Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of her father, Mr Y’s, adult social care case. This is because the complaint is late and there are no good reasons why it could not have been raised with us sooner. We also could not add to the Council’s response or reach a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Ms X is acting on behalf of her father, Mr Y. She complains about the Council’s handling of safeguarding concerns and the management of payments Mr Y’s care costs. Ms X believes the Council has failed to properly safeguard Mr X and should not have applied to manage his financial affairs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
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 and we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered 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. Mr X has been in residential care since 2021 after the Council found he lacked capacity to care for himself. Prior to this in 2019, Ms X believes the Council investigated safeguarding concerns relating to alleged financial, physical and mental abuse of Mr X by other members of his family.
7. Since moving into residential care, Mr Y had accrued arrears in care costs. The Council applied to act as appointee for Mr Y’s financial affairs and to ensure his care costs were paid.
8. Ms X complained to the Council about this action as she had been in the process of applying to act as Mr Y’s attorney. The Council responded to Ms X’s complaint and explained it had been unaware of her application when it sought to become Mr Y’s appointee. It had withdrawn its application as soon as it was advised Ms X’s attorneyship for Mr Y had been granted. The Council has apologised to Ms X for any confusion caused by its action.
9. Ms X has been aware of the issues concerning her father since at least 2019. Although the Council has responded to her concerns more recently, we could not now add anything more to its responses. Ms X could have brought her complaint about the Council to us sooner and has given us no good reason why she could not do so.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because it is late and there is no good reason to investigate it now. Further investigation is also unlikely to add to the Council’s response or lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman