Summary: Ms X complained that the Council failed to provide support from the Disabled Children’s Service for her severely disabled son during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have decided not to investigate the complaint further. This is because the issues in the complaint overlap with another complaint we are already investigating.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained that the Council failed to provide support from the Disabled Children’s Service for her severely disabled son during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we refer to as ‘fault’. We have discretion to decide whether to start or discontinue an investigation into a complaint within our jurisdiction. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I discussed the complaint with Ms X and considered the information she provided. I considered details of another complaint from Ms X that the Ombudsman is currently investigating. I gave Ms X and the Council the opportunity to comment on my draft decision before making the final decision.

Back to top

What I found

4. Ms X’s son, B, is profoundly disabled and has complex medical needs. B currently does not receive support services from the Council’s Disabled Children’s Team. Ms X pays for support privately to help her care for her son.
5. B has an Education Health and Care (EHC) Plan. These are plans setting out a child’s needs and what arrangements should be made to meet them. The EHC Plan is set out in sections, including sections on the special support needed for education, health and social care. Currently B’s EHC Plan contains no social care provision.
6. Ms X made complaints to the Council, and then to the Ombudsman, about the Council’s handling of her requests for social care support for her son from 2018 to 2020. She complained about a number of issues including failure to assess B’s needs and her own needs as a carer properly, and failure to put in place adequate support. This included an agreed interim care package while a re-assessment was being carried out. There was also a dispute with the Council about proposed direct payments for care and support.
7. Ms X also appealed to the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Tribunal about the provision in B’s EHC Plan. The Tribunal hearing took place in June 2020. The Tribunal decided the EHC Plan should include increased therapies to support B’s special educational needs. It decided not to make any recommendations about social care provision to be included in the Plan because it accepted the Council’s argument that it had to re-assess B’s needs. The Council agreed to carry out a re-assessment.
8. In March 2020 schools in England closed to most pupils because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government introduced a range of new and frequently updated rules and guidance during this time. This included:
• a requirement for risk assessments to determine whether vulnerable children including those with EHC Plans should attend school or remain at home;
• changes to the way social care support could continue to be delivered to families receiving services to ensure the safety of families and social care staff;
• from 1 May to 31 July 2020 a relaxation of the duty for councils to ensure provision in an EHC Plan is arranged to one of making ‘reasonable endeavours’ to secure the provision.
9. Ms X agreed with the risk assessment in March that B should not go to school. In April she had an exchange of emails with social care staff in the Disabled Children’s Team about what support she could receive for B.
10. In early July 2020 Ms X made a complaint to the Council about lack of support during the COVID-19 pandemic. She complained that the Disabled Children’s Team failed to provide her with support, failed to carry out a risk assessment and failed to meet her son’s needs.
11. The Council replied to Ms X’s complaint in August 2020. Its response was as follows.
• Until a social worker had met B and assessed his current needs it was not possible to agree and put in place a support package. The Ombudsman was already investigating her complaint about lack of services provided.
• When the Disabled Children’s Team contacted her in April she replied asking when the interim package would be put in place as B had not had this for two years and his needs had not changed. She did not mention any additional difficulties she was facing because of lockdown, but did refer to the continuing issue of the re-assessment of B’s needs.
• Until the dispute about the direct payments was resolved the Council could not put the interim support package in place.
• The Disabled Children’s Team had sent her information and an application form to apply for extra resources for her child at home through emergency Government funding but she did not respond.
12. The Council completed the assessment of B’s social care needs in October 2020 and this resulted in a recommendation for increased hours of support.

Analysis

13. Ms X says she is not complaining about the risk assessment concerning school attendance, nor that support set out in B’s EHC Plan was not being delivered. She is not complaining that any social care provision in place before COVID-19 stopped. She says the support she wanted during this period is essentially what she has been asking for since 2018, although she might have needed more while B was out of school. So for the most part her complaint is a continuation of the matters being considered in the investigation of her other complaint, rather than about events specific to the period when the COVID-19 amended rules apply.
14. The Ombudsman’s other investigation is looking at whether the assessment of B’s needs before this period is adequate, how the Council handled her request for support, and whether there was any delay in carrying out the new social work assessment following the Tribunal in June 2020. It is considering matters both before and after the period affected by any changes in the Council’s duties because of COVID-19. I do not consider it would be of any benefit to Ms X to investigate the middle period separately. If the other investigation finds fault causing injustice, any remedy recommended would be likely to apply to the period from March 2020. My view, therefore, is that I could not achieve any more for Ms X by investigating this complaint separately. Neither Ms X nor the Council have disputed this view. I have therefore decided to discontinue this investigation and allow the complaint about lack of social care support to be dealt with in the other complaint the Ombudsman is already investigating.

Final decision

15. For the reasons I have explained I have decided to discontinue my investigation into this complaint.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman