The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s lack of action to ensure her son, Mr Y, had a care package in place to enable him to accept a housing offer. This is because there is insufficient injustice to justify our involvement.
The complaint
Mrs X complained this Council’s housing team did not contact Council B’s adult social care team to ensure a package of care was put in place so her son, Mr Y, could accept a tenancy this Council had offered him.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mrs X.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mr Y was living with Mrs X and was on this Council’s housing register. In December 2023, this Council offered him a property and said Mr Y would need to sign the tenancy by 8 January 2024 if he wanted to accept it. Mr Y was not able to sign the tenancy by that date because he was waiting for Council B to agree to an increase in his care package so he could live on his own.
In the event, Council B did not agree to support Mr Y to live on his own, so he would not have been able to accept the tenancy, regardless of any failure by this Council to proactively pursue Council B.
Whilst we recognise Mr Y was disappointed that he could not sign the tenancy and Mrs X was frustrated by what she considered was this Council’s lack of action, there was no significant injustice caused. For that reason, we will not investigate this complaint further.
Mrs X sent an email to this Council in December 2023 marked “Formal complaint”. This Council did not log it as a complaint and, in her complaint to us, Mrs X said it did not send a written response to the complaint. Whilst the Council should have responded to her complaint, we do not investigate failures in complaints handling unless we are also investigating the underlying complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is insufficient injustice caused to justify our involvement.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman