The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the form of payments made to Mrs X as a childminder. Investigation would be unlikely to lead to a better outcome than that already offered by the Council.
The complaint
Mrs X said she was placed in financial hardship by the Council’s refusal to place her on the most suitable payments schedule for free childcare when it moved childminders to a different schedule from nurseries and pre-schools.
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: further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants, or there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
The Council may change a childcare provider’s payment frequency if requested. It is not an absolute duty to do so. However, I note the Council has told Mrs X it will do so as soon as its system software is altered to allow individual opt-ins or opt-outs from the two different payment schemes it devised for childminders and nurseries or pre-schools after a consultation. I note it said it intended to do this in the near future. If we were to investigate, we would not be likely to find there was a duty to accede to Mrs X’s request, or that the Council introduced the two different schemes without consulting first, or that it failed to provide sufficient notice of the change due in September 2024. And we would be unlikely to recommend more than the Council has already agreed, which is to move Mrs X to the other payment scheme as soon as its system is adapted to allow this.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because doing so would be unlikely to lead to a different outcome to that offered by the Council.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman