Summary: We will not investigate this complaint that the Council asked Ms X to repay overpayments it made to her for foster care. This is because the Council has upheld the complaint and agreed to provide a proportionate remedy during its internal complaints process.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains the Council made overpayments to her for foster care she provided over several months. She says despite the Council accepting the overpayments were an error on its part, it still wants her to repay the majority.
2. Ms X says the Council has caused significant stress and financial uncertainty and would like the Council to agree to waive the repayment requested.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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 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), 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. Ms X is a foster carer and agreed to a mother and child placement in late 2024. However, once the baby was born, the mother did not join Ms X.
7. About a week after the placement began, the Council told Ms X it would pay for the mother and baby up to that point. If Ms X agreed the placement would then continue for the baby only.
8. Ms X agreed to care for the baby at the reduced payment.
9. The Council made payments to Ms X for the next several months before noticing it was paying for a mother and child rather than just the child as agreed.
10. The Council sent a repayment request to Ms X to pay back the sums paid to her in error.
11. Ms X complained and the Council accepted the error is of its own making. It acknowledged the impact of its error on Ms X, apologised and reduced the sum it asked her to repay by 20%.
12. It also offered to arrange a payment plan to ensure that repaying the remaining sum causes less of a pressure on Ms X.
13. While I appreciate Ms X’s stance that this is not a situation caused by her, I am satisfied she had enough information to have at least questioned whether she was being paid the correct amount.
14. The Council had told her from the outset that it would only pay for the baby if the mother did not join the placement. The Council provided remittance slips which clearly show that each payment it made for the next several months include a payment for care for the mother.
15. Given Ms X had enough information to know there was an error from the outset, a 20% reduction for any impact of then having to pay the money back is a proportionate remedy.

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Final decision

16. We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because the Council has upheld the complaint and has offered a reasonable remedy. Further investigation by us would not therefore be worthwhile.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman