Summary: Mr and Mrs D complain the Council failed to ensure it sent information to them in their preferred format and delayed responding to their complaint. There was fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed to make a payment to Mr and Mrs D and to ensure its records on reasonable adjustments are up to date.

The complaint

1. Mr and Mrs D complain the Council:
• failed to ensure it sent information to them in their preferred format and wrongly sent correspondence in the post.
• failed to implement changes to its systems to prevent this.
• delayed responding to their complaint.
2. Mr and Mrs D would like to ensure the problems do not recur in future for them or others on the sight register.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
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

5. I spoke to Mr D about the complaint and considered the information he sent and the Council’s response to my enquiries.
6. Mr and Mrs D and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

7. The Care and Support (Sight-impaired and Severely Sight-impaired Adults) Regulations 2014 require local authorities to establish and maintain a register of adults who are ordinarily resident in their area and are sight-impaired or severely sight-impaired. Registering as visually impaired can help people claim benefits and enables a council’s social services department to arrange an assessment of the person’s needs.
8. The Equality Act 2010 says an individual or organisation that provides a service to the public, such as councils, must not treat someone worse just because of one or more “protected characteristics”. Protected characteristics include people with disabilities. When the duty arises, the public body is under a positive and proactive duty to look at removing or preventing obstacles to a disabled person accessing its services. If the adjustments are reasonable it must make them.
9. It is not the role of the Ombudsman to decide whether requests for adjustments are reasonable, but we can look at how the Council considered and acted on the requests.
10. The Act is supported by a Code of Practice, which is statutory guidance. This means public bodies must have regard to it. One of the examples in this Code says:

“A person with a visual impairment regularly receives printed letters regarding his social security benefits, despite the fact that on previous occasions he has indicated his need for Braille and this has been provided. He finds this repeated need to telephone to ask for Braille frustrating and inconvenient, but is told that the software, which generates communications, does not enable a record to be kept of customers’ needs for alternative formats. This may constitute a failure to make reasonable adjustments if it is judged to have left the disabled person at a substantial disadvantage and there was a reasonable adjustment that could have been made.”

11. If a person believes they have been discriminated against because of the actions of a council, they may make a claim for damages in county court. Only the courts can decide whether a council has discriminated against a person. But the Ombudsman can decide if the council has acted with fault in dealing with a person’s requests for reasonable adjustments. We must also consider if it is reasonable for a person to go to court. If we consider it is not, we may investigate.

What happened

12. Mr and Mrs D are both totally blind and on the sight register. In May 2020 they contacted the Council as they were concerned that they had received no support or contact since the COVID-19 lockdown had started. They also said the Council had sent them a printed leaflet in the post about the coronavirus. They found this insensitive, inaccessible and in breach of the 2010 Equality Act as they had asked the Council only to email them with information. There is no evidence of a reply.
13. On 30 June 2020 Mr and Mrs D again contacted the Council. This was because they had received another letter in the post that they were unable to read. The letter was about support for visually impaired people during the pandemic. Mr and Mrs D complained that the letter was insulting and insensitive given they had already written to the Council about receiving inaccessible printed material but this had not been acted on.
14. The Council spoke to Mr D and replied to the complaint on 17 July 2020. It apologised the letter had been sent to them in the wrong format. It said Mr and Mrs D’s records on the sight register database had not been properly updated, so wrongly said they wished to receive information in large font. The records had now been amended to show they should receive electronic information only.
15. The Council said it would amend its guidance about how to update the records and make it available to staff. It would also ensure that the format in which a person wanted to receive information was highlighted on the record with a yellow banner.
16. In November 2020, Mr and Mrs D again received a leaflet from the Council in the post. They emailed the Council about this on 15 November. The Council apologised and explained the leaflet had been sent to 250,000 addresses. Mr and Mrs D’s concern was registered as another complaint.
17. Mr D chased the Council for a response to the complaint in December 2020. It said it was still considering his complaint. Mr D approached the Ombudsman in February 2021 but it was too soon for us to investigate as the Council had not yet replied.
18. The Council replied to Mr and Mrs D’s complaint on 5 May 2021. It said one of the intentions of the sight register was to ensure that people received information from the Council in preferred formats, but it did not currently have appropriate arrangements in place to make this happen routinely. The Council would review its arrangements and update Mr and Mrs D on the outcome of the review.
19. Mr D was dissatisfied that no action had been taken following his complaint in June 2020. He came to the Ombudsman.
20. In August 2021 the Council told Mr D that its review was still ongoing. The Council wished to ensure that if someone had reasonable adjustment that any council team would be aware. However, the sight register database was only accessible to staff in the Adult Social Care department and there was no way to easily cross-reference it with databases being used by other council teams. The Council was therefore looking at using different IT systems and noted there were data protection and consent issues to consider. This was therefore taking some time.

My findings

21. There was fault by the Council when it sent leaflets to Mr and Mrs D in the wrong format in May and June 2020. It had previously agreed to send all information by email as a reasonable adjustment, but because of an error on its database this was not done. This caused frustration and distress to Mr and Mrs D. I note the Council has already apologised for this, which is a suitable and proportionate remedy for the injustice caused.
22. The Council updated its database to ensure Mr and Mrs D did not receive information wrongly again. However, this was not effective as not all council teams use that database. The error therefore recurred in November 2020 and Mr and Mrs D had to make another complaint.
23. The Council is currently reviewing how to enable all services to be aware of the reasonable adjustments Mr and Mrs D have requested on the sight register database. I welcome this and accept that this work will take some time.
24. However, in the meantime the Council must ensure that all services who may contact Mr and Mrs D are making reasonable adjustments. It may be that this requires each of those services to update their own records separately.
25. Mr and Mrs D were concerned that others on the sight register may also be receiving information in the wrong format. I asked the Council about this. It has no records of other complaints. Nonetheless, it would be good practice for the Council to remind all services of the need to ensure their records about reasonable adjustments for individuals are up to date.
26. There was delay by the Council in dealing with Mr and Mrs D’s November 2020 complaint. Although it acknowledged the complaint and apologised the next day, it did not send a formal complaint response until May 2021. This is fault, which caused Mr and Mrs D time and trouble.

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Agreed action

27. Within a month of my final decision, the Council has agreed to:
1. Pay Mr and Mrs D £100 to acknowledge the time and trouble they were caused by fault in complaint handling.
2. Ensure each services’ records are up to date in relation to the reasonable adjustments that are required for contact with Mr and Mrs D.
3. Remind all services of the need to keep reasonable adjustments records up to date.

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Final decision

28. There was fault by the Council. The actions the Council has agreed to take remedy the injustice caused. I have completed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman