North Yorkshire County Council has failed to carry out a financial assessment it had agreed to undertake following an earlier upheld complaint to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The council had agreed to complete the disability related expenditure assessment of a young woman, to include her housing and transport costs, following her complaint to the Ombudsman in 2018.

However, despite visiting the woman to assess her needs in July 2018, the council then failed to share the assessment with the woman or her parents until the Ombudsman intervened again in October 2019.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said:

“This delay has prevented the family from challenging the council’s assessment and its calculations for 15 months. While the family has not lost out financially by the delay, they have been left uncertain about the true level of support they should have been receiving.”

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s role is to remedy injustice and share learning from investigations to help improve public, and adult social care, services. In this case the council should apologise to the parents for not completing the assessment for 15 months after the agreed deadline.

It has also offered to pay the family £250 for their unnecessary time and trouble in pursuing the matter.

Article date: 04 March 2020