Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about information the Council provides to the public about care services in its area. This is because there is no evidence of fault as the Council’s actions are in line with legislation and statutory guidance.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council has failed to provide information to the public about care service she operates in its area. Ms X says the Council has a statutory duty to make this information available.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X says the Council has a duty to maintain a service for providing people in its area with information and advice relating to care and support for adults and support for carers under section 4 of the Care Act 2014. Ms X says the Council has failed to provide information about her care services on its website.
6. The Council provides a link to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website on its own website. The CQC website allows people to search for care providers within their area. The Council says it saw no reason to duplicate this information on its own website.
7. The Council has also confirmed that it would provide information about Ms X’s care services on an individual basis where appropriate. This would be based on the individuals needs and whether they required the services offered by Ms X’s company.
8. Statutory guidance on the Care Act 2014 says:

“It is important to recognise that while local authorities must establish and maintain a service, the duty does not require they provide all elements of this service. Rather, under this duty local authorities are expected to understand, co-ordinate and make effective use of other high quality statutory, voluntary and/or private sector information and advice resources available to people within their areas. This may also include provision of a service or parts of a service in conjunction with one or more local authorities, health services, children’s services, or reuse of information from other local or national sources. When a local need for additional information and advice services is identified, local authorities should recognise the relevance of independent and impartial advice and should consider carefully whether services should be provided by the local authority directly or by another agency, including independent providers.” (Care and support statutory guidance, 2017, paragraph 3.14)

9. There is no evidence of fault in the Council directing the public to information about local care services which is publicly available on the CQC website. The statutory guidance allows the Council to make use of other sources of information. Therefore we will not investigate this complaint.
10. There is nothing in the legislation or statutory guidance which requires the Council to provide a list of care providers in its area on its website. However, the Council would be required to provide specific information to people who request care services about appropriate services in their area that may be able to meet their needs. The Council has confirmed that it provides this information, where necessary, on an individual basis. In the absence of any evidence that contradicts this it is unlikely we would find fault and so we will not investigate this complaint.

Final decision

11. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman