Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s funding of Ms X’s daughter’s care. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault and significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained the Council:
1. Failed to properly fund the care her adult daughter needs through her personal budget;
2. Failed to ensure her daughter had an adult social care plan in place before she turned eighteen;
3. Failed to inform her of her right to make a complaint or to request a higher hourly rate to be paid for her daughter’s care; and
4. Delayed carrying out a carers’ assessment for herself and her husband.
2. Ms X said as a result she and her husband have taken on more of the caring responsibilities, they have been financially impacted and have been caused distress. Ms X wants the Council to ensure her daughter’s care is fully funded, wants financial compensation and service improvements to be made.

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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 there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating 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 Ms X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council took steps to produce Ms X’s daughter, Ms Y’s, adult social care plan before she turned eighteen and moved over from children’s services. However, it was two weeks late issuing this care plan and apologised for this. This was appropriate and what we would expect the Council to do. In any case, I do not think any injustice caused by this short delay is significant enough to warrant further investigation.
7. The plan said Ms Y would receive a personal budget which she could use flexibly towards a personal assistant via direct payments. The Council’s standard rate that it paid for personal assistants was £18 an hour. The Council agreed to temporarily fund Ms X’s preferred personal assistant at a higher rate of £25 through her personal budget while it finalised her care plan. It continued this temporary arrangement for nine months after the care plan was issued.
8. The Council informed Ms X later in 2025 that the arrangement would need to come to an end and from then it would only contribute the cost of its standard rate. It provided Ms X with details of care providers that might be able to provide the support within the agreed rate or said Ms Y could consider topping up the costs herself.
9. The Council considered an application for financial assistance to cover the higher rate. The Council considered the request but said there was no evidence of mitigating circumstances that would justify paying a higher rate.
10. I recognise Ms X is unhappy with the Council’s decision not to pay the higher rate. However the Council is entitled to set a standard rate and there is no evidence of fault in how it applied this rate to Ms Y’s personal budget. It was open to Ms X to ask the Council to commission the care itself if she could not do so using direct payments. It also properly considered her request to fund at a higher rate. This was appropriate action to take. There is not enough evidence of fault here to justify further investigation.
11. Ms X said there was a delay in the Council informing her about the option of applying for financial assistance. Whilst I acknowledge this delay may have caused some frustration and uncertainty, I do not consider any resulting injustice to be significant enough to justify further investigation. This is because ultimately, the Council did not approve her application and there is insufficient evidence to suggest the outcome would have been different had she been informed of the option sooner.
12. The Council completed carers' assessments for Ms X and her husband. It identified respite support through personal assistants funded at the Council’s standard rate. Ms X did not agree to this arrangement because she wanted respite care to be funded at a higher rate. While there was a delay in completing the carers' assessments, I am not persuaded this caused Ms X a significant injustice. On balance, it is likely she would not have accepted the respite provision had it been offered earlier, as her objection related to the rate of funding rather than the timing of the offer.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint further because there is insufficient evidence of fault and injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman