Summary: Mrs E complained the Council has delayed processing her daughter’s Disabled Facilities Grant application. We find the Council was at fault for its significant delays in dealing with the application. The Council has agreed to our recommendations to address the injustice caused by fault.

The complaint

1. Mrs E complained the Council has delayed processing her daughter’s (Miss F) Disabled Facilities Grant application.
2. Mrs E says she is extremely concerned about the impact on her and Miss F’s health. She wants the Council to resolve the matter without further delay.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We may investigate a complaint on behalf of someone who has died or who cannot authorise someone to act for them. The complaint may be made by:

• their personal representative (if they have one), or
• someone we consider to be suitable.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 26A(2), as amended)

4. 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)
5. 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)
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(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information from Mrs E. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered information it sent in response.
8. Mrs E and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Disabled Facilities Grants

9. Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) are provided under the terms of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. Councils have a statutory duty to give grants to disabled people for certain adaptations. Before approving a grant, a council must be satisfied the work is necessary, meets the disabled person’s needs, and is reasonable and practicable.
10. In March 2022 the government issued non-statutory guidance “Disabled facilities Grant (DFG) Delivery: Guidance for local authorities in England. The guidance identifies five key stages to delivering home adaptations:

• Stage 1: First contact with the service. Councils should ensure the public has access to information and advice about the DFG process.
• Stage 2: First contact to assessment and identification of the relevant works. An occupational therapist (OT) will assess the person’s needs and potential solutions through home adaptations.
• Stage 3: Identification of the relevant works to submission of the formal grant application. The person completes and submits the application form together with designs and costing for the works (where necessary).
• Stage 4: Grant application to grant decision. The Council will check the application and issue a decision letter. If a council refuses a grant, it must explain why.
• Stage 5: Approval of grant to completion of works. The works are arranged and carried out and the necessary quality checks made.

11. A council should decide a grant application as soon as reasonably practicable. In addition, the timescales for moving through the stages will depend on the urgency and complexity of the works required. The guidance gives the following timescales:

• Urgent and simple works – 55 working days
• Non-urgent and simple works – 130 working days
• Urgent and complex works – 130 days
• Non-urgent and complex works – 180 working days.

What happened

12. This chronology includes an overview of key events and does not detail everything that happened.
13. Miss F has complex health needs. Mrs E supports Miss F and deals with all communication on her behalf. Mrs E contacted the Council in late November 2021 and said Miss F was struggling to get in and out of the house. She asked the Council to make some adaptations to their house to reduce the access difficulties.
14. The Council contacted Mrs E a couple of days later to get some further information. It asked Mrs E to send some photographs of the access issues. It also explained there was a long wait for occupational therapy input due to a high demand for the service.
15. The Council sent a letter to Mrs E in January 2022 and said there would be a delay before it could offer an appointment with an OT. It repeated its request for photographs.
16. The Council phoned Mrs E in March and left a voicemail. It said it had not received any photographs and therefore it could not provide a removable ramp as a short-term measure. It said Miss F was still on a waiting list.
17. The Council assigned an OT (OT A) to Miss F’s case in November 2022. OT A visited a few days later and said she would need to get permission from Miss F’s landlord (a housing association) to proceed with the ramp adaptations.
18. The Council emailed Miss F’s landlord in February 2023 and asked for permission in principle for the adaptations. The landlord responded the following month and confirmed its agreement to the proposals.
19. OT A and an OT from the NHS visited Mrs E and Miss F at home in April 2023. OT A said she would see if Miss F could move to alternative accommodation. If moving was not a possibility, she said she would arrange a feasibility visit with a technical officer in the grants team.
20. OT A spoke with an officer from the housing association. The officer said Miss F was not eligible for priority banding on the housing register.
21. OT A and a technical officer visited Mrs E and Miss F in June to explore the options to provide safe access to the house. A surveyor also visited to assess what adaptations were possible. OT A reviewed the recommendations from the surveyor and confirmed she was happy to proceed and send the referral to the grants team. She asked Miss F’s landlord for information on whether Miss F would need a replacement stairlift under the DFG.
22. OT A left the Council. She put in her transfer note the new OT would need to follow up with the landlord about the stairlift. The Council assigned a new OT (OT B) to the case at the end of July.
23. Mrs E complained to the Council in August about its delays in processing Miss F’s DFG application.
24. OT B chased the landlord for information on the stairlift in late August. She sent the DFG referral to the grants team in early September.
25. The Council responded to Mrs E’s complaint in October. It accepted there was a delay in assigning OT A to the case. It said technical aspects of the adaptations were not straightforward and it required input from a technical officer and surveyor. It said there was a further delay because OT B thought OT A had sent the referral for the ramp adaptation and the team was just waiting for information on the stairlift to add to the application. It apologised for the delays and confirmed it was taking steps to improve its waiting times.
26. The Council sent a letter to Miss F in December and said her referral was on a waiting list and a grants officer would be in contact when there was capacity.
27. The Council assigned a grants officer to the case in March 2024.

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Analysis

28. Mrs E refers to matters from November 2021, but she did not refer the complaint to us until October 2023. Events before October 2022 would usually be caught by the restriction in paragraph five of this statement. However, this was an ongoing matter affected by continual delays. Therefore, I have exercised discretion to investigate matters from November 2021 onwards.
29. The Council has significantly delayed processing the DFG. It took one year to assign an OT to the case. OT A took three months to contact the landlord about the adaptations. There was confusion about whether OT A had referred the application to the grants team which caused a further delay. The Council also took six months to assign a grants officer to the case. It is not clear whether the Council has categorised the works as urgent/non-urgent or simplex/complex but it any event it has significantly exceeded even the longest timescales set out in the government guidance (after March 2022).
30. The Council’s faults have caused Mrs E and Miss F a significant injustice. They have been caused frustration and distress by the Council’s excessive delays. They still do not have a decision on whether the Council will approve the DFG. If the Council had acted without fault, it would have either approved the DFG and then the adaptation works would been complete, or it would have decided not to approve the DFG which would have given Mrs E an opportunity to appeal the decision. The Council’s delays have caused Miss F and Mrs E a significant level of uncertainty over what would have happened. I understand the Council is now waiting for important information from Mrs E before it can decide whether to approve the DFG. Mrs E will need to provide this so the Council can make its decision.
31. The Council apologised for the delays when it responded to the complaint. When it responded to my enquiries, it confirmed it has employed and is continuing to employ new members of staff to address the shortages in the team. It says the waiting list for an OT has reduced from 14 months to 10 months and it has introduced a new streamlined process for how it deals with referrals. I welcome the Council’s apology and the service improvements it has made. However, I do not consider it sufficiently remedies the significant injustice I have set out in paragraph 30 of this statement. I have made further recommendations to remedy this injustice. This is higher than what we would normally recommend but it reflects the length of time this matter has been going on for.

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Agreed action

32. By 19 June 2024 the Council has agreed to pay Miss F and Mrs E £600 each for their frustration, upset and uncertainty from the significant delays in dealing with the DFG.
33. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above action.

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Final decision

34. There was fault by the Council, which caused Mrs E and Miss F an injustice. The Council has agreed to my recommendation and so I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman