The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr X complained the Council has wrongly increased Miss Y’s client contribution and refused to consider her Disability Related Expenditure. He also complained the Council made Miss Y’s Personal Assistant redundant and has not arranged suitable alternative care. We found there is no evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
Mr X complained the Council has wrongly increased Miss Y’s client contribution and refused to consider her Disability Related Expenditure (DRE).
Mr X also complained the Council made Miss Y’s Personal Assistant redundant and has not arranged suitable alternative care. As a result Miss Y is not receiving the care she needs. Mr X says the Council’s actions have had a detrimental impact on his own and his daughter’s health and wellbeing.
In addition Mr X complained the Council does not respond to his correspondence or telephone calls and has not arranged a reassessment of Miss Y’s care needs.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) If we are satisfied with an organisation’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(1), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered evidence provided by Mr X and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.
What I found
Charging for social care services A council has a duty to arrange care and support for those with eligible needs, and a power to meet both eligible and non-eligible needs in places other than care homes. A council can choose to charge for non-residential care following a person’s needs assessment. Where it decides to charge, the council must follow the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 and have regard to the Care Act statutory guidance. (Care Act 2014, section 14 and 17) Where a council has decided to charge for care, it must carry out a financial assessment to decide what a person can afford to pay. It must then give the person a written record of the completed assessment. A council must not charge more than the cost it incurs to meet a person’s assessed eligible needs.
People receiving care and support other than in a care home need to keep a certain level of income to cover their living costs. Councils’ financial assessments can take a person’s income and capital into consideration. After charging, a person’s income must not reduce below a weekly amount known as the minimum income guarantee (MIG). This is set by national government and reviewed each year. (Care Act 2014) Councils can take disability-related benefit into account when calculating how much someone should pay towards the cost of their care. When doing so, a council should make an assessment to allow the person to keep enough benefit to pay for necessary disability-related expenditure (DRE) to meet any needs it is not meeting. The Care and Support Statutory Guidance sets out a list of examples of such expenditure. It says any reasonable additional costs directly related to a person's disability should be included. What counts as DRE should not be limited to what is necessary for care and support. For example, above average heating costs should be considered.
What happened here The following is a summary of the key events relevant to our consideration of the complaint. It does not include everything that happened.
Mr X is his daughter, Miss Y’s main carer. Miss Y has also had a package of care and support commissioned by the Council for many years. Part of the care was provided by direct payments. Direct payments are monetary payments made to individuals to meet some or all of their eligible care and support needs. They enable people to arrange their own care and support to meet those needs. Miss X’s direct payments were managed by Company Z and were used to provide a Personal Assistant (PA).
Miss X pays a contribution towards the cost of her care and support which is reviewed annually. When the Council completed a financial assessment in April 2025 Miss Y’s contribution increased from £36.65 per week to £113.97 per week.
Mr X was unhappy with this increase which he said Miss Y could not afford. He contacted the Council on 17 April 2025 and asked that the direct payments be stopped immediately and said he was in the process of cancelling Miss Y’s care. The Council told Mr X the increase in contribution was due to an increase in Miss Y’s benefits in 2023 which it had been unaware of. The Council told Mr X it was not backdating the charge to 2023 as this would put Miss Y into hardship. It asked Mr X for information about why the charge was unaffordable and whether Miss Y had lots of DRE.
On 18 April 2025 Mr X told the Council he had told Company Z he no longer wanted to receive direct payments and no longer wanted to employ the PA. Mr X asked for a social worker to be allocated to Miss Y’s case. He maintained the contribution charge was wrong and wanted to discuss Miss Y’s care package as he felt it was unsuitable for her needs. He also requested additional respite as he was due to have two operations.
The Council confirmed it would allocate a social worker but could not provide a timeframe.
On 13 May 2025 Mr X made a formal complaint to the Council about the increase in Miss Y’s contribution. He said the Council’s finance department had blamed him for not informing the Council of the increase in Miss Y’s benefits and had used a fixed formula that dictates how much of certain benefits a person can keep.
He was unhappy the Council wanted to claim the entire increase in Miss Y’s benefits even though her food and clothing costs had almost doubled. He felt the increase in client contribution was unacceptable and complained the finance department would no longer communicate with him.
Mr X also complained that Miss Y did not have an allocated social worker and he could not discuss changing or cancelling her care package.
A social worker contacted Mr X in early June 2025 and then visited Mr X and Miss Y at home on 9 June 2025. Mr X told the social worker that if the contribution charge was not reduced he wanted to cancel the care package. He also said Miss Y’s PA’s employment had been terminated and he was seeking another PA to provide 20 hours care each week.
The social worker visited Mr X and Miss Y again on 19 June 2025 to discuss Miss Y’s care needs. It was agreed at this meeting that Miss Y needed a commissioned package of care to support her with personal tasks and her day centre attendance would increase to five days a week. The social worker would also begin planning a respite centre placement for Miss Y for when Mr X was scheduled to have surgery.
The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint on 25 June 2025 and confirmed the financial assessment was undertaken in line with its policy on Charging for Adult Social Care Services.
It said that when assessing Miss Y’s contribution it had disregarded the mobility component of her Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in full and had a applied a 10% income reduction in respect of DRE. The Council suggested that if Mr X considered that more than 10% of Miss Y’s Employment Support Allowance and care component of her PIP was used for DRE he should provide details. A new financial assessment could then be carried out.
In relation to Miss Y’s PA the Council noted Company Z said Mr X had sent it a leavers notification on 23 April 2025 stating he wished to end the PA role. It said Company Z explained to Mr X that this would make the PA redundant and notice pay, holiday pay and redundancy pay would need to be considered. As the amount due was available in the direct payment account Company Z paid the PA and ended their employment.
The Council said Mr X then contacted Company Z again as he wanted to have the PA back. Company Z told Mr X that in order to reinstate the PA the PA would need to repay the redundancy payment.
Mr X was not satisfied by the Council’s response and asked for his complaint to be reviewed. Mr X disputed sending a leaver notification to Company Z and said he had no contact with them and was not aware the PA would be made redundant. He asserted Company Z had made a mistake and should not have made the PA redundant without consulting the Council.
He was unhappy that the matter had been ongoing since April 2025 and Miss Y’s contribution and care package had still not been resolved. Her said her contribution had increased even though the care package had been drastically reduced.
The Council’s records show that in July 2025 Mr X confirmed Miss Y enjoyed attending the day centre five days a week and that the package of care was functioning adequately. It was meeting Miss Y’s needs however Mr X would prefer to have a PA who could offer more flexibility and consistency in the support provided.
The Council responded to Mr X’s complaint at stage 2 of its process on 18 September 2025. It noted that although Mr X had made the PA redundant, Miss Y had accessed the day centre five days a week since June 2025. And a commissioned care provider had provided assistance with personal care twice a week. It therefore disagreed with Mr X’s view that he had been left with no support for Miss Y.
The Council confirmed Mr X could discuss with Miss Y’s social worker whether a PA was something he still wanted to explore. It also encouraged Mr X to submit evidence regarding Miss Y’s DRE to support a review of her client contribution.
Mr X remains dissatisfied and has asked the Ombudsman to investigate his concerns. He says the client contribution is unaffordable and has had no support since the Council made the PA redundant and has refused to allow him to employ another. Mr X says the Council has threatened legal action in relation to unpaid client contributions which has made him ill.
In response to my enquiries the Council says Mr X contacted Company Z on 18 April 2025 and requested they stop the direct payments and the PA immediately. Company Z actioned the request and initiated the redundancy process. When Mr X contacted Company Z on 19 April 2025 to pause the termination he was told it had already been initiated. Company Z made the redundancy and final payments to the PA on 1 May 2025.
The Council also says it undertook needs assessments for Miss Y on 9 June and 19 June 2025 and agreed to commission a package of care and to increase Miss Y’s attendance at the day centre. The Council says that during the assessment Mr X said Miss Y was generally able to manage her personal care independently with verbal prompts. And that he was currently able to manage all other aspects of Miss Y’s care.
Since complaining us Mr X has made a further complaint to the Council about is calculations of Miss Y’s DRE. This complaint is not part of my investigation.
Analysis The Ombudsman does not act as an appeal body. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to decide what care Miss X should receive, or how much she should pay; that is the Council’s job. We can only consider whether the Council completed the assessments correctly. We cannot criticise a council where officers have followed the correct procedures and reached a reasoned decision.
Mr X considers Miss Y’s client contribution is unaffordable, however there is no fault in the way this was calculated. Miss Y has no other income so the financial assessment is based on her benefits. The increase in the benefits Miss Y receives meant her client contribution also increased. The Council has calculated Miss Y’s minimum income guarantee and taken account of her known DRE. In line with its policy the Council has allowed the higher of 10% of Miss Y’s Employment Support Allowance and care component of her PIP rather than evidenced costs of her DRE.
Although Mr X considered Miss Y’s DRE is higher than the Council has allowed, he did not provide any evidence of the cost during the period I am investigating.
We would not find fault with the Council’s calculation of Miss Y’s client contribution.
In relation to Miss Y’s care and support, it is clear from the documentation that Mr X contacted Company Z to request that they stop Miss Y’s direct payments and to end the PAs employment. Company Z acted on Mr X’s instructions. There is no evidence the Council was involved in this decision or that it took any action to end the PAs employment. There is therefore no fault by the Council.
Having made the PA redundant Mr X could not then employ them again unless the PA returned the redundancy payment. Mr X could however look to employ a different PA using direct payments.
The Council discussed Miss Y’s care needs with Mr X and Miss Y in June 2025. Based on these discussions the Council commissioned twice weekly support for Miss Y with her personal care. It also increased the number of days Miss Y attended a day centre and agreed to arrange a respite placement while Mr X had and then recovered from surgery. I am satisfied the Council took appropriate action to agree alternative care provision for Miss Y.
I am also satisfied the Council has responded appropriately to Mr X’s calls and correspondence.
Decision I find no fault.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman