 and the closure of services had had a significant impact on him.
29. However, given that Mr Y was able to return to the Community Farm in May and had already been identified as a priority to return to the Day Centre, he should have been able to return when the Day Centre was ready to accept him in early June.
30. The Council’s faults caused avoidable distress to Mrs X, for which it needs to apologise.

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Agreed action

31. I recommended the Council:
• within four weeks writes to Mrs X to apologise for its failings;
• within eight weeks, if it has not already done so, completes the equality impact assessment and identifies the lessons it has learned from this complaint.

The Council has agreed to do this.

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Final decision

32. I have completed my investigation as the Council has agreed to take action to remedy the injustice its faults have caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman