Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about being underpaid for her role as a shared lives carer in 2015-2016. The complaint lies outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction because it is late.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mrs X, complains she was underpaid for her work as a shared lives carer in 2015-2016.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mrs X provided in her complaint. I also considered the complaint correspondence which we requested from the Council. I sent Mrs X a draft of my decision and considered her comments on it.

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What I found

5. Mrs X complains she was paid the incorrect rate for her work as a shared lives carer from July 2015 to October 2016.
6. Mrs X first complained to the Council about this in July 2017. There was some delay in the Council responding to her complaint and Mrs X indicated she was considering bringing her complaint to the Ombudsman at that point. She received a response in December 2017. The Council said there were no grounds to agree to Mrs X’s request for further payment.
7. Mrs X escalated her complaint to stage 2 in August 2018 and the Council upheld its previous decision.
8. Due to a period of illness and family commitments, Mrs X was unable to respond to the Council’s August 2018 response until May 2019. The Council responded, also in May 2019. Again, it did not uphold her complaint.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. It lies outside our jurisdiction because it is late. The law says complaints should be made to the Ombudsman within 12 months of a person first becoming aware of the matter they wish to complain about.
10. Mrs X has clearly known about this matter since 2015. She was also aware of the option to bring the matter to this office in 2017. I see no grounds for the Ombudsman to exercise discretion to consider this late complaint now. I have considered Mrs X’s period of illness and family commitments from August 2018 which meant she was not able to pursue her complaint at that point. However, by August 2018, the complaint was already significantly late for the Ombudsman as it was about a decision made in July 2015.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman