Staffordshire County Council (18 015 217)

Category : Children's care services > Other

Decision : Upheld

Decision date : 07 Oct 2019

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: the Council failed to provide effective support for Ms M to care for her son, H, when it decided more support was needed. As a result, Ms M has been left to care for H without the support the Council decided she needed. This lasted over a year. The Council did not make a decision at all when Ms M said she could no longer cope and asked the Council to take H into care.

The complaint

  1. Ms M complains about the lack of support from the Council to care for her son, H.
  2. After struggling to care for H, and following problems with respite care, Ms M asked the Council to take him into care in September 2017. Ms M complains the Council failed to consider her request.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

  1. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these.
  2. We cannot question a council’s decisions simply because the complainant disagrees with them. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decisions were reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
  3. 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)
  4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

  1. I have considered:
    • information provided by Ms M;
    • information provided by the Council.
  2. I invited Ms M and the Council to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

  1. Ms M’s son, H, is a young adult. He has autism and epilepsy. He has a significant learning disability and developmental delay. He needs one-to-one care and support with all aspects of his life and a high level of supervision to ensure his safety. Ms M is a single carer. Ms M complains about the support she received from the Council to care for H.
  2. The Council adapted Ms M’s home in 2007 to provide an adapted bedroom and bathroom for H and accommodation for an overnight carer. H has never had an overnight carer. The Council has provided respite care at weekends and in school holidays.
  3. Problems started in spring 2017 when Ms M asked for more support. The Council agreed, but was unable to provide additional residential respite because the residential respite centre did not have capacity. The Council arranged for carers to come to Ms M’s home instead. This did not work out. Ms M was unhappy with the care provided for H and with short-notice cancellations by the carers. The carers were unable to meet H’s needs.
  4. In September 2017, Ms M asked the Council to take H into care. She felt let down by the Council and exhausted by her care responsibilities. The Council did not respond to Ms M’s request. Ms M says she felt ignored by the Council and bullied into coping.
  5. At about the same time, Ms M appealed to the First Tier Tribunal to challenge the Council’s plans for H’s education. She wanted a residential placement. In March 2018, her appeal was successful. H now has a 52-week placement at a specialist residential college.

Ms M’s complaint to the Council

  1. Ms M complained to the Council in September 2017. Ms M and the Council corresponded between September 2017 and March 2018 without resolving Ms M’s complaint.
  2. Ms M contacted the Ombudsman in April 2018. We asked the Council to appoint an independent investigator and consider Ms M’s complaints under the statutory children’s complaints process. The independent investigator produced a report in October 2018. The independent investigator upheld some of Ms M’s complaints about the care provided for H in Ms M’s home following her request for more support in spring 2017. The independent investigator upheld Ms M’s complaint about the Council’s failure to respond to her request to take H into care. The independent investigator upheld Ms M’s complaint that the Council did not provide her with adequate support to care for H.
  3. The Council did not accept the investigator’s findings. The Council said, “I apologise for the fact you feel you received insufficient support, however I also note […] you and your son have received a comprehensive package of support over a number of years that enabled him to remain in your care.” The Council offered Ms M a payment of £250 for her time and trouble, £250 for her distress and a payment to reimburse some of the costs she incurred in preparing her appeal to the Tribunal.
  4. Unhappy with Council’s response, Ms M complained to the Ombudsman.

What happened

  1. Ms M complains about the lack of support to care for H and the Council’s failure to respond to her request to take H into care when she could no longer cope. The Ombudsman does not decide H’s care needs or the support the Council should provide Ms M. This is the Council’s job. My role is to check the Council made its decisions properly.
  2. The Council sent me its assessments of H’s needs and the care plans it produced.
  3. Ms M asked for additional support early in 2017. The Council began an assessment on 1 February 2017. The assessment identifies the high risk of the care Ms M provides for H breaking down if her request for additional support is not met. The assessment was endorsed by a manager and submitted to the ‘resource panel’ to “see whether […] there is anything further that can be offered[…]”.
  4. The Council issued a new Child in Need Plan on 22 March 2017. The Plan notes an application has been made to the ‘County Panel’ for increased support and the social worker will attend the meeting the following week. The Plan appears to have been produced following a regular review rather than the recent assessment.
  5. The ‘resource panel’ agreed to increase support but was unable to provide the respite Ms M requested due to a lack of capacity at the residential respite centre. The Council does not appear to have produced a new Plan following the ‘panel’ meeting. This is fault. Furthermore, it took the Council more than eight weeks to consider Ms M’s request.
  6. The alternative arrangements the Council made, whereby family support workers came to Ms M’s home, were not entirely successful. The independent investigator upheld Ms M’s complaints about the support provided in her home. The Council identified a need for support to avoid ‘carer breakdown’, yet the support it put in place did little to support Ms M. On the contrary, it is likely the effect of short-notice cancellations and Ms M’s concerns about the ability of the carers to look after H undermined any benefit the additional care afforded. The Council failed to make suitable arrangements to provide the support it decided Ms M needed. This is fault.
  7. In October 2017, Ms M decided she could no longer cope with the demands of caring for H at home. The additional support at home the Council proposed following the previous assessment had ended and, according to the subsequent assessment, ‘could not continue’. It appears carers could not meet H’s needs in Ms M’s home. Ms M asked the Council to take H into care. The assessment describes this as a ‘heart-breaking decision for Ms M’. The social worker completing the assessment appears to support Ms M’s request for the Council to take H into care.
  8. Following the assessment, the Council did nothing. The case was not referred to the ‘resources panel’ and there was no new care plan. This is fault. The assessment identified unmet needs, yet the Council took no action.
  9. Ms M also requested specialist equipment to monitor H at night to ease the pressure on her as she was providing round-the-clock care. The Council said it no longer provided monitoring equipment and suggested Ms M approach a charity or the health service. It appears the Council accepted Ms M had a need for support with night time care, but did nothing to see that it was met. This is fault.
  10. The Council undertook a further assessment in November 2017. Much the same as the previous assessment, this noted that Ms M was at high risk of ‘carer breakdown’. It noted the significant strain that caring for H placed on Ms M and her request that the Council take him into care. It noted that Ms M had begun an appeal to the Tribunal about H’s education and said that further assessment would be needed as a result.
  11. Following the assessment, the Council did nothing. The case was not referred to the ‘resources panel’ and there was no new care plan. This is fault. Two months had passed since Ms M asked the Council to take H into care because she could not cope and the Council had not made a decision or provided any additional support.
  12. The Council issued a new Child in Need Plan on 19 December 2017. The Plan notes Ms M’s request for the Council to take H into care and says an updated assessment will be presented to the ‘accommodation panel’ in January 2018. The Plan also notes the Council is defending Ms M’s Tribunal appeal against its plans for H’s education. The Plan appears to have been produced following a regular review rather than the recent assessment.
  13. It does not appear the ‘accommodation panel’ made a decision in January 2018. More than three months had passed since Ms M said she could no longer cope and asked the Council to take H into care. The Council had not responded to her request or provided any additional support. This is fault.
  14. On 22 March 2018, the Tribunal found in Ms M’s favour and decided H should attend a residential special college.
  15. The Council issued a new Child in Need Plan on 31 May 2018. The Plan appears to have been produced following a regular review rather than a recent assessment. It appears that arrangements were underway for H’s transition to the residential special college.
  16. The Council completed a further assessment on 11 July 2018. The assessment noted H’s transition to the residential special college and suggested reviewing his needs once he had settled in. It is difficult to see what purpose this assessment served.
  17. The Council issued a further Child in Need Plan on 5 February 2019. It notes that H was settling well at college. Although the Council issued a Child in Need Plan, H was now, in fact, a looked after child.
  18. The Council issued a further Child in Need Plan on 18 March 2019. As with the other documents issued as ‘Child in Need Plans’, it is not a plan as much as a record of a review meeting. Some of the information is out of date. It does not contain anything that could be described as a plan for H’s care, other than noting his full-time attendance at a residential special college. In any event, the Council should have been reviewing H’s care through looked after child reviews, not child in need reviews, now that H was a looked after child.

Consideration

  1. All the assessments make clear the extent of H’s needs, the support Ms M provides and the impact this has on her. Each time Ms M has requested additional support, the Council has completed a fresh assessment. It appears the social workers who completed the assessments were sympathetic to Ms M’s requests for additional help. Following the assessments, the Council has referred to a ‘resources panel’ to make a decision.
  2. Referral to the ‘resources panel’ appears to be a ‘weak link’ in the process. There does not appear to be any feedback from the ‘resources panel’ to H’s care plan. The Council does not appear to have produced a new care plan following the meetings of the ‘resources panel’ to explain how H’s needs, or Ms M’s needs as his carer, identified in the assessments will be met. This is fault.
  3. The Council has regularly reviewed H’s care plan, but the reviews do not appear to have ever reached a conclusion about the suitability of care arrangements. These decisions have always been deferred to the ‘resources panel’. As I have noted above, there is no evidence of any feedback from the ‘resources panel’ to H’s care plan. The review cycle for H’s care plan does not appear to bear any relation to Ms M’s requests for additional support or the numerous assessments the Council carried out. As such, it appears there is little or no integration between assessment and care planning which appear to operate as two separate processes. This is fault.
  4. The Council was unable to provide the additional respite it decided H needed in March 2018 due to a lack of capacity at the residential respite centre. Councils have a duty to assess and keep under review the sufficiency of social care provision for disabled children. (Children and Families Act 2014, section 27) The lack of capacity suggests the Council was at fault in failing to keep under review the sufficiency of social care support for disabled children
  5. The alternative arrangements the Council made were not successful. I find the Council did not meet Ms M and H’s need for respite from March 2017, when the Council decided to increase support, until H started at the residential special college following the Tribunal’s decision in March 2018. This is more than a year. The Council failed to meet Ms M and H’s needs for additional support despite Ms M’s repeated requests for support. The Council failed to consider Ms M’s request to take H into care. Instead, the Tribunal made the decision. The Council’s failure to make a decision caused considerable delay. This is fault.

Agreed action

  1. The Ombudsman has published guidance to explain how we calculate remedies for people who have suffered injustice as a result of fault by a council. Our primary aim is to put people back in the position they would have been in if the fault by the Council had not occurred. When this is not possible, as in the case of Ms M and H, we may recommend the Council makes a symbolic payment to acknowledge what could have been avoidable distress, harm or risk.
  2. When the Ombudsman recommends a payment for distress, we only take account of avoidable distress that is the result of fault by the Council. A remedy payment for distress is often a moderate sum of between £100 and £300. However, where the distress is prolonged, or the people involved are vulnerable, the payment may be significantly higher.
  3. My investigation has identified fault by the Council: its failure to make timely decisions about Ms M and H’s need for support following Ms M’s requests for help, and the Council’s failure to put in place effective support when it decided more support was needed. As a result, Ms M has been left to care for H without the support the Council decided she needed. This lasted over a year. The Council provided some support. H had 70 days of respite a year. The Council was unable to provide additional overnight respite. H also had some outreach support from school. Otherwise, Ms M provided all of his care. The Council did not make a decision at all when Ms M said she could not cope and asked the Council to take H into care.
  4. I recommend the Council make a symbolic payment of £2,000 to Ms M and H to acknowledge the impact of its failure to provide the additional support the Council decided Ms M needed from early 2017 until H started at a residential special college in 2018. The Council should make the payment within 4 weeks of my final decision.
  5. I recommend the Council revisit Ms M’s request for specialist equipment to monitor H at night when he visits. The Council explained that it cannot provide specialist medical equipment. If the Council identifies H needs night time support, either with specialist equipment or from a carer, it should ensure the need is met, and provide assistance to Ms M to secure support if the Council decides not to provide it itself. The Council should ensure this is done within 4 weeks of my final decision.
  6. I recommend the Council review its processes to ensure it makes timely decisions when assessments identify unmet needs, and care plans are updated following decisions by the ‘resources panel’ to show how needs identified in an assessment will be met. The Council should complete the review within 12 weeks of my final decision.
  7. I recommend the Council review the sufficiency of its residential respite service for disabled children. The Council should complete the review within 12 weeks of my final decision.
  8. The Council accepted my recommendations.

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Final decision

  1. The Council accepts my recommendations. I have ended my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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