Summary: We will not investigate this late complaint about the Council’s adult safeguarding involvement with Mr X’s mother and the quality of her care. There is not a good reason for the delay in Mr X complaining. In any event, investigation of later events would not achieve a different or more meaningful outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s adult social care involvement in his mother’s (Mrs Y’s) case in 2023. His concerns included it making allegations against him, and preventing family involvement in the arrangements for her care and finances.
2. Mr X also complained about the quality of Mrs Y’s care in a care home the Council arranged for her to move to in 2024, and the Council’s subsequent actions in sending the family an invoice for that care after Mrs Y died in late 2024.
3. Mr X says these matters caused Mrs Y significant distress, worsened her condition and ultimately led to her death.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. 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 or care provider has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
6. 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:

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. The law says people must complain to us within 12 months of becoming aware of the matter, unless there are good reasons. The events Mr X complains about occurred between early 2023 and late 2024, when Mrs Y died.
10. Mr X complained to the Council in 2025 and it issued a response in November 2025. Mr X complained to us three months later, at the end of January 2026.
11. Mr X could have complained to us about the events of 2023 at the time. There is not a good reason for the delay in him bringing that part of his complaint to us, so we will not investigate it.
12. I have considered that grief would have caused some delay in Mr X complaining in late 2024 and early 2025 about the quality of Mrs Y’s care in 2024. However, there was also a delay in coming to us after the Council signposted him to us in early November 2025. Mr X has not told us about any reason for this.
13. Even if we decided there was good reason for the delay and we should therefore consider some of the later events of 2024, it is unlikely we could achieve a meaningful outcome now. We could not say the Care Provider’s actions caused Mrs Y’s death.
14. Where someone has died, we also will not normally seek a remedy for injustice caused to that person in the same way as we might for someone who is still living. We would not normally expect a public body to make a payment to someone’s estate. If the impact of a fault was on someone who has died, we will not recommend an organisation make a payment in recognition of, for example, the impact of poor care that person might have received while they were alive. This is because the person who received the poor care cannot benefit from such a payment.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Mr X’s late complaint because there is not a good reason for the delay in him complaining to the Ombudsman. In any event, investigation of later events would not achieve a different or more meaningful outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman