Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about Mrs G’s direct payments or the deductions being made from her carer’s pay. This is because we are unlikely to add to the Council’s own investigation. Nor is the injustice suffered significant enough to justify our involvement.

The complaint

1. Mr Q is Mrs G’s carer. He complained about Norfolk County Council’s handling of her direct payments. In particular, he complained the Council wrongly took deductions from his pay.

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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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information Mr Q provided. I invited Mr Q to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

4. Mrs G receives direct payments for her care. Mr Q provides her care. In 2019 he opted out of a pension scheme. Despite this, the Council continued to take deductions of around £2 to £5 per month from his pay for the pension scheme.
5. The Council said it had technical difficulties with employees who opted out of the pension scheme. It apologised for this and refunded the money it deducted from Mr Q’s pay in error. It said it would continue to refund deductions until it could find a solution to the problem.
6. I recognise it is frustrating that deductions continued to be made from Mr Q’s pay. However, we are unlikely to add to the Council’s own investigation, the action it took, or the action it proposed to take.
7. In addition, the injustice Mrs G and Mr Q may have suffered by having deductions of £2 to £5 per month taken from his pay, which the Council then refunded, is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate this complaint for the reasons given in paragraphs 6 and 7.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman