Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s response to safeguarding concerns. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council failed to act on her safeguarding referral when she reported that Mr Y might be at risk of neglect from his carer’s exhaustion.
2. She says his carer had to continue to struggle to provide care and other family members had to help provide care to ensure he was not neglected. She also says Mr Y had to pay for respite care due to the Council not acting.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

7. Mr Y has dementia and receives care in his home by a family member. When this family member began to struggle with exhaustion Miss X made a safeguarding referral to the Council. She complains the Council failed to act on the safeguarding referral in full. She says it failed to arrange respite care and the support offered was not enough to prevent carer exhaustion.
8. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint as there is insufficient evidence of fault. I recognise this was a stressful time and that Miss X felt she needed to arrange the respite urgently. But I am satisfied the Council acted on Miss X’s safeguarding referral and did so in a reasonable time frame. It has followed its safeguarding processes by gathering information relevant to the safeguarding concern. It decided respite and crisis care were needed and took steps to arrange this and shared its decision with Miss X. It is reasonable for the Council to have taken no further action in arranging respite, after Miss X told it, she had arranged this.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council to warrant further investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman