Summary: Miss X complained the Council took too long to deal with her application for a disabled facilities grant for home adaptations for her son, and that its assessors that visited her home in 2023 and 2024 were rude and did not listen to her. Part of Miss X’s complaint is late and we have decided there are not good reasons she did not complain sooner. We find the Council at fault for its delay following an assessment visit in 2024 that caused injustice because it deprived Miss X’s son of adaptations which would have increased his independence and improved his daily life. The Council agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment to remedy the injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s handling of her application for a disabled facilities grant to adapt her home for her disabled son. She complains in particular:
1. The Council did not contact her for about two years after she first applied for a grant in 2020 or 2021.
2. The first assessor that visited in 2023 did not listen to her, was rude, and the Council did not contact her again for months.
3. The second assessor that visited in 2024 following a change in her son’s needs did not listen to her and bullied her to agree to a lower grant than was needed.
4. The Council said adaptation work would be completed by the summer 2024 but it had not started by then.
2. Miss X said the Council’s failure to complete the work that was agreed in a timely manner has caused uncertainty and left her in debt as she has had to pay for required home adaptations herself. She would like the Council to reimburse her costs, apologise, and complete the work that was agreed following the assessment in 2024.

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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 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)
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 investigated parts c) and d) of Miss X’s complaint from March 2024 when she told the Council her son’s needs had changed, until January 2025 when she complained to us.
8. I have not investigated parts a) and b) of Miss X’s complaint because she took more than 12 months to complain to us and they are late. I have decided there are not good reasons why she did not complain to us about those matters sooner, therefore I cannot investigate them.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Miss X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.
11. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

12. Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) 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.
13. Section 23 of the Care Act explains the boundary in law between care and support and general housing. Where housing legislation requires councils to provide housing services, they must provide them under housing legislation. However, this should not prevent housing and social care councils working together. The guidance states:
    “... community equipment, along with telecare, aids and adaptations can support reablement, promote independence contributing to preventing the needs for care and support. A local [social care] authority may wish to draw on the assistance of the housing authority and local housing services.”
14. In March 2022 the government issued non-statutory guidance “Disabled facilities Grant (DFG) Delivery: Guidance for local authorities in England”. (The guidance)
15. The guidance advises councils in England on how they can effectively and efficiently deliver DFG funded adaptations to best serve the needs of local older and disabled people. It brings together and sets out in one place existing policy frameworks, legislative duties and powers, together with recommended best practice, to help councils provide an adaptation service to disabled tenants and residents in their area.
16. The guidance identifies five key stages to delivering home adaptations:
    Stage 0: First contact with the service. Councils should ensure the public has access to information and advice about the DFG process.
    Stage 1: 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 2: 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 3: 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 4: Approval of grant to completion of works. The works are arranged and carried out and the necessary quality checks made.
17. 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, which are best practice targets that should be met in 95% of cases, for moving through Stage 1 to Stage 4:
    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

Background

18. Miss X said she first applied for a DFG in 2020 or 2021. She said the Council’s delays meant she had to pay to have her home extended in about 2021, and for a downstairs bathroom in about 2022, to make it suitable for her son’s disabilities.
19. In 2023 an OT from the Council assessed Miss X’s home. Miss X was on a waiting list for works from that time.

What happened

20. This is a summary of key events. It is not a detailed chronology of everything that happened.
21. In March 2024 Miss X contacted the Council and asked it to reassess her application for a DFG because her son’s needs had changed since the assessment in 2023. The Council added Miss X to its OT assessment waiting list.
22. In June an OT visited Miss X and assessed her son’s needs and potential adaptations to their home. The OT referred their recommended adaptations to the Council’s Housing service. The Council contacted Miss X shortly after the visit, explained the OT’s recommendations, and said the next step was for a visit from its Housing service to decide whether the recommendations met the DFG guidelines.
23. In July the Council contacted Miss X and said she was first on the Housing service’s waiting list.
24. The Council’s Housing and OT services visited Miss X three times, in August, September and November. It identified adaptations with Miss X and maintained email contact with her throughout that period.
25. In December Miss X emailed the Council and complained that she had been told the work would begin in summer 2024, but it had not yet started. The Council responded it was sorry for the delay in drawing up the final plans and would treat her contact as a formal complaint.
26. The Council held a meeting in early January 2025 with the different service areas to agree how to address the delay.
27. Miss X complained to us on 20 January.
28. The Council subsequently authorised the adaptations in February and told Miss X it would confirm a start date for the work. It provided two formal complaint responses to Miss X in March and April. Miss X said the Council completed the DFG adaptation works in July.

Analysis

29. I have considered both parts of Miss X’s complaint in turn below.

b) The second assessor that visited in 2024 following a change in her son’s needs did not listen to her and bullied her to agree to a lower grant than was needed.

30. I have considered evidence of the assessment including adaptation request and clinical reasoning forms completed by the OT. I have also considered emails the Council sent to Miss X after the visit that included a record of the assessment, the adaptations discussed, the OT’s recommendations and explained the next steps.
31. The grant itself was not confirmed in June. One of the emails from the Council explained that the Housing service would consider the specific adaptations and decide whether they met the criteria for a DFG.
32. I find the evidence shows the assessor recorded and considered Miss X’s views during the assessment. I have seen no evidence the assessor bullied Miss X into agreeing to a lower grant than was needed. For these reasons I do not find the Council at fault for this part of Miss X’s complaint.

c) The Council said adaptation work would be completed by the summer of 2024 but it had not started by then.

33. I have seen no evidence from the period I investigated that the Council told Miss X the adaptation work on her home would be completed by the summer of 2024.
34. The Council emailed Miss X in July 2024 and said she was first on the Housing service’s waiting list. It explained her case was complex and a senior member of staff would be in touch in the next two weeks to arrange a visit to explain the process and different options.
35. I acknowledge Miss X may have misunderstood this to mean the adaptation work on her home would be completed by the summer. However, on the evidence I have seen, I do not find the Council told Miss X the work would be completed by that time and do not uphold that part of her complaint.
36. I have considered whether the Council was at fault for the time it took to complete the adaptation work. The relevant target timescales in the guidance are detailed in paragraph 17. The target timescales are different and depend on whether the case is urgent, non-urgent, simple or complex.
37. The evidence shows the Council decided Miss X’s case was complex, but not whether it was non-urgent or urgent. I have decided it is appropriate to make a balance of probabilities decision about what it would have decided. I have considered relevant evidence including the guidance on when Council’s are recommended to treat cases as urgent, and Miss X’s circumstances. I find, on balance, the Council would have decided this case was non-urgent and complex.
38. For this reason, I find the target timescale for moving through all the stages from the assessment in June 2024 was 180 working days. This means the Council should have completed the process by February 2025. Miss X said the Council completed the process in July 2025. This was about five months beyond the target timescale.
39. I have seen no evidence of particular issues with the application that would have caused or justified the delay.
40. I also note the Council’s complaint responses of March and April 2025. It found that there were failings regarding its management of the case, which caused avoidable delay. It acknowledged the negative impact of the length of time the process had taken. It apologised to Miss X and offered a remedy payment.
41. For these reasons I find the Council at fault for failing to meet the 180 working day timescale in the guidance. This caused Miss X injustice of an avoidable delay of five months during which time her son was deprived of adaptations which would have improved their daily life.
42. I have decided the remedy payment the Council has already offered does not reflect the injustice in this case.
43. Our guidance on remedies says where someone has been deprived of adaptations which would have increased their independence and improved their daily life, we will usually recommend a remedy payment calculated from a range per month. In this case I have decided to recommend £175 per month for five months. This is a total remedy payment of £875.
44. I cannot recommend the Council reimburse the cost of the adaptations Miss X paid for because they occurred before the start of my investigation. It is also relevant that it is not our role to assess economic losses or award compensation, and we direct people to the courts where that is their primary goal.
45. I have decided not to recommend any service improvements in this case. This is because the Council identified clear learning outcomes and service improvements in its own complaint responses.

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Action

46. Within four weeks of the date of the final decision the Council should:
1. Apologise to Miss X for the injustice caused by the delay from 2024. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
2. Make a symbolic payment of £875 to Miss X to acknowledge the injustice caused by the delay. This is instead of, not in addition to, the payment it has already offered.
47. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

48. I find the Council at fault for its delay in completing the disability facilities grant adaptation work causing injustice for the reasons in the analysis section. I uphold that part of Miss X’s complaint. The Council has agreed actions to remedy the injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman