Decision Date: 14 January 2025
Summary
A mother was living with significant stress due to having to care for the needs of her son, who lives with severe disabilities. She complained that the council, when asked to assist with providing for her son, operated with significant delays in taking action for over 10 years.
What happened
Mr Y is an adult who lives with significant disabilities. His care package at the time of the complaint consisted of two carers attending to him for 6 hours during the week and on weekends Mr Y would attend a day centre with two carers.
During the hours where carers were not present, Mr Y received care from his mother, Mrs X. She was finding it increasingly difficult, since her husband died, to provide Mr Y with the care he needed.
Discussions had begun in 2014, regarding relocating Mr Y into independent living. Mr Y joined the housing register and began seeking housing provided through housing associations. He was offered housing under this regime in December 2023. But the council stated that to provide him the care he required, if he were to move there, would be unaffordable.
Mrs X then complained to the council in December 2023 and in March 2024 the council issued a formal response stating that the combined placement and sourcing team (CPST) was continuing to look at available options to support Mr Y.
In July 2024, Mrs X visited a supported living property and a place was offered to Mr Y in August. The Council then completed a needs assessment of Mr Y which found that he required around the clock access to supervision in order to ensure his safety.
Mrs X hoped that Mr Y would move into the property by November 2024; however, the offer for housing was withdrawn. Continuing correspondence with the council led to its suggestion that a full NHS assessment for continuing healthcare was a way forward.
What was found
The Ombudsman found no fault on the part of the council with regards to the offer for housing being withdrawn in November 2024, nor any fault concerning the current care package for which Mr Y was being funded. The Ombudsman was satisfied that his assessed eligible needs were being met by the care package.
Fault was, however, found in relation to the council’s delay in involving the CPST (Combined Placement and Sourcing Team) and the subsequent delay with the team taking action.
The CPST was assigned the case in January 2024 whereas this assignment should have been made much earlier – and a worker was not allocated to the case until 3 months after the original assignment in January.
The LGSCO report found injustice caused to Mrs X stemming from the above chronology. The delays and lack of clarity from the council meant that Mrs X was forced into providing a large amount of care to Mr Y despite her own health deteriorating.
This caused Mrs X significant distress and prevented her from being able to focus on her own health.
The ombudsman required remedial action in the form of an apology, a symbolic payment of £1,000 and a thorough review of its processes, to be taken.
Points to note for councils, professionals, people using services and their carers, advocacy groups and members of the public
A key point of the law which perhaps did not receive enough attention in the original report concerns Mrs X’s claim in Dec 2023 of a violation of s20 of the Equality Act. The interplay between this provision and issues involving social housing regimes is certainly something that should certainly be explored in more depth.
In the present case we find that it is much easier to simply state that it is unlawful under the Care Act for the Social Services authority to assert that the move would be unaffordable while not offering any alternative solutions through a Care Act response. The Equality Act, while certainly interesting for more holistic considerations, is not needed in the present case.
The Ombudsman noted that there was no evidence to suggest that the council completed an assessment on Mr Y’s needs prior to his move and if that had been done, the inadequacy of any resultant budget for a person to live independently would have emerged much sooner and been able to be challenged.
It is incredible to us that at no time between 2014 and 2023 did anyone find it important to tell Mrs X that the Council would not be willing to meet Mr Y’s needs in a single person dwelling, whilst, it is assumed, knowing that he was joining the housing register. Adult Social Care’s only option if he did not wish to accept a steer to communal supported living, (assuming that that was appropriate for his needs and that he could, therapeutically speaking, be cared for in a group setting) would have been to place him in a care home.
The council does not have the power to accommodate English people directly in ordinary tenanted accommodation, as part of its social care response via the Care Act, since the Campbell decision in May 2024.
That would have not been the case were he to be lacking in capacity to take a tenancy ON, because such people are not eligible for housing under the Housing Act – but we are not told about that in this report.
Given the 24/7 nature of his needs, however, it is likely that he lacks capacity, and therefore a significant omission in this report is consideration of whether he qualifies for what is called ‘accommodation plus’ – which IS the direct provision of accommodation in which to have his social care and support needs adequately met.
The report concluded that while the issue has been raised and discussed, there had not been any clear planning or guidance provided on how this would be achieved. The Council did not have any specific policy or procedure setting out the process for considering and assessing independent living. Having told his mother than assessments were an essential pre-cursor to any move, the staff then failed to do one until after a feasible offer of housing had been made.
The report does not say if any interim support was ever provided to his mother pending a final move, although the finding is made that there was nothing to suggest that the needs were not being met.
We think that the Ombudsman’s own quality control has suffered here because of the points not made by the investigator, with all due respect.
Please use the following link if you want to read the original Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s West Sussex County Council (24 002 369) report.
If you are affected by the issues in this report, please consider asking a free, one-off question, anonymously, at a level of principle, here. Our experts’ response will give you an opinion which may then help you and the broader community, when posted.
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