Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint that the Council delayed in arranging a day care placement for her son Mr Z and would not provide her with direct payments to fund the placement. There is insufficient evidence of fault to justify an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council delayed in arranging daycare provision for her son, Mr Z, and is directly commissioning that care instead of giving her direct payments.
2. Ms X says that the delays caused her stress and frustration and she had to pay for the daycare herself. She wants the Council to give her direct payments to avoid the same thing happening in future.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

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

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mr Z was in the process of transferring from being on an Education, Health and Care Plan to adult services. He already attends two daycare centres. Ms X has direct payments from the Council so she can pay for some of this care directly with the care providers.
7. Ms X asked the Council to increase Mr Z’s daycare support so he could attend a third placement. The Council assessed Mr Z and agreed to the placement. However, there were delays in setting up the payments and so Ms X paid for the placement herself for several weeks.
8. Ms X complained to the Council about the delays and asked it to set up direct payments so she could pay for the placement. The Council apologised, reimbursed Ms X the amount she had paid and said that it had now directly commissioned the care so it would be responsible for payments in future. Ms X remained unhappy and complained to the Ombudsman.
9. We will not investigate a complaint if we consider any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
10. Mr Z was able to attend the placement, albeit whilst Ms X paid. Therefore, he did not experience any injustice.
11. The Council has reimbursed Ms X for the money she paid which means there is no outstanding injustice from the initial delays. And the Council is now directly commissioning the placement so any payments, whether late or not, are contractual matters for the care provider and Council to resolve without requiring input from Ms X.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is insufficient injustice to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman