Summary: There is fault by the Council in its response to Miss X’s safeguarding concern. The Council has partly remedied the injustice by carrying out a retrospective safeguarding enquiry. The Council will issue written guidance to personal assistants and commissioned care providers about the use of supermarket reward cards. This action will minimise the chance of recurrence.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains for her brother Mr Y about London Borough of Hackney (the Council.) She says it did not properly investigate allegations of financial abuse by one of Mr Y’s personal assistants (PAs).
2. Miss X says this caused her uncertainty and distress about whether he is properly protected from future abuse.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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)
4. Although some of the events happened more than 12 months before Miss X complained to us and so are late, we have exercised discretion to investigate them because Miss X has been raising the matter with the Council regularly since she became aware of it and there is evidence of delay in the Council’s responses. So there is good reason for us to investigate.
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, we have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. We refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
7. We may investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation, if we consider that a member of the public who has not complained may have suffered an injustice as a result. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26D and 34E, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered Miss X’s complaint to the Ombudsman, the Council’s response to my enquiries and documents described later in this statement. I discussed the complaint with Miss X.
9. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

10. If a council has reasonable cause to suspect abuse of an adult who needs care and support, it must make whatever enquiries it thinks necessary to decide whether any action should be taken to protect the adult. (Care Act 2014, section 42).
11. Enquiries a council makes under section 42 of the Care Act 2014 are known as safeguarding enquiries or a safeguarding investigation.
12. The Council follows the London Multi-Agency Safeguarding Policies and Procedures. The procedures have four stages:
• Reporting a safeguarding concern
• Making enquiries
• Safeguarding planning and review
• Closing the enquiry
13. Relevant sections of the London safeguarding procedures include:
• A person must make a referral to the local authority, if it appears three steps are met:
1. A person has care and support needs
2. They may be experiencing abuse or neglect
3. They are unable to protect themselves from that abuse because of their care and support needs.
• Where a council receiving a referral becomes aware of a situation that meets the above steps, they must arrange a section 42 enquiry
• The person who raised concerns should receive feedback to provide reassurance that action has been taken whether under adult safeguarding or not
• There are no prescribed timescales for each stage, only indicative ones, but it is the responsibility of agencies to ensure drift does not prevent timely action and place people at further risk
• All enquiries should be planned and key people identified in a planning discussion. The adult at risk (or their representative’s) views and outcomes should be sought
• Enquiries should be collated in a report which sets out further action and/or recommendations
• Enquiries need to have established outcomes and decisions should be made as to if:
1. The adult has needs for care and support
2. They were experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect
3. They were unable to protect themselves
4. Further action should be taken to protect them. The action to be taken should be set out in a safeguarding plan including steps to take to assure the future safety of the adult at risk. Safeguarding plans should be reviewed to ensure risks of future harm are minimized before closing a case.

What happened

Background

14. Mr Y is an adult with severe learning disabilities who receives funding from the Council for his care and support. Miss X is Mr Y’s deputy for property and financial affairs. (A deputy is a person who manages the finances of another person who cannot because they have a mental impairment.) Mr Y shares a house with another adult with learning disabilities. Mr Y and his housemate each have their own PAs in the day, but share a night-time PA. The Council gives Mr Y a direct payment (a payment for social care). Miss X uses the direct payment to organise and pay for Mr Y’s PAs.
15. Miss X’s complaint is about the way officers in the Council’s learning disability team dealt with concerns she raised in 2018 about one of the PAs, Ms C.

Key events

16. At the end of May 2018, Miss X contacted the Council’s Chief Executive to report concerns that Ms C was placing supermarket reward points on to her own loyalty card when she did Mr Y’s shopping. Miss X met with a team manager in June. She showed the team manager copies of receipts that had been torn or cut from the bottom which, Miss X said, Ms C was doing to conceal the reward points earned. Miss X reported this had been happening for at least three years. The team manager noted she was going to follow up Miss X’s concerns about Ms C by interviewing people and then decide the best way forward.
17. The team manager met with officers in the Council’s finance team in June. There is no record of them discussing the allegations Miss X raised about reward points and instead the notes indicate they spoke about concerns about Mr Y’s housemate’s care. There was no action minuted in relation to the concerns about misuse of the reward points.
18. The case notes indicate the Head of Safeguarding was made aware of Miss X’s concerns about Ms C at the end of September and said they should be dealt with as a safeguarding matter.
19. The social worker spoke to Miss X at the start of October and said the Council would deal with Miss X’s concerns directly with Ms C, but not through safeguarding procedures. The social worker’s statement contradicted the agreement she had with the Head of Safeguarding.
20. A social worker interviewed Ms C in the middle of October. The social worker’s record of that interview said:
• Ms C admitted transferring reward points on to her personal loyalty card and to tearing off the points from the bottom of Mr Y’s shopping receipts.
• Ms C said Mr Y did not have a loyalty card and so she felt this was acceptable. She said she sometimes used the points to pay towards the clients’ shopping.
• Ms C was sorry and said she had stopped since Miss X asked her not to.
• Ms C said she was not the only member of staff who did this and she had witnessed other care staff using their personal reward cards when doing weekly shopping for clients.
• The social worker asked Ms C to stop, explained it could be regarded as theft or deception and told Ms C to warn other PAs to stop doing it.
• Mr Y and the other adult should have their own loyalty cards.
21. At the end of October, the social worker met with Miss X who said she was unhappy it had taken three months for the Council to respond to the issues she raised and so had contacted senior managers at the Council. The social worker noted she had told Miss X what Ms C had said during their interview.
22. In January 2019, the team manager decided no further action was needed. There is no record to say anyone contacted Miss X to advise her the Council considered the matter closed.
23. Miss X asked the social worker for an update. In May 2019, the social worker wrote to Miss X. The social worker’s letter said:
• Ms C admitted the allegations but said she used the reward points to save on Mr Y’s shopping. She had been told not to.
• She had recommended Mr Y had his own reward card.
• Receipts should not be tampered with.
• Ms C denied using the points for her personal use and said she used them to get money off Mr Y’s shopping randomly.
24. Miss X complained to the Council in June 2019 about the issues she raises with us. In her complaint letter, Miss X said another of Mr Y’s PAs had resigned in October and the social worker said she had tried to contact this PA because she had also been using her reward card on Mr Y’s shopping, but this person had not responded to phone calls or messages. Miss X told me she believes this PA may be working in other paid care roles.
25. The Council’s response to the complaint in October 2019 said:
• There was a gap of four months between Miss X reporting her concerns and her receiving notification that the Council would look into them.
• She was told of the outcome of the social worker’s investigation at the end of May 2019. There was some ‘drift’ in timescales for completing the investigation and making her aware of the outcome. The Council was sorry for the delay.
• The investigation that had taken place was not in line with the Council’s adult safeguarding procedures.
• The team manager who decided a full safeguarding investigation was not needed no longer worked at the Council.
• The Council should have dealt with her concerns under safeguarding processes under the category of alleged financial abuse. The Council would reopen the matter and progress it through a section 42 enquiry. This would include examination of Ms C’s claim to use the points randomly to get reductions on Mr Y and his housemate’s shopping.
26. Unhappy with the Council’s response to her complaint, Miss X complained to us.

Events since Miss X’s complaint to us

27. Since Miss X’s complaint to us, the Council completed a safeguarding enquiry into Ms C’s use of a reward card. An enquiry meeting took place involving Miss X and council officers. Ms C also attended a separate meeting. A different social worker was allocated to progress the matter and summarised the key issues as:
• Ms C using her own debit card to buy shopping
• Ms C collecting reward points from 2010
• Ms C destroying financial records of Mr Y
• Lack of transparency in relation to financial management (Ms C not saying when she used her own debit card.)
28. The social worker spoke to Ms C in February 2020 and she said she had been collecting Mr Y’s reward points since 2010.
29. A record of a discussion between a council officer and Ms C in February 2020 said:
• She used to use her own debit card to buy shopping for Mr Y until 2018. Because it was easier to complete shopping on the way to work
• She cut the receipt to hide her debit card details and the points.
• Ms C did not work with Mr Y and therefore the risk was minimised in terms of future finances
• Action would be taken in relation to the management of the other adult’s finances.
30. A safeguarding protection plan said:
• There was no further financial risk to Mr Y as his own carers now bought his food and managed his money and not Ms C.
• Ms C still worked in the same home and provided night-time care. There should be mediation offered between Miss X, social workers and Ms C. This would be delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
31. The Council closed the safeguarding enquiry in April, noting action had been taken to remove the risk. The allegations of financial abuse were substantiated. The records noted officers had discussed Miss X’s desired outcomes and one of them was that she wanted Ms C dismissed or removed from working with Mr Y, but this outcome was not achieved.

Findings

32. There is fault in the way the Council responded to Miss X’s concerns about Mr Y’s PAs use of supermarket reward points. The Council did not follow the London safeguarding adults’ policies and procedures. In particular:
1. There was a failure in June 2018 to correctly identify the matter met the three steps set out in the London safeguarding procedures and should therefore have been progressed as a section 42 enquiry.
2. There was a delay of three months in the social worker taking any action.
3. The social worker discussed the matter with Miss X in October and told her, confusingly, that the matter was not being dealt with as a section 42 enquiry. This went against what the Head of Safeguarding had advised the social worker to do.
4. Ms C implicated other PAs, yet the social worker took no action to establish their identities or gather information and evidence to ascertain how wide the practice was amongst the PAs working in the house (who also possibly worked with other adults at risk in the community). The social worker should have identified other potential culprits and included them.
5. The social worker advised the person responsible for financial abuse, Ms C, to tell her colleagues, who allegedly were committing the same practice, to stop. This was not an effective way of minimizing ongoing risk to Mr Y and his housemate. And there is no evidence the social worker checked to see if the practice continued amongst the other PAs.
6. Despite the Head of Safeguarding’s advice, the matter did not proceed as a full safeguarding enquiry. Instead, the social worker conducted an interview with Ms C and Miss X and closed the case in January without following safeguarding procedures. In particular, there was no feedback to Miss X about the decision to take the matter no further, no discussion of her desired outcomes and no safeguarding plan.
7. Miss X had to ask the Council for feedback and this did not come until May 2019. The delay of about five months in providing feedback after closing the case was also fault.
33. The Council carried out a retrospective safeguarding enquiry in 2020 as a result of Miss X’s complaint. This investigation had most of the features of a section 42 enquiry. However, there was additional fault because:
1. Other PAs were also implicated in the same action but this was still not followed up with those individuals.
2. The statement that Ms C no longer worked with Mr Y was untrue (as she still provides night-time cover in the house) and so the safeguarding enquiry record contained inaccurate information.
3. There were no enquiries to establish the credibility of Ms C’s statement that she used the points accrued from her own reward card to discount Mr Y’s shopping.

Injustice

34. The Council’s retrospective safeguarding enquiry remedied matters to an extent. And the Council offered mediation (to take place when it is safe to do so) and apologised, which I consider an appropriate action.
35. But, there remains some uncertainty about how widespread the practice is or was among care staff and whether all the PAs in Mr Y’s home have all been instructed to stop using their personal reward cards when buying shopping for clients.

Agreed action

36. The Council has accepted my recommendation to issue written guidance to all PAs working in Mr Y’s home (including the PA’s for Mr Y’s housemate) about the use of supermarket reward cards. The Council will also issue the same written guidance to care providers (care agencies) it commissions to deliver social care services on its behalf. The Council should ensure this guidance is issued within four months of my final decision. I will require evidence of compliance.

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Final decision

37. There is fault by the Council in its response to Miss X’s report of safeguarding concerns. The Council has partly remedied the injustice by carrying out a retrospective safeguarding enquiry. The Council will also issue written guidance to personal assistants and commissioned care providers about the use of supermarket reward cards to minimise the recurrence of events that took place in this complaint.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman