Kent County Council (25 011 027)
Category : Children's care services > Other
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 27 Jan 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council not providing financial support between 2021 and 2023. There are no good reasons why the late complaint rule should not apply.
The complaint
- Mrs X says the Council should provide her with backdated special guardianship allowance for a period between October 2021 and 2023.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mrs X and the Council’s replies to her.
- I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- Mrs X cares for an extended family member, Y, who is six years old. Mrs X lived in this Council’s area between October 2021 and 2023.
- In December 2022 a Court granted Mrs X a Special Guardianship Order (SGO). A social worker for the Council where Mrs X had previously lived, completed a report for court which said Mrs X would not be eligible for a financial assessment because Y had not previously been a looked after child.
- Mrs X complained to the Council in January 2025 that it had not assessed her family properly during the time she lived there. She says it should have paid her an SGO allowance. The Council in reply explained why her case did not qualify.
- We cannot investigate complaints about events known to Mrs X for more than 12 months without good reasons. Mrs X knew during the court proceedings of the existence of financial support. It is reasonable to expect her to have claimed and then complained. There are no good reasons she should have delayed over two years before complaining to the Council.
Final decision
- We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because she knew about the lack of financial support since at the latest December 2022 and she delayed more than 12 months in complaining to us.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman