Date of decision: 12 May 2025
Summary
Mrs X, the mother of two adult sons with disabilities and eligible needs under the Care Act complained to the Ombudsman about the manner in which the Council has carried out its financial assessments and the poor way the Council communicated the decision made on the matter. The Council was cleared of any fault in its financial assessment process and the decision to award differing disregards for private disability related expenditure (DRE) of her two sons, but at fault for poor communication of its rationale.
What happened
The Council carried out annual financial reassessments for two adults with disabilities (Mr A and Mr B) in July 2023 [who had their budgets by way of a direct payment, it seems]. In September 2023, it told their mother that no charges were due but requested she keep receipts for disability-related expenditure (DRE) for another review in December of the same year.
[It seems to us from a full reading of the report that they had been given a prior disregard, or the council’s standard disregard, in the past, which had brought their income down to less than the Minimum Income Guarantee].
In January 2024, the Council requested DRE receipts from October 2023. By March 2024, after not receiving the evidence, the Council reassessed and decided both adults must contribute to care costs.
Mrs X then produced relevant receipts for both men in April 2024.
Subsequently, the Council sent multiple letters on the same day with different charge amounts, causing great confusion to Mrs X.
She complained in July 2024, citing concerns over unclear calculations, repeated requests for evidence despite Mrs X’s provision of the receipts requested initially, and DRE allowances that were awarded inconsistently as between her two sons despite their similar needs.
It said that it needed evidence of spending over the last 12 months [whereas the report said that Mrs X was only asked for receipts going back to October 2023 in January 2024, which is inconsistent with the response from the Council] and that that was the reason the men’s care had become chargeable.
It recognised that communication between departments had been confusing, as receipts are not required for direct payments, but are required for DRE reviews.
It asserted that the differing amounts of DRE being allowed were because the men had different interests (but Mrs X said that that was not the case and that they attended the same services…).
In November 2024, invoices were issued for care charges. However, in January 2025, the Council’s own panel reviewed the cases, approved new DRE costs, and removed the outstanding charges for the period January – November 2024.
What was found
The Council was not found to have made any fault in the decision-making process about the financial assessment carried out in March 2024, considering the lack of evidence provided by Mrs X at that time.
Additionally, the Council was not found to have made any error in deciding to award differing DRE allowances to Mr A and Mr B. The investigator checked the breakdown and found different amounts declared for different things, and was satisfied the Council had explained how it reached the decision to award different amounts.
However, the Ombudsman found the Council at fault for unclear communication about care charges and for not properly addressing the complaint. The Council’s letters were confusing, with inconsistent information about amounts owed, and its complaint response did not explain how evidence was considered. This caused distress and uncertainty for the family.
The Council was ordered to apologise, pay £150 for time, trouble, and distress, and make service improvements to ensure clearer communication and better complaint handling.
Points to note for councils, professionals, people using services and their carers, advocacy groups and members of the public
We think it is odd that the Ombudsman found no fault regarding the initial stance that no charges were due followed by a change of position, just because nothing justifying a further disregard had been produced at first. That is not logical, to our minds, because DRE evidence constitutes grounds for a disregard, and hence a reduction. The lack of DRE evidence for a period after the assessment does not constitute grounds for an increase!
The Council seems to have reduced the DRE that had been previously awarded, or awarded in anticipation of the receipts but it is not clear from the report which it was and the investigator says nothing about the Council’s stance on backdating, which does appear to be part of the issue for these men’s FA.
Regarding the differing DRE allowances as between Mr A and Mr B, they had been offered the same allowances in the past, according to the report, whilst the investigator said that different amounts had been ‘declared’ which we think means claimed by Mrs X. What strikes us is that although we are told that the Council later reversed its initial decision and decided not to charge Mr A or Mr B for their care at all, one can’t be sure what the detail was. One can’t tell whether that was because of the initial illogicality identified by us, above, which we think is something to do with backdating or processing backlog within the department, or whether it acknowledged that both men deserved the higher DRE amount claimed?
The Ombudsman’s report says that councils ‘can’ take DRE into account whereas the law under the Charging regulations is in fact that they MUST disregard it. They have to make a professional judgement as to what counts as related to disability and whether it’s ‘necessary’, but in making those judgements, they have to follow the statutory Guidance and case law (such as the Windsor & Maidenhead decision as to why that’s a different test of necessity compared to the one made by social workers as to what goes into the person’s care plan budget in the first place), and apply public law principles, in order to avoid making any error of law which would make their charging decisions open to legal challenge. These omissions from the report are frustrating if one hopes for a public education function from the LGSCO’s reports.
Please use the following link to read the original Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Suffolk County Council (24 015 692) report.
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