Summary: There was a serious delay in the Council’s handling of a person’s transition from child to adult services, which caused an injustice. There was also fault in the Council’s handling of the complaint, although it did not cause a significant injustice. The Council has agreed to offer a financial remedy to recognise the distress it caused the complainants.

The complaint

1. The complainant, to whom I will refer as Mr R, is represented by his carers, to whom I will refer as Mr and Mrs H.
2. Mr and Mrs H complain about the Council’s handling of Mr R’s transition from child to adult care services.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I 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. I 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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I reviewed Mr and Mrs H’s correspondence with the Council, a chronology provided by the Council, and several assessments and referrals completed by the Council during the transition process.

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What I found

5. Mr R is disabled and has complex needs. Mr and Mrs H began fostering him several years ago, while he was still a child.
6. The Council completed a ‘looked-after child’ (LAC) review in March 2016, just before Mr R’s 16th birthday. During the review, Mr and Mrs H said they would like to continue to care for Mr R once he turned 18.
7. In October 2016, a member of the Council’s Shared Lives team visited Mr and Mrs H. She explained the assessment and training process for them to become Shared Lives carers.
8. The Council says Mr and Mrs H were offered training to take place in April 2017. However, at that time they were unsure if they wished to pursue a Shared Lives placement. This was because the placement offered only 4 weeks respite per year, and not 10.5 as they had been having as foster carers.
9. On 23 February 2017, Mr and Mrs H met with two social workers. The social workers agreed to put their request to maintain the 10.5 weeks respite to the Council’s adult social care panel.
10. On 27 September, Mr R’s social worker completed the transition assessment for Mr R. It sent a copy to a local facility to decide whether it could provide respite care for him. The facility completed its assessment on 28 December.
11. On 6 November, the social worker referred Mr R for a Continuing Healthcare (CHC) assessment, to determine if he was eligible for NHS funding.
12. On 18 January 2018, the social worker presented his case to the adult social care panel. The panel deferred its decision at that time.
13. On 26 January, Mr and Mrs H submitted a complaint to the Council. They said Mr R’s 18th birthday was now only seven weeks away, but there was still no transition plan in place for him. They highlighted they wished Mr R to remain in their care, fearing he would become “lost in the care system” otherwise.
14. On 1 February, Mr R’s social worker made a referral to the Shared Lives team for them to assess Mr and Mrs H.
15. On 9 February, the adult social care panel agreed to fund 10.5 weeks of respite care per year for Mr R.
16. Between 12 and 15 February, Mr and Mrs H completed Shared Lives training.
17. Mr R had several trial respite visits to the local facility during February. The Council says these were successful. Mr R’s proper respite visits to the facility began in April.
18. On 12 April, the Council visited Mr and Mrs H to discuss their complaint.
19. On 4 May, the Council replaced Mr R’s social worker in response to Mr and Mrs H’s complaint. The Council then gave its formal written response on 14 May.
20. The Council said it had already recognised the need for a more robust transition process, which was in development. It accepted this could not change Mr and Mrs H’s experience, but hoped they were reassured the system would improve.
21. The Council acknowledged Mr and Mrs H’s complaint about the previous social worker’s communication, apologised and said it would ensure it learned from this. It said it had replaced her, and the new social worker would support Mr R and them.
22. On 29 May, Mr and Mrs H submitted a second complaint. They acknowledged the replacement of the social worker had resolved their complaints about communication, and were satisfied with this. However, they said the substantive part of the complaint – about the rushed transition – had not been addressed. They did not consider the Council’s assurances about reviewing the process to be sufficient response.
23. On 13 June, Mr and Mrs H were registered as Shared Lives carers.
24. On 27 July, an adult social care manager met Mr and Mrs H to discuss their stage 2 complaint.
25. The Council responded formally on 13 December. It provided a chronology of the Mr R’s transition, and explained there had been a delay because the (replaced) social worker’s supervisor had decided Mr R’s case was lower priority as he was only 17.
26. The Council explained there is a higher rate of pay for Shared Lives carers then for foster carers. It would now back-pay the difference between Mr R’s 18th birthday in March and Mr and Mrs H’s registration as Shared Lives carers. The Council also said it had provided Mr and Mrs H with a copy of the new transition policy.
27. The Council acknowledged the advice given to the social worker about delaying Mr R’s case was wrong. An earlier start to the process would have allowed a smooth transition, and Mr and Mrs H would have been approved as Shared Lives carers before Mr R’s 18th birthday. The Council also accepted that the rushed transition process would have been stressful for Mr R and apologised.
28. Mr and Mrs H referred their complaint to the Ombudsman on 3 January 2019.

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Analysis

29. Procedures for the transition from child to adult services are set out in the Care Act 2014, the Care and Support Statutory Guidance, and the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice. One of the aims of the law and guidance is to prevent a gap in provision when a person turns 18, and it allows authorities to act flexibly to achieve this – for example, by simply maintaining the support provided to a child after their 18th birthday if it remains suitable.
30. However, the crux of Mr R’s complaint relates more to Mr and Mrs H’s status as his carers.
31. The evidence available to me shows it was at least two years before Mr R’s 18th birthday that Mr and Mrs H expressed their desire to continue caring for him into adulthood. This would mean becoming Shared Lives carers.
32. A few months later, in October 2016, a member of the Shared Lives team visited Mr and Mrs H to discuss the role. She offered them a place on a training course in April 2017, but they deferred at that time because there was a question about the amount of respite care the Council would fund. Then in February 2017, social workers agreed to ask the panel to increase the respite allowance for Mr and Mrs H.
33. However, no more progress was then made on Mr R’s transition until the end of September 2017, when the Council completed his assessment.
34. The Council has already recognised this as fault. It concedes this delay meant the completion of the process was rushed, causing stress to Mr R, and that Mr and Mrs H’s status as Shared Lives carers would likely have been confirmed before his 18th birthday.
35. The Council has explained the delay was caused because an unnamed member of staff gave poor advice to Mr R’s social worker, that his case was not a priority because he was only 17. Mr and Mrs H say they find this explanation hard to accept.
36. I share Mr and Mrs H’s view. Given the Council was working on Mr R’s transition to adult services, it is difficult to see why being 17 would make his case a lower priority. 17 is the age at which transition planning work should rightfully be well underway.
37. And the outcome of the inordinate delay is clear from the chronology set out previously. It was only in December – with three months left – that the local care facility assessed Mr R’s suitability to have his respite there.
38. In January, the social worker asked the panel to consider funding more respite care for Mr R, but the panel deferred its decision until the 9 February. Mr and Mrs H completed their training on 12-15 February, and Mr R began his respite visits in April, although Mr and Mrs H were not registered as Shared Lives carers until June.
39. The Council has said the situation was not helped by Mr and Mrs H’s unwillingness to take the Shared Lives training earlier.
40. However, Mr and Mrs H gave a valid reason for not taking the training when it was originally offered. They were unwilling to commit to the role with the lower amount of respite it appeared the Council would fund at that point.
41. And the Council was aware of this at the time, and so this fact simply reinforces the problems caused by the Council’s delay. Social workers agreed to put the respite issue to the panel in February 2017, but it was nearly a year before they did so, and another month before the panel agreed. Mr R’s 18th birthday was only six weeks away by that point.
42. So while I agree it would have been better for Mr and Mrs H to take the training when it was first offered, this is only with the benefit of hindsight. I do not consider they can be blamed for failing to foresee the Council’s delay in putting their request to the panel.
43. With regard to injustice, I must first remark on the fact that, despite the delay, it does not appear there was any real gap in provision to Mr R. He remained living with Mr and Mrs H, which it appears was what he wanted. And it seems he settled quickly into the new respite arrangements, which began shortly after his birthday. So there was no substantive loss of support or service to either Mr R or Mr and Mrs H.
44. The Council also says it has back-paid Mr and Mrs H the difference between the Shared Lives carer’s rate and the foster carer’s rate, for the additional time they would have been registered if there had been no delay. There is, therefore, no financial loss to Mr and Mrs H for the Council to remedy.
45. However, the Council accepts the rushed transition caused stress to Mr R. I can also see from Mr and Mrs H’s first complaint – made when the transition arrangements were still not set – they were concerned that Mr R would not be able to remain with them after his 18th birthday. Although this fear was not realised, it appears to have been a legitimate concern at the time, which would naturally have caused them distress.
46. So I consider there is scope here for an additional, token, financial remedy to recognise the distress caused by the Council’s failing.
47. Mr and Mrs H also say they are concerned that lessons have not been learned by the Council, and wish the Ombudsman to ensure they have.
48. The Council has published a new transition policy which is available on its website. It is an extensive and detailed document. I note, in particular, it says, where it is considered a child will have support needs into adulthood, a transition plan will be created in Year 11, when they are age 15/16.
49. This, of course, does not demonstrate the policy will be correctly applied in future. However, the Ombudsman’s role is to investigate complaints brought by individual members of the public. We do not to undertake general inspections of authorities, or their departments, which is instead the role of regulatory bodies such as OFSTED.
50. So the only way for the Ombudsman to determine whether the Council is now applying its policy properly would be if another, similar, complaint were made in the future. There is nothing more the Ombudsman can add at this time.
51. Mr and Mrs H also complain about the Council’s handling of their complaint.
52. In their letter to the Ombudsman, Mr and Mrs H refer to there being a 25 working day deadline for responses to a stage 2 complaint, with a possible extension to 65 working days. However, this refers to the child services statutory complaints procedure, a formal three-stage process created by the Children Act 1989 for complaints about specific elements of child services.
53. The Council says it instead investigated Mr R’s complaint under its adult social care complaint procedure instead. This also includes three stages – an initial, informal attempt to resolve the complaint within three working days; a full investigation within 20 working days if this is not successful; followed by an appeal.
54. The Council has also explained that it treated each of Mr and Mrs H’s complaints as separate, rather than two stages of the same complaint.
55. I must say I am very confused by the Council’s approach to this. First, I cannot see why it would treat Mr and Mrs H’s second complaint as separate, rather than an escalation of the first. They submitted it shortly after receiving the response to their first complaint, and it was clearly a critique of this response, rather than a new complaint about separate matters.
56. Second, whichever procedure the Council was following, it took an extraordinary length of time to complete its investigation. Its first response took approximately four months, and its second approximately seven months, missing the published deadlines by a substantial margin.
57. Having said this, I do consider the Council’s investigation to be of a reasonable quality. It took the time to meet Mr and Mrs H at both stages of the complaint, and although its formal responses are relatively brief, upheld it on both occasions. It changed Mr R’s social worker at Mr and Mrs H’s request, a point they acknowledged and expressed satisfaction with. It accepted its errors, explained what it was doing to avoid similar problems in the future, and apologised. These are all positive points.
58. So my only criticism of the complaint procedure is the fact it took so long. I do not dismiss the additional frustration this will inevitably have caused Mr and Mrs H, but the substantive matters at the heart of their complaint were mostly resolved during the investigation process. So, taking it as a whole, I do not consider this has caused a separate significant injustice.

Agreed action

59. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council has agreed to offer Mr and Mrs H £300, to recognise the distress caused to them and Mr R by the delay in arrangements for his transition to adult services.

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Final decision

60. I have completed my investigation with a finding of fault causing injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman