The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council handled a complaint regarding adult social care assessment. We could not achieve a meaningful outcome as the substantive matter was resolved, and it is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint-handling in isolation.
The complaint
Mrs X complained the Council did not properly consider her complaint, including delays and not addressing elements of the complaint. She said despite the Council ultimately reassessing her mother, Mrs Y, it classed the complaint as ‘not upheld’ which did not accurately reflect what had happened. She said this caused significant distress, and time and trouble of pursuing the matter through the complaints process. She wanted apologies, explanations and compensation.
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.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Mrs X’s complaint to the Council related to assessments of Mrs Y’s needs and eligibility for referral to the NHS for Continuing Healthcare funding. The Council carried out new assessments, which provided more favourable results. Mrs X remained dissatisfied with how the Council had handled her complaint.
If we investigated the substantive element of the complaint, we would not be able to make further meaningful recommendations. Our recommendations if there were fault in the Council’s original assessments, would likely be limited to asking the Council to reassess Mrs Y. Given that the Council has already done so, it is unlikely we could achieve anything different.
Mrs X’s complaint to us was solely about the Council’s complaint-handling. She says this caused her significant distress, time and trouble.
It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. We will not investigate this complaint.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because we could not achieve a different or more meaningful outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman