Isle Of Wight Council "Failed" Mother And Disabled Son Over Personal Budget Complaint

The Isle of Wight Council has been ordered to pay £900 in compensation, after a mother's complaint about the removal of her disabled son's personal budget was not "properly investigated".

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has criticised the local authority for "not following procedures set out in law for dealing with complaints about children’s services".

By the time the Ombudsman became involved, it was found the council had delayed the mother's complaint by more than a year.

The Isle of Wight Council has agreed to apologise for the "uncertainty and distress" caused to the woman and her child.

So what happened?

A Local Government Ombudsman investigation found the council stopped the money the mother was receiving as a personal budget for her son, who has complex needs, because she was not spending the money in line with their agreement.

According to the report, the mother was not happy and so asked the council four times to escalate her complaint to Stage 2 of the three-stage statutory children’s complaints procedure.

The Ombudsman said each time she asked for her complaint to be escalated, the council decided her dissatisfaction was about a separate issue and was a new complaint.

The investigation found her complaint to be about the same issue, and any new issues were the result of the council’s failure to investigate her complaint correctly.

The mother sought help from a solicitor to try to get the council to escalate her complaint. The council then told her she needed to meet certain criteria before it would be progressed.

Not the first "failing"

As part of the Ombudsman’s investigation, it became apparent other people on the island had also not had their complaints properly considered through the statutory process.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said:

“Statutory guidance says councils must progress complaints through all three stages of the children’s complaints procedure if that is what the person wants.

“By putting barriers and conditions on the mother’s complaint and insisting she was making new complaints even when they covered the same issues, the council was, in effect, gatekeeping and preventing her from accessing her statutory rights.

“I am pleased the council has accepted my recommendations and hope the training and procedural changes it has agreed to make will ensure other complaints are handled properly in future.

“I will be issuing new guidance to local authorities shortly to clarify how I expect them to tackle children’s complaints.”

In this case, the council has agreed to apologise to the family and pay the son £100 to acknowledge he did not have access to a service he was entitled to for two months.

It will also pay the mum £300 to acknowledge the uncertainty and distress caused and £500 to acknowledge the time and trouble caused by not escalating her complaint to stage two.

As per the Ombudsman's recommendations, the council has also agreed to review its procedures for personal budgets and develop a procedure to respond to concerns about how a payee is using or managing a personal budget.

It has also promised to provide all staff training on the statutory complaint procedure, and task a senior officer not previously involved to contact all complainants that were refused a Stage 2 or Stage 3 complaint and ensure each refusal complied with the statutory guidance.

If any do not, it should take steps to reopen those complaint investigations and progress to the next stage if the complainant wishes.