Summary: Mr X complained about the way the Council dealt with his request for communication adjustments. We found fault in the way the Council responded to Mr X’s request. This fault caused Mr X injustice. The Council has agreed to apologise, review Mr X’s communication adjustments and update his records and pay him a symbolic distress payment. The Council has also agreed some service improvements to share learning from this complaint.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s failure to apply reasonable adjustments when he applied for direct payments for a carer’s grant in 2025. The Council had previously agreed that when communicating with Mr X it needed to apply certain adjustments.
2. Mr X says the Council’s failings caused him significant distress and affected his health. He is distressed that despite the Council’s previous agreement to apply communication adjustments and to improve its services, this did not happen.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether or not an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them.
5. When considering complaints we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we look at the available relevant evidence and decide what was more likely to have happened.
6. If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

7. I have not investigated Mr X’s complaint about an individual member of the Council’s staff.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. Mr X and the Council now have an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Legal and administrative framework

Equality Act 2010

10. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to anybody which carries out a public function. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
11. Service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.
12. The duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means service providers cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use their services but must think in advance about what disabled people with a range of impairments might reasonably need.

What happened

Background

13. Mr X is autistic and has impaired hearing for which he wears hearing aids. He has a history of anxiety.
14. In 2022 Mr X complained to us about the Council’s failure to make adjustments which would allow him to provide evidence on his liability for Council Tax. We found fault leading to Mr X’s injustice. The Council agreed to provide training to staff about considering and implementing reasonable adjustments requests.
15. In 2023 we found the Council failed to communicate properly with Mr X in late 2021 which resulted in him missing the opportunity to be considered for a carer’s grant in 2022. The Council agreed to apologise, pay Mr X £200 to recognise his distress and consider giving people the option to opt out of receiving encrypted emails if that is their preference.

Mr X’s carer’s grant request for 2025

16. At the beginning of December 2024 Mr X asked the Council to provide him with an email address which he could use to apply for a carer’s grant. He asked for an email address rather than a telephone number.
17. After receiving a website link from the Council Mr X said he would not be able to use it. He repeated his request for an email address to the carers’ assessment team.
18. The Council said there was no email address that Mr X could use. Besides there was no need for Mr X to send a request as his carer’s needs would be reviewed by the Council anyway. If, however, Mr X still wanted to request a review he could speak to the Customer Service centre who would create a referral for him. Otherwise Mr X could use a library and ask for their support to fill in an online portal form. The Council also said it would alert the carers review team of Mr X’s contact.
19. Mr X complained to the Council about continuing discrimination and the lack of adjustments for his disabilities. He stressed that links and telephone numbers were not what he needed. The Council should have been aware how stressful it was for Mr X to communicate with people who were new to him. Mr X also complained about a member of staff, who, he said, had failed to respond to his correspondence.
20. Mr X came to us in the second week of February 2025. As the Council had not yet responded to Mr X’s complaint, we asked it to do so before deciding whether to investigate.
21. In mid-March 2025 the Council upheld Mr X’s complaint. The Council decided it should have dealt with Mr X’s request in a more person-centred way. A Manager (the Manager) dealing with the complaint apologised for the inadequate service and inconvenience caused to Mr X. The Manager offered her email address to Mr X for any future correspondence.
22. In response to my enquiries the Council said the system it uses for the Adult Social Care records allows recording communication adjustments in the way that is accessible to any member of the Council’s staff. The Council also said all members of staff receive annual Equality and Diversity and accessibility training.

Analysis

23. Paragraphs ten to 12 of this decision explain how the Council should consider its duty towards people with disabilities who need adjustments in the way the Council communicates with them. The Council does not have to accept all requests for adjustments. If the Council decides to refuse them, it should record its reasons for considering these adjustments unreasonable.
24. In our Focus Report ‘Equal access: Getting it right for people with disabilities’ we say: ‘Local services should consult with service users about what reasonable adjustments they need. If a person requests an adjustment which is reasonable, the service cannot refuse to provide it. It cannot impose the service’s own preferred adjustment instead. Local services need to be alert to the individual needs of service users with disabilities and should not impose blanket policies of what reasonable adjustments it will agree or make available.’ We also encourage council to keep any agreed reasonable adjustments under review.
25. I found that when communicating with Mr X the Council failed to take proper account of his needs. After Mr X’s request for an email address at the beginning of December 2024, the Council should have explored the extent of his needs and should have decided whether his request was reasonable. If the Council had not considered what Mr X asked for was reasonable, it should have clearly communicated it to him and explained its reasons.
26. If the Council had considered Mr X’s request for an email address to communicate with the carers’ assessment team, it is more likely than not that it would have decided it was reasonable to agree to provide it. This is because when dealing with Mr X’s complaint a few weeks later, the Manager told Mr X to use her email address for any future correspondence.
27. The Council’s failure to respond properly to Mr X’s request for communication adjustment was fault which caused injustice to him. Mr X was distressed at the Council’s failure to help him access its services despite his previous complaints about the same matter. Due to his vulnerability and needs the Council’s re-occurring failings significantly affected his well-being.

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Action

28. To remedy the injustice caused by the faults identified, we recommend the Council complete within four weeks of the final decision the following:
• apologise to Mr X for the injustice caused to him by the fault identified. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended;
• arrange with Mr X a review of communication adjustments he needs when using the Council’s services. Following this review the Council should update the information on Mr X’s records;
• pay Mr X £200 to recognise his distress.

The Council will provide the evidence that this has happened.

29. We also recommend the Council within three months of the final decision:
• share the learning from this complaint with all Adult Social Care teams;
• ensure all Adult Social Care front-line staff review our Focus Report ‘Equal access: Getting it right for people with disabilities’.

The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

30. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has accepted my recommendations, so this investigation is at an end.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman