Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s Supported Employment Service. The Council has accepted fault, apologised to Mr C and changed his support worker. The Council is monitoring the service and has provided Autism communication training to its staff. It is unlikely that further investigation would lead to a different outcome or achieve the outcomes the complainant wants.

The complaint

1. Mr B says the Council’s Supported Employment Service is not fit for purpose. Mr B says:

• It does not communicate effectively with the individuals it is supporting.
• It fails to give timescales, milestones and agreed actions.
• The staff may not have the required qualifications and experience to meet the needs of those they are supporting.
• There are no measurable outcomes for the service.

2. Mr B’s son (Mr C) used the service and felt unsupported, this made him anxious and unnecessarily stressed.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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:

• 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.

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this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. The Council’s supported employment service helps disabled people or carers into work or training, and helps employers support disabled people in work. Mr C is a young adult with Autism and uses the service.
7. When Mr B complained to the Council about the service’s interactions and support with Mr C the Council immediately accepted fault, including delays and poor communication. Because of these faults the Council did not have a proper picture of Mr C’s interests, skills, talents, and previous work experience to be able to properly support him into relevant work or training. The fault has delayed Mr C’s progression in this area and made him feel anxious and unnecessarily stressed. The Council has apologised to Mr C for the impact of its fault and apologised to Mr B and his wife.
8. To put things right for Mr C the Council changed his support worker. Mr C has since decided to stop using the service.
9. Mr B remains concerned about the service as a whole and has put questions to the Council through a Freedom of Information request, which it has responded to. Although Mr B has these concerns there is no evidence of a systemic issue which would warrant an Ombudsman investigation.
10. In addition to the individual remedies to put things right for Mr C, the Council also took wider action such as all staff undertaking further Autism communication training, and ongoing monitoring to ensure timescales and goals are recorded in all action plans for individuals using the service.
11. It is unlikely that further investigation by the Ombudsman would lead to any different action to those already taken by the Council.
12. The outcomes Mr B wants are for the Council to:
• Provide staff training to understand how to communicate with a young adult with Autism.
• Offer planned, structured, guided support and a coaching programme within a time frame.
• Share the expertise and qualifications of its staff.
• Explain how it is held to account, what are the measurable outcomes of the service.
13. The Council has already met the first two outcomes as explained at paragraph ten. The Ombudsman could not share Council staff member’s expertise and qualifications with Mr B as that is the individual’s personal data. It would not be a good use of the Ombudsman resource to investigate solely to achieve an explanation of the measurable outcomes of the service.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate Mr B’s complaint because we could not add to the Council’s own investigation or achieve anything further.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman