Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s communication with Mrs X. That is because the complaint is late.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council had bullied and harassed since 2019. She said its communication was aggressive and it accused her of being dishonest. She said that had caused her significant upset. She wants the Council to apologise and admit her mistakes.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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 has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
3. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide further investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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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. Ms X complained to the Council at the start of 2021 about how it had communicated with her around a direct payment audit. She also said the Council had not made reasonable adjustments for her.
7. The Council responded to her complaints in June 2021. In that letter the Council said it had met with Mrs X in February 2021 to discuss its concerns around her direct payments. It did not uphold her complaints that it had made allegations against her, or that its communication with her had been harsh. However, it did apologise if that was how its communication had felt.
8. The Council accepted it had not sent all its letters to Mrs X in the agreed format and said that was because the computer system did not share recorded reasonable adjustment information across services. It said it would take steps to address this. The Council made suggestions of reasonable adjustments it could make to support Mrs X with her timesheets for her personal assistant. The Council shared its complaint response with a representative assisting Mrs X.
9. Mrs X complained to the Ombudsman in September 2022. Therefore, this is a late complaint, and we will not investigate it. It was reasonable for Mrs X to complain to us sooner if she was unhappy with the Council’s response in June 2021. If Mrs X has new complaints about the Councill’s communication with her, she would need to exhaust the Council’s complaints procedure before we would consider them.
10. In any event, even if this complaint were not late, we would not investigate. That is because the Council has apologised to Mrs X and confirmed it has taken steps to meet her reasonable adjustments. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because it is late.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman