Date of decision: 29 November 2024
Summary
This report concerned a parent’s complaint that Durham failed to properly assess and plan for her disabled daughter’s transition from children’s to adult social care services, resulting in distress and risk. The Ombudsman found no fault in the Council’s actions.
What happened
The young person, Ms Y, with what were described as some physical and some complex mental health conditions, had been looked after by the Council’s children’s services.
Approaching her 18th birthday in July 2024, the Council began transition planning.
As a child she had received 2:1 support for 24 hours per day to keep her safe and to reduce the risk of self-harming.
In January 2024, a Care Act assessment identified eligible needs and the need for supported accommodation. In April, however, a new social worker reassessed, finding no eligible needs and recommending reduced support to promote independence.
The second Social Worker’s recommendations included:
- Ms Y’s two carers should start to withdraw their support before her 18th birthday to empower and build her confidence with not having 24 hours of support.
- Ms Y should engage with learning new skills such as using home appliances and other tasks to aid her independence.
- That there was no current need for a funded care package for Ms Y by adult social care services.
The Council organised a move into independent living with no staff support built into the package. Her mother said that this had led her daughter to attempt suicide.
Her parent objected, citing medical evidence and concerns for safety, and lodged a complaint.
The Council maintained its position but agreed to a further assessment. In July, just before her 18th birthday, a new assessment considered additional evidence and found eligible needs, leading to a supported living placement being agreed in principle. [The report does not say how long that move was going to take to be sourced].
What was found
The Ombudsman found the Council had followed Care Act processes throughout, conducting timely and appropriate assessments and considering all relevant information. Differences in professional judgement between assessments were not fault. When concerns were raised, the Council reassessed and adjusted its plan accordingly.
All transition planning and assessments were completed before the young person turned 18, with no delay or procedural failure. There was no evidence the Council failed to consider relevant evidence or breached statutory duties. No injustice was found, and no compensation was recommended.
Points to note for councils, professionals, people using services and their carers, advocacy groups and members of the public
Under the Care Act 2014, councils must assess any adult appearing to have needs for care and support, regardless of financial situation. Assessments must be timely, consider the urgency and variation of needs, and be based on all relevant information, including professional and family input. Where eligible needs are identified, councils have a statutory duty to meet them with appropriate care and support planning, including helping people to find suitable accommodation if required. Mental capacity must be presumed unless evidence suggests otherwise, and capacity assessments, if relevant, must follow the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
Transition from children’s to adult services requires careful planning, with assessments beginning when future needs can be reasonably anticipated. Councils must respond to new evidence and complaints by reassessing if appropriate, and must not fetter their discretion or act arbitrarily.
The Ombudsman will not question professional judgement where due process is followed and decisions are rational and evidence-based.
However, we have to say that it is literally incredible that the investigator did not do as a judge would have done here, which is to work backwards from the outcome of the first and third assessments to the second anomalous one, and conclude that the different opinions could not have been come to, without a fault in the approach to the test of eligibility.
In order to have no eligibility at the April stage, the assessor would have had to have had a rational, evidence-based defensible opinion that the woman was not unable to achieve two or more of the 10 domains, without assistance, anxiety, distress, pain, or endangerment to self or others. It is not conceivably likely that that could have been a competent assessment in light of the history of what children’s services had felt it was necessary to provide this young person with, in our view.
It might have been that the second assessor accidentally factored in assistance that the young person was able to rely on, or overlooked what she would have been likely to be experiencing without the paid for 2:1 care, by way of the significance of the impact for her wellbeing, or perhaps the assessor overlooked the stretched definition of inability to achieve.
We also think it is somewhat surprising that the Ombudsman says nothing to dispel the impression given in the report that in fact councils do ‘provide’ people with supported living – using the language of placement, as opposed to facilitation of a tenancy in a suitable supported living setting.
It is clear from reports later in 2025 that the LGSCO investigations team does in fact know that that is not something that councils can do in the vast majority of scenarios, because of s23 Care Act, which explains how the primary right of recourse to the Housing Act precludes social services councils from meeting housing needs, under s18-20, or s2 Care Act.
The outcome of Y’s Mental Incapacity Assessment was that she had no capacity to manage her finances, but she had capacity to make decisions about her care and support needs. From that it can likely be inferred that she could have accessed a tenancy through the Housing Act, and that therefore she was not someone who would ever have been provided with (– in the sense of directly provided with, through her care package) occupation rights in ordinary accommodation. She was therefore likely facilitated into supported living, not placed in it, nor ‘provided’ with it, in the end.
Please use the following link if you want to read the original Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Durham County Council (24 004 341) report.
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