Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s treatment of Mr X’s two adult children, who have Down’s syndrome, on the day he was arrested. This is because the complaint is about matters that happened more than 12 months ago and there are no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider the late complaint. In addition, an investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s treatment of his two adult children, who both have Down’s syndrome, on the day he was arrested. He also complains the Council arranged for an inappropriate respite carer to care for his children on the day.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
4. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start an investigation if we decide an investigation would not lead to a different outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mr X was arrested in June 2021. He complains about how the Council treated his adult children on the day and that it arranged for an inappropriate carer to provide care to his children. He says the carer had no training on diabetes and his daughter had type 1 diabetes.
8. On the day of Mr X’s arrest, two social workers were present to provide support to the children and to transport them to the respite carer. Mr X’s children’s usual carer was also present to assist with this.
9. The Council explained it arranged for a shared lives carer who had experience caring for individuals with Down’s syndrome. The Council accepted the carer had no training in management of type 1 diabetes. The Council said it had learnt from this and discussed with its shared lives manager about requiring all shared lives carers to have mandatory training on diabetes management in the future.
10. Mr X’s complaint is about matters that happened more than 12 months ago. It is reasonable for Mr X to have complained about the matter earlier as he should have been aware of the issues in 2021. There is no good reason for why Mr X could not have complained about the matter earlier.
11. In any case, even if we were to exercise discretion to consider the late complaint, we would not investigate. This is because an investigation would not lead to a different outcome as the Council’s response was appropriate and we would not recommend anything additional.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because it is about matters that happened more than 12 months ago and there are no good reasons to exercise discretion to consider the late complaint. In addition, an investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman