Date of decision: 04 August 2025
Summary
A carer’s support arrangement under the Norfolk County Council’s Shared Lives scheme led to complaints by a relative, concerning financial abuse risks to a disabled individual without capacity, his sister-in-law.
Norfolk County Council failed to act in line with its own financial safeguarding policy, delaying taking on deputyship, causing stress for the individual’s family. However, no fault was found in the way the Council investigated the concerns under what was regarded as a discretionary safeguarding process. The Council has apologised and amended its policy.
What happened
In June 2021, a disabled woman, Ms Y, lacking mental capacity, moved in with a Shared Lives carer, managed by the Council.
Ms Y had no Lasting Power of Attorney or any family Appointee for managing her benefits, so in September 2021 the Council’s Client Financial Affairs Team became her Appointee. Up to that point, Ms Y’s Shared Lives Carer was supporting her with managing her money and had kept all receipts of expenses paid.
In September 2022, her capital rose above the £10,000 threshold that, as per the Council’s own policy, required a deputyship application for full financial oversight, but the Council failed to act.
In January 2023, Ms Y was admitted to hospital. She later died in March 2023.
However, Ms Y had a personal bank account with over £15000 in it at one point, and that had gone down to £5000 by the time she was in hospital.#
While hospitalised in January 2023, the discovery of unexplained bank withdrawals and a credit agreement for a car signed by Ms Y herself, supposedly, plus expenditure on a washing machine out of her money, led her relative to complain to the Care Quality Commission after her death in March 2023. The CQC made a safeguarding referral to the Council.
Mr X also complained to the Council that it had failed to protect Ms Y against financial abuse.
The Council interviewed staff, carers, police, and the financial team. The police found records explaining the spending; the investigation showed expenditure was justified (personal activities, items, mileage costs for her other carers to visit her in hospital authorised by the Shared Lives Manager, at the time). A washing machine purchase had been discussed with the Client Affairs team and had been authorised to support her continence. The motability lease had not been something Ms Y had ultimately wanted to go ahead with. The Council found no evidence that her finances had been mismanaged. The police agreed that there was no basis for concern about the Shared Lives Carer, after reviewing the withdrawals from the Personal Bank account as well.
The Council belatedly admitted it had failed to apply for deputyship when capital increased – firstly so as to avoid the cost of deputyship having to be incurred from Ms Y’s savings – and later on when it had increased again, because of ‘administrative error’.
It apologised and updated policy guidance for staff.
Mr X remained unhappy and complained to the Ombudsman.
What was found
The Ombudsman found the Council’s failure to apply for deputyship when due was administrative fault but that there was no evidence of financial abuse or mismanagement of funds.
There was no fault with how the Council investigated Mr X’s concerns; they conducted thorough investigations which were appropriate and proportionate.
The individual’s family suffered distress and uncertainty from the Council’s omission, but no financial loss occurred for the service user.
The Council’s apology and policy changes were considered appropriate remedies, with no compensation awarded.
Points to note for councils, professionals, people using services and their carers, advocacy groups and members of the public
Appointeeship is not a primary Care Act function (money management not having been regarded as a domain of daily living) although it can be a response to needs in the domain of maintaining a habitable home environment and making use of facilities. However, the underlying legal context is that where a person lacks capacity and there is no attorney or deputy, the responsibility for proper financial management cannot always be discharged merely by the DWP’s appointment of an Appointee for benefits management. The deeper issue is that an Appointee should not be LETTING a person’s money exceed a much lower threshold, because the person will lose some of their benefits if that happens.
This Council oddly thought that s42 criteria were not met…we expect because it was its own team being regarded as having potentially done wrong. We are not sure why a s42 ‘Lite’ approach was taken to safeguarding, but the scope of any enquiry under s42 itself is able to be flexed proportionately.
Broader implications include the need for cross-audit of Shared Lives schemes because an Appointee (even a Council Appointee) is not able to sign a licence or a tenancy for anyone – and most such schemes do not extend to an accommodation (plus services) arrangement directly funded by the Council, any longer. The absence of one of those would imply that a licence or a tenancy had been signed and that rent was being paid through Housing Benefit.
We think it is significant that the Appointeeship team did not claim DRE as a disregard from her financial assessment, if it was for a washing machine to support continence. The conflict of interest between Council departments – charging, care planning and the client affairs teams, generates a continuous challenge for proper management.
Of course the Appointee had no access to, nor power over the personal bank account, but we are intrigued to think that it did not immediately appreciate that she was above threshold for needing to self-fund all her services as a reason for taking Deputyship in order to provide power to see into it.
We should be told in our view whether Ms Y had made the Shared Lives carer into a signatory, or whether that carer simply supported Ms Y to use it, with capacitated consent. That situation should not have existed, in our view, because of the conflict of interest, and the Shared Lives Manager ought to have been on top of that because of the control that Scheme managers have over the approval of Shared Lives carers.
Please use the following link if you want to read the original Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Norfolk County Council (24 008 908) 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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