Date of decision: 28 April 2026
Summary
An adult woman with mental health needs and a learning disability had had a long‑standing financial Deputyship in place, which was ended after a community mental health team assessment decided she could manage her own money.
What happened
The woman, Ms Y, had mental health needs and a learning disability, and the Court of Protection had previously appointed a Deputy to manage her finances because she was considered unable to do so without a statutory agent.
For several years, a different council had acted as her Deputy, handling decisions about her money under the Court’s authority.
In late 2023 she moved to Central Bedfordshire, and both her adult social care arrangements and the Deputy role transferred to Central Bedfordshire Council.
After moving, Ms Y herself asked for her financial management to be reviewed. In November 2024, a social worker from the joint Community Mental Health Team (a team made up of staff from Central Bedfordshire Council and East London NHS Foundation Trust) carried out a Mental Capacity Act assessment about her ability to manage her finances. The assessment concluded that Ms Y had capacity to make her own financial decisions, and the Council notified the Court of Protection of this conclusion. In April 2025, the Court of Protection discharged her Deputyship, thereby removing the formal financial safeguard, and around the same time Ms Y was discharged from the CMHT due to improvements in her mental health.
Shortly after these changes, Ms Y’s mother, Mrs X, became aware that the Deputyship had been discharged and that her daughter was no longer supported by the CMHT. She complained to East London NHS Foundation Trust, saying the capacity assessment had been done wrongly and that Ms Y still needed support with finances. In July 2025, the Trust responded that the assessment had been done correctly, effectively rejecting her concerns at that stage.
Mrs X then submitted further complaints to the Trust, arguing the assessment had been rushed, that it had failed to gather all relevant historical and professional information, and that it did not properly consider Ms Y’s learning disability or functional difficulties with money. She also objected that her subsequent complaints were handled by the same person who had dealt with the original complaint.
In October 2025, the Trust’s final complaint response accepted that insufficient historical evidence had been gathered from other professionals who knew Ms Y well. It stated that, although the assessment followed the Mental Capacity Act principles in outline, there were shortcomings including insufficient focus on Ms Y’s learning disabilities, and that there should have been consideration of extra support such as skills development and financial management strategies when changing her care and financial arrangements. The Trust accepted that complaint allocation could have been better, apologised for service shortcomings, and recognised the distress caused.
Despite this, Mrs X remained dissatisfied because there had been no direct remedial action to address Ms Y’s ongoing financial problems after the loss of Deputyship, including what she described as a loss of over £10,000 in a few weeks without financial support.
The Ombudsman later spoke directly with Ms Y, who said she felt the capacity assessment had been “a bit rushed” but that it ultimately reached the right decision that she could manage her own finances. Ms Y confirmed that she did not want the decision about her capacity to be revisited.
The Ombudsman considered that Ms Y had capacity to decide what complaint she wished to bring and what outcome she wanted, and that her wishes conflicted partly with her mother’s.
Under the Mental Capacity Act and Code of Practice, there is a presumption of capacity unless there is evidence to the contrary, and making unwise decisions with money does not in itself prove lack of capacity. The Ombudsman therefore would not investigate the substance of the capacity assessment where this possibility conflicted with Ms Y’s preferences.
The Ombudsman also noted that the Court of Protection itself had made the decision to discharge the Deputyship after considering the assessment and underlying information. Because a court of law had already looked at the assessment as part of its decision and approved ending the Deputyship, the Ombudsman considered it unlikely they would revisit that issue or reach a different view.
Ms Y told the Ombudsman that she had felt unsupported at the time of discharge and would have welcomed financial planning guidance, but said she currently felt in control of her finances and did not need specific help, though she wanted changes so others would not be left unsupported in similar circumstances.
The Trust provided evidence to the Ombudsman of systemic actions it had taken in response to the failings it acknowledged, including making sure that in future it would seek historical information from all involved services, consult learning disability teams where appropriate, and ensure that when care or financial arrangements change, appropriate support is offered to service users. The Trust also offered Ms Y a general assessment via a new CMHT, which would include consideration of financial management support, though this was only offered after Mrs X’s continuing concerns.
Finally, the Trust accepted that its complaint handling in allocating repeat complaints to the same officer could have been improved and committed to taking individual circumstances and complexities into account when allocating complaints in future.
What was found
The Ombudsman found that Mrs X’s wishes about re‑opening the capacity assessment and Deputyship could not override Ms Y’s own, capacitous decision not to challenge the assessment or the Court of Protection’s order. In line with the Mental Capacity Act and its Code, the Ombudsman applied the presumption of capacity and accepted Ms Y’s position that the decision was ultimately correct, despite her mother’s concerns about unwise spending and vulnerability.
Because the Court of Protection had already considered and relied on the capacity assessment when discharging the Deputyship, the Ombudsman considered that revisiting the assessment would duplicate legal proceedings and was therefore outside what would be reasonable or likely to change the outcome. The Ombudsman also considered that safeguarding worries about any ongoing financial risk should be directed to the Council’s safeguarding team or back to the Court of Protection, rather than pursued via Ombudsman investigation.
In relation to the lack of support when Ms Y was discharged from CMHT and regained control of her finances, the Ombudsman noted Ms Y’s own account of feeling unsupported at the time but now feeling in control, and that she primarily sought systemic change to protect others. The Trust had already accepted that it had not gathered enough historical and professional information before the assessment, had not sufficiently factored in her learning disability, and had not fully considered additional support such as skills development and financial planning alongside discharge and change in financial arrangements; it had apologised for these failings. The organisations had introduced broader service improvements, including better evidence‑gathering, consultation with learning disability teams, and a commitment to offer appropriate support whenever financial or care plans change, and they had offered Ms Y a further holistic assessment through a new CMHT to explore any current support needs.
The Ombudsman judged that these accepted faults and remedial steps were proportionate and that further investigation would be unlikely to produce a significantly different outcome or additional remedy for Ms Y or others. No specific financial compensation was ordered by the Ombudsman, as the focus was on the Trust’s apologies, changes to practice, and the opportunity for Ms Y to access further assessment and support if she chose.
Points to note for councils, professionals, people using services and their carers, advocacy groups and members of the public
The Ombudsman’s decision shows that where an adult is found to have capacity about managing their own affairs, their autonomous wishes about complaints and safeguards will normally carry more weight than relatives’ preferences, even in cases involving vulnerability and past use of formal protections like Deputyship. It also underlines that while poor process in a capacity assessment and discharge planning can and should lead to systemic improvements, apologies and offers of further support, the Ombudsman does not feel able to go behind the Court of Protection’s decision to the effect that no deputyship order is justified.
On assessment and discharge, the Ombudsman recorded that the Trust accepted that the original capacity assessment was “in outline” compliant but had failed to gather sufficient historical information and to take proper account of Ms Y’s learning disability or practical functional difficulties with money. In public law terms, a process is usually regarded as unlawful if it fails to consider all relevant circumstances, including the severity and extent of needs, the impact on specified aspects of wellbeing, and the person’s desired outcomes, in an appropriate and proportionate way. The assessment must be rooted in an evidence base, not just impressions, particularly where long‑standing arrangements such as Deputyship and established support are being dismantled. On the Ombudsman’s own findings, the original process fell short of that standard but there is limited analysis in the report as to how far those flaws might have infected the Court of Protection’s decision, and whether the admitted failures to consult those who knew Ms Y over time, or to consider learning disability‑specific evidence, could amount to a material legal error in public law terms rather than just a service shortcoming.
Second, the report gave considerable weight to the presumption of capacity under the Mental Capacity Act and to the proposition that making unwise financial decisions does not in itself demonstrate incapacity. It uses this to justify not examining the substance of the capacity assessment and to refuse to seek any change to the financial safeguards, on the basis that Ms Y wishes the decision to stand. Where a person with a learning disability has lost substantial sums in a short time shortly after removal of a formal safeguard, and where there is a history of Deputyship premised on previous findings of incapacity, community care case law would expect the council to address directly whether there is now an appearance of need for an assessment of care and support in relation to financial management, and possibly safeguarding, quite apart from the Mental Capacity Act question.
The Ombudsman refers to safeguarding being a possible route but does not explicitly examine whether the council’s Care Act duties to reassess, to consider prevention, and to ensure an appropriate and proportionate assessment of any new or increased needs were fully engaged once the Deputyship ended and substantial financial loss occurred. A focused community care law approach would have made more of the distinction between having capacity to make a decision and having eligible needs arising from disability‑related difficulty in managing that decision safely in day‑to‑day life.
It is worth noting that financial or household management is not in itself a domain for daily living outcomes or abilities to achieve. But councils usually treat maintaining a habitable home’ as the rubric under which to work out whether someone needs assistance in relation to their vulnerability related to their physical or mental impairment.
Community care case law stresses that prevention and “skills development” cannot lawfully be used as a substitute for identifying and meeting eligible needs, and that signposting or offers of general assessment do not discharge the duty to make a clear eligibility decision and, where relevant, to plan support. In the Ombudsman’s report, there is relatively little analysis of whether the council has properly revisited Ms Y’s situation under its assessment and eligibility duties, or whether it has simply relied on the Trust’s systemic learning and a general offer of CMHT input as adequate.
We note that Ms Y provided consent for Mrs X to bring this complaint on her behalf. However, when the LGSCO spoke with Ms Y, she told the investigator that she felt the assessment had been a bit rushed but ultimately reached the right decision.
Please use the following link if you want to read the original Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s Central Bedfordshire Council (25 009 499) 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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