Summary: Mx X complained the Council failed to adhere to reasonable adjustments agreed for their disability between August 2023 and December 2024. There was no fault in how the Council adhered to the agreed reasonable adjustments. There was fault in the Council’s communication and record keeping about the reasonable adjustments. The Council will apologise to Mx X for the frustration and uncertainty this caused them and ensure it has up to date records of Mx X’s agreed reasonable adjustments.

The complaint

1. Mx X complained the Council failed to maintain an agreement to contact them monthly to discuss their complaints as agreed as a reasonable adjustment for their disability since August 2023. Mx X further complained the Council failed to adhere to their reasonable adjustment requests from July 2024 until December 2024 which prevented them from raising complaints properly and prevented the Council from fully understanding and responding to the complaints. Mx X said this caused them frustration, distress and to be disempowered, and was not in line with the Equality Act. Mx X wanted the Council to apologise, to reinstate its monthly contact and provide financial recompense for the distress caused.

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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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
3. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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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What I have and have not investigated

4. 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)
5. Mx X complained to us in December 2024 about events that began in July 2023. The complaint about matters from July 2023 until December 2023 is a late complaint. However, I considered it was a continuing matter and there were good reasons to investigate what happened in July 2023 to understand what happened from December 2023 onwards.
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the organisation knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to notify the organisation of the complaint and give it an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6)
7. Mx X raised complaints about new events that have not yet been considered by the Council as set out in paragraph 39. It is reasonable for the Council to have the opportunity to investigate these matters and so I cannot investigate them now.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered evidence provided by Mx X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
9. Mx X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant legislation and guidance

The Equality Act

10. The Equality Act 2010 provides a legal framework to protect the rights of individuals and advance equality of opportunity for all. It offers protection, in employment, education, the provision of goods and services, housing, transport and the carrying out of public functions.
11. The Equality Act makes it unlawful for organisations carrying out public functions to discriminate on any of the nine protected characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010. They must also have regard to the general duties aimed at eliminating discrimination under the Public Sector Equality Duty. The ‘protected characteristics’ referred to in the Act include disability.
12. Indirect discrimination may occur when a service provider applies an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice which puts persons sharing a protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage.

Reasonable adjustments

13. The reasonable adjustment duty is set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to any body which carries out a public function. It aims to make sure that a disabled person can use a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard usually offered to non-disabled people.
14. Service providers are under a positive and proactive duty to take steps to remove or prevent obstacles to accessing their service. If the adjustments are reasonable, they must make them.
15. The duty is ‘anticipatory’. This means service providers cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use their services, but must think in advance about what disabled people with a range of impairments might reasonably need.

Our approach

16. We cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether or not an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them.

Council policy

17. The Council has an Unreasonable Actions by Customers Policy. The policy sets out how the Council will decide if someone is being unreasonable or behaving unreasonably and what action it will take in these circumstances. It specifies examples of unreasonable behaviour includes submitting repeat complaints with minor additions or changes, or refusing to specify the grounds of a complaint despite offers of help, and making unjustified complaints about staff who are trying to deal with issues. It sets out it may implement restrictions on how and when a person can make a complaint.
18. Where the Council is considering using the policy it can provide a warning, either informally or formally. The warning will include the actions the Council considers are unreasonable and the consequence of the person failing to address their actions. It will also ask about any reasonable adjustments the person may need under the Equality Act.

What happened

Background information

19. Mx X is blind and the Council has agreed to make reasonable adjustments to access Council services. They cannot access written documents.
20. Mx X had previously raised a complaint with the Council about a number of matters, which were also considered by us in a previous investigation. Those matters are not subject to this investigation. During its consideration of that complaint the Council arranged to have regular telephone calls with Mx X in order to resolve some outstanding matters. Initially Officer 1 contacted Mx X about the matters covered by the previous investigation.
21. Internal records show the regular calls with a single point of contact were a short-term solution and were not intended to be a permanent arrangement. There are no Council records setting out what explanation was given to Mx X about the telephone calls. Mx X says they understood the calls would be in place until all of the issues they had raised were resolved.
22. In April 2023 Officer 1 told Mx X that the regular calls would be taken over by Officer 2.

Matters for this investigation

23. Officer 2 made regular calls to Mx X up to August 2023. The record of the calls show that Mx X was asking for additional information on matters considered in the previous complaint. Officer 2 provided a response to Mx X’s queries.
24. Officer 2 recorded the reasonable adjustments it agreed to make for Mx X including using an email address (email 1) for documents up to three pages in length, longer documents to be provided on audio CD and brief information in a phone call. If Mx X had a complaint they would make it over the telephone via dictation to an officer in the relevant department and the officer would send the complaint back to them.
25. Officer 2 sent the agreed reasonable adjustments for Mx X to all the Council’s equality champions in different service areas. Officer 2 confirmed he had advised Mx X to make any complaints to the complaint officer within the relevant service area and they should adhere to those reasonable adjustments. They were also recorded on to the Council’s case recording system. Officer 2 said he told Mx X dictating their complaint was not a sustainable solution so they would explore alternative options.
26. Officer 2 agreed to support Mx X with their request to use a unique reference number (URN) to allow the Council to share Mx X’s information with third parties in August 2023 if they quoted the URN. Officer 2 stated another Council officer would respond to requests using the URN in their absence. Mx X said they were worried as the summer was approaching there may be antisocial behaviour near their home and asked if the Council could provide CCTV. Officer 2 told Mx X a different Team would update them about the CCTV. Officer 2 responded to all other points raised by Mx X.
27. Officer 1 contacted Mx X in mid-September when the monthly call was due and told them Officer 2 was away from work and they would contact Mx X on their return.
28. Mx X said they asked the Council on several separate occasions from January 2024 onwards when Officer 2 would return to work but did not receive a satisfactory response.
29. Mx X contacted us in summer 2024 and said the Council was no longer providing the regular contact it had agreed. We contacted the Council and asked it to speak with Mx X to resolve the matter. Mx X said they were only aware Officer 2 had returned to work in July 2024, and at that point they realised the Council had broken its agreement and made a complaint.
30. Mx X complained to the Council in July about the matter. Mx X said they wanted the arrangements back in place so they could raise complaints and resolve matters.
31. The Council responded to Mx X’s complaint. It said Officer 2 was no longer employed by the Council. It said there was no evidence it had made a formal arrangement for regular telephone calls. The calls officers had made were informal and temporary. The Council told Mx X they could contact its complaints team if they wished to complain about anything.
32. Mx X told the Council in August 2024 they were no longer using email address 1, and it could respond on this complaint only to email address 2.
33. Mx X contacted the Council to provide further details on their complaint. Officer 3 arranged to take Mx X’s dictated complaint over the phone. Officer 3 called Mx X several times between August and October 2024. The Council states the calls in total lasted for over four hours. It recorded Mx X wanted the arrangement for monthly calls back in place to discuss the outstanding issues from their previous complaint and to raise new issues. Mx X wanted a financial remedy for the distress, disadvantage and time and trouble they were caused in making the complaint. Mx X said they were being disadvantaged by their disability and medical circumstances preventing their communication in writing.
34. Mx X said during their calls with Officer 3 they raised complaints about receiving Council correspondence in the post. Mx X said this matter was not recorded by Officer 3 despite them dictating it. Mx X also said the Officer asked them if someone could read a letter to them or if they had an advocate which they felt were discriminatory comments and did not respect their independence.
35. The Council wrote to Mx X at the beginning of November 2024 and also sent correspondence via audio CD. It said it had spent several hours in phone calls regarding the complaint but was still unclear what Mx X’s current complaint was except they were unhappy that senior officers had not returned their calls. It said Mx X had indicated matters that it considered through the complaint process in 2022 and 2023 were still outstanding but they had not provided additional information. It said it had addressed Mx X’s complaint about monthly calls in July 2024. It said it would support Mx X to bring a complaint but could not offer unlimited telephone or in person support to do so.
36. The Council said it:
• would take Mx X’s complaints over the phone via Officer 3 or the complaint team;
• would if necessary or requested, arrange a meeting with an appropriate officer;
• would ask Mx X to summarise any complaint initially and its officer would ask further questions about relevant history if they needed it;
• would likely not accept a complaint about historic or irrelevant issues;
• would likely not consider a complaint about matters that happened more than 12 months ago and would not reconsider matters that had already been through the complaints process; and
• may consider its Unreasonable Action policy if Mx X did not follow the guidance above and it explained what that policy was.
37. Mx X spoke with Officer 3 again at the beginning of December. Mx X confirmed they only wanted the Council to contact them by telephone, audio CD or text message. Mx X set out their complaint as:
• Officer 2 agreed to use an URN for third party information requests and that someone would take over that if they were not available;
• they still needed feedback from Officer 2 on various matters, and about CCTV near their house;
• they did not want the Council to use email to contact them anymore as they could not access them;
• they felt intimidated by the Council’s letter of November 2024 and had provided lots of information as it did not accept their complaint about telephone calls in July 2024, so they needed to provide the background; and
• Officer 3 would not progress a subject access request (SAR) they had made.
38. The Council responded to Mx X’s complaint in December 2024 via audio CD, it also sent it to email address 1. It said Officer 3 had actioned two SARs, the most recent in November 2024. It said it could not find any agreement regarding a URN arrangement on its case recording system. It asked Mx X to let it know on a case-by-case basis if it should share their information when requested by a third party. The Council said the other issues Mx X said were outstanding were considered through the complaint process in 2022 and it would not reconsider them. It said it responded to the complaint about the telephone calls in July 2024.
39. Dissatisfied with the Council’s response to their complaint Mx X complained to us as set out in paragraph 1. Mx X also complained they had contacted the Council’s legal services but their calls had not been returned. Mx X said as a result of the Council’s actions they had been unable to report someone littering on their property to the Council or that it was failing to maintain common land near their property. Mx X said they were intimidated by the Council’s letter of November 2024 and felt they were prevented from presenting their complaint properly.
40. In response to my enquiries the Council stated it was unaware of Mx X’s new complaints. It said if the issues were new, and had not previously been through its complaint procedure, it would accept the complaints with further information from Mx X.

My findings

Monthly calls

41. A Council officer began calling Mx X monthly prior to the period of investigation. The arrangement was in place while the Council finished considering a previous complaint. The Council’s records are clear it did not intend the monthly call to be a permanent arrangement. There is no record of the Council’s arrangement with Mx X about the calls but Mx X stated they believed the calls would be in place until the issues were resolved. When Officer 2 later set out the reasonable adjustments it agreed to make for Mx X, it did not include an ongoing monthly telephone call. It is for the Council to consider what adjustments are reasonable, and in the absence of any agreement that this was a reasonable adjustment for the Council to make, there was no fault in its decision to stop the monthly calls. However, the calls ended abruptly and without warning or explanation when Officer 2 was unexpectedly away from work. The Council’s poor communication with Mx X about the arrangement and lack of clear case records was fault and caused Mx X frustration and uncertainty.
42. Mx X said they were waiting for information from Officer 2 about several matters in the monthly call. In the Council’s response it stated there were no outstanding matters. The records show the matters Mx X considered to be outstanding had all been dealt with either through previous complaints or by Officer 2’s regular calls. However, in the last call, Officer 2 told Mx X a different team would update them about their recent request for CCTV near their property. There is no evidence anyone from the Council updated Mx X about that request which caused them frustration.

Ongoing reasonable adjustments

43. Officer 2 agreed Mx X’s reasonable adjustments as being sending documents via email address 1, sending long documents on audio CD and that Mx X would dictate any complaints to Council officers. Although the Council indicated it did not consider dictation of complaints a long-term solution, it did not offer an alternative and continued to use this method. In August 2024 Mx X asked the Council to use email address 2, and later stated they were no longer using email at all. The records show the Council sent Mx X correspondence in line with their agreed reasonable adjustments. It did use email after Mx X asked it not to, however it also sent that correspondence via audio CD. There was no fault in the Council’s actions because they were in line with its agreed reasonable adjustments.
44. Officer 2 also agreed the use of a URN with Mx X as a way of the Council sharing Mx X’s information with third parties. It is unclear how or if this was a reasonable adjustment to allow Mx X to access Council services, and the records only refer to the arrangement as ‘support’. Officer 2 has since left the Council and so cannot provide an explanation. However, Officer 2 agreed the arrangement and told Mx X it would continue in their absence. Officer 2 did not record this in the Council’s case recording systems and so, when he left the Council the arrangement did not continue. The lack of continuity and clear records was fault and caused Mx X frustration.
45. The Council asked Mx X about their circumstances and whether someone reading a letter, or an advocate, would support Mx X. There was no fault in the Council exploring reasonable adjustments with Mx X. When Mx X declined these options the Council accepted their response.
46. Overall there was no fault in the Council adhering to the reasonable adjustments it had agreed to make for Mx X.

Ongoing complaints

47. Mx X said they were prevented from raising complaints as the Council was not calling them every month and would not allow them to provide all the information. The records show Officer 2 told Mx X how they could make complaints in 2023. This was reiterated by the Council’s response in July 2024. When Mx X contacted the Council it began taking Mx X’s complaint in line with the reasonable adjustments it had agreed to make. The Council wrote to Mx X and explained that it could not understand their complaint and the actions it intended to take and what Mx X needed to do to allow it to understand the complaint. There was no fault in the Council’s actions in this matter and Mx X was not prevented from raising complaints.
48. Mx X said the Council had not considered their complaints about:
• written correspondence being sent to them in the post;
• their calls to the Council’s legal services specifically not being returned;
• someone littering on their property; and
• maintenance of common land near their property.
49. The Council has indicated it will consider these matters with further information from Mx X and so I cannot investigate these points further as set out in paragraphs 6 and 7. It is open to Mx X to contact the Council and raise those complaints in line with the guidance the Council provided in its letter of November 2024.

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Action

50. Within six weeks of this decision the Council will:
1. Contact Mx X in line with their reasonable adjustments and apologise for the frustration and uncertainty its poor communication and lack of accurate records caused to them. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council will consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended; and
2. Contact Mx X, update and confirm the reasonable adjustments it has agreed to make for them. The Council will confirm this in writing via audio recording to Mx X and inform them of the date it will review the reasonable adjustments, it will also record this in its case recording system and share it with its equality champions in the relevant service areas.
51. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

52. I found fault causing injustice. The Council agreed to my recommendations to remedy injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman