Summary: Miss X complains the Council has not calculated her special guardianship allowance correctly. The Ombudsman has not found fault in the way the Council calculated the allowance. There was fault in how the Council handled Miss X’s complaint, but this did not cause her significant injustice.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains the Council has not calculated her special guardianship allowance correctly. She says the reduced allowance has put a strain on the family’s finances. She would like the Council to stop making a deduction for child benefit from her allowance and refund the deductions it has made.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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

4. I have considered the complaint made by Miss X and the documents she provided.
5. I considered the Council’s comments about the complaint and the documents it provided in response to my enquiries.
6. I took account of the Ombudsman’s focus report ‘Firm foundations: complaints about council support and advice for special guardians’ published in May 2018.
7. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.
8. Under our information sharing agreement, we will share this decision with the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted).

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What I found

Background

Special Guardianship

9. A Special Guardianship Order (SGO) appoints someone to be a child’s special guardian. Extended family members such as grandparents often apply to become special guardians. An order allows a special guardian to become responsible for all day-to-day decisions about a child.
10. Councils must help meet the needs of special guardians in their area. This can include offering financial support, often in the form of a special guardianship allowance.
11. The Department for Education (DfE) updated its guidance on SGO allowances in 2017. It says financial support paid under SGO regulations cannot duplicate any other payment available to a special guardian. Councils must take account of any other grant, benefit, allowance or resource which is available to the special guardian. The maximum payment should be equal to a council’s core fostering allowance plus any enhancement that would be payable for a particular child.
12. The DfE previously provided advice to councils on how to means test SGO allowances. This was called the ‘standardised means test model for adoption and special guardianship financial support.’ This recommended that if a special guardian was receiving income support then councils should pay them the maximum payment without assessing their income and without making any deduction for child benefit. Councils do not have to use this means test model and many now devise their own.
13. The Council’s policy on financial support for special guardians says it will carry out a full means-tested assessment using the DfE’s standard assessment. It also says the maximum allowance payable is equal to the Council’s standard weekly fostering allowance for a child in the same age group, minus any child benefit and tax credit claimed for the child.

Complaints handling

14. The law sets out a three-stage procedure for councils to follow when looking at complaints about children’s social care services. The accompanying statutory guidance, Getting the Best from Complaints, explains councils’ responsibilities in more detail.
15. The guidance says who can complain and what they can complain about. It includes special guardians who wish to complain about their financial support.
16. The first stage of the procedure is local resolution. Councils have up to 20 working days to respond. If a complainant is not happy with a council’s stage one response, they can ask that it is considered at stage two. The guidance says once a council has accepted a complaint at stage one, it must ensure the complaint continues to stages two and three if that is the complainant’s wish. The Ombudsman would normally expect a council and complainant to follow the full complaints procedure.

What happened

17. Miss X has cared for her granddaughter since shortly after she was born. An SGO was granted in October 2016. Since then she has received a special guardianship allowance from the Council equal to a fostering allowance, minus what she receives in child benefit and child tax credit.
18. In February 2019 Miss X complained to the Council. She said she received income support and had done so since the SGO was granted. She said the Council had been deducting child benefit from her special guardianship allowance, but it should not have been. She referred to the standardised means test model. She asked the Council to recalculate her allowance without deducting child benefit, and to backdate the payments to October 2016.
19. The Council replied in March. It said that in 2015 the weekly amount of special guardianship allowance became equal to the weekly rates paid to foster carers. At this point the Council began taking account of other grants, benefits, allowances and resources available to special guardians. It said it could not repay the deductions it had made.
20. Miss X remained dissatisfied and asked the Council to raise her complaint at stage two. She referred again to the standardised means test model and the recommendation that child benefit is not deducted when special guardians are in receipt of income support.
21. The Council said it would not investigate the complaint at stage two. It provided Miss X with an extract from the Special Guardianship regulations and a link to the accompanying guidance.
22. Miss X remained dissatisfied and complained to the Ombudsman.

Analysis

23. The Council is not required to apply the recommendations in the standardised means test model. The Council’s policy is clear that it will deduct child benefit from any allowance. This is in line with the statutory guidance. Records provided by the Council show it told Miss X about the amount of allowance she was entitled to and it has been clear about any deductions from the outset. There is no fault in how it has calculated Miss X’s allowance.
24. The Council should have allowed Miss X to escalate her complaint to stage two of the statutory complaint procedure. Not doing so was fault. However, there is no injustice to Miss X as it is unlikely an investigation at stage two or a review at stage three would have produced a different outcome.

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Final decision

25. I have completed my investigation. While there was some fault by the Council, there is no evidence Miss X suffered significant injustice as a result.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman