Summary: We will not continue our investigation. This is because we are unlikely to achieve a worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the service she received from Services for Independent Living (the Provider), an organisation that supported her with managing her direct payments account. Ms X says the Provider failed to:

• remove her from its employers’ mailing list despite several requests so that she continued to receive employers’ bulletins until October 2024;
• provide clear information, support and guidance when it started supporting her in 2018 and 2019;
• arrange a meeting to discuss her concerns about the support as agreed in 2021 and 2022;
• consider her complaints in accordance with its complaints policy following a meeting in September 2022 to discuss her complaints; and
• refused her charitable fund application and has not given her sufficient information about this.

2. Ms X says these matters have caused her distress and worsened her health. She wants the Provider to deal with her complaint properly and accept her charitable fund application

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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 fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered evidence provided by Ms X and the Provider as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
5. Ms X and the Provider had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

What happened

6. Ms X has care needs. The local council (which is the adult social care authority) assessed these and agreed a care plan where she would receive care at home. The council agreed to make direct payments. These allowed Ms X to employ personal assistants directly to carry out the care plan. The Provider is an organisation that supported Ms X with the direct payment account, recruitment of personal assistants, and other employment issues.
7. The Provider started working with Ms X in 2018. It also offered to help her use her direct payments to contract directly with a care agency if she was not able to recruit a personal assistant.
8. In 2021 and 2022, Ms X raised concerns and queries about the support she was receiving from the Provider. She was confused about the amount of care she was receiving, the contributions she has to make herself towards this care, and some arrears on her account.
9. Ms X was unable to resolve these concerns to her satisfaction.
10. In September 2024, the local council, Ms X, her advocate, and the Provider met to discuss why these concerns had not been resolved. In addition, the meeting heard that Ms X had also more recently raised that she was receiving a bulletin email for employers when she did not employ personal assistants but contracted directly for her care.
11. The meeting also discussed that Ms X had made an application for a charitable payment via the Provider, but the application had been refused. It was explained to Ms X that the Provider did not make decisions on the application and the charity was a separate entity.
12. The emails between the parties following the meeting indicate that the local council was not clear whether Ms X had made a formal complaint to the Provider, but it did not think it necessary for her to go over all the details again. The local council said that as Ms X had written to the Provider’s Chief Executive, she was at stage two of the Provider’s complaints process. It asked the Chief Executive to investigate whether Ms X was receiving the bulletin and why the meeting had not been convened in 2022, and to report back to Ms X. She would then be able to take her complaint to stage three of the process, which is a review by the Provider’s board of directors.
13. In October 2024, the Provider wrote to Ms X and her advocate. It confirmed that it had removed her email from the mailing list. The Provider also confirmed that in 2021 and 2022 it had not been able to coordinate its advisor’s schedule with that of Ms X’s advocate and so the meeting never took place.
14. In December 2024, Ms X asked the local council to help her pursue the issues raised at the meeting. The Provider wrote to Ms X to confirm that it had already updated her in October following the meeting. In its email to Ms X it told her that raising the same historic issues was becoming vexatious and it will not respond again on the same points. It reminded her that it did not decide the charitable application.
15. In response to our enquiries, the Provider has confirmed that it does not have a vexatious complainant policy but it will develop one. It also said that it had not told Ms X that she was a vexatious complainant at that stage, and had only said that it would not respond on the historic issues from 2021 and 2022.

My analysis and decision

16. 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 care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
17. Ms X complained to the Ombudsman in June 2025. This means that her complaints about the Provider’s service before June 2024 are late. I appreciate that Ms X has support needs, but many years have passed since she first started complaining about the Provider’s service, and so there is no good reasons why she could not have complained sooner.
18. We cannot look at Ms X’s complaint about the charitable fund application. This is because the charitable fund is a separate entity with its own governance and is not a registered provider. The Provider may administer the scheme on the charity’s behalf. But decisions about the fund are not made by the Provider so this complaint is not within our remit and I have not investigated it.
19. The Provider found that it had been sending Ms X employers’ bulletins via email when she was not an employer. It removed her email from the mailing list and so further investigation by the Ombudsman is not likely to achieve more than this.
20. Ms X says the Provider did not follow its complaints policy. However, as we are not investigating the matters complained about we would not ask the Provider to complete the complaints process now. This means that again, our further investigation is not likely to lead to a different outcome.

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Decision

21. I have stopped investigating this complaint. Some parts of the complaint are late, and on the remaining parts, further investigation is unlikely to lead to a worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman