The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council carried out a financial assessment and decided what expense to include. There is not enough evidence of fault and further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
Ms Y complained the Council did not complete a financial assessment about her correctly and omitted some of her Disability-Related Expenditure from the assessment. Ms Y said the Council asked for receipts to highlight her expenses but then did not take them.
Ms Y also complained the Council’s communication with her, including responding to her complaint.
Ms Y also said the Council failed to identify suitable support after she asked it for help.
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: there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Ms Y and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
According to the Council’s charging policy, it allows £10 in Disability-Related Expenditure (DRE) for people who receive disability benefits. The Council included this in Ms Y’s financial assessment.
The Council’s charging policy also allows for people who believe they have DRE’s that exceed £10, to put in evidence for each cost which it considers case-by-case. The policy says where reasonable alternatives are available at a lower cost or for free the expense may not be considered.
The available evidence shows the Council considered Ms Y’s DRE’s in line with its policy, because it applied the allowance. There is not enough evidence of fault in how it carried out the financial assessment.
As part of its complaint response, the Council recognised that it had not responded to an email from Ms Y, querying her assessment and it apologised and shared learning about this with staff. This is a proportionate response, and further investigation would not add to the Council’s investigation here.
I will not investigate how the Council handled Ms Y’s complaint, because it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, where we decide not to deal with the substantive issue.
In relation to Ms Y’s complaint about accessing support, the Council provided Ms Y with an explanation about why it would not grant her direct payments, and when her circumstances changed offered to carry out a new assessment. We will not investigate this aspect of Ms Y’s complaint. Further investigation by us would not lead to a different outcome.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms Y’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault to justify us investigating and of other parts of her complaint, further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman