Council pays £500 to mum of disabled teenager in Luton after delay handling complaint

The mum, referred to as 'Ms D', had taken issue with the local authority after her son's daily care support was reduced from four hours per day to two-and-a-half.

Although the health ombudsman agreed with the council's reasoning that this was done based on the number of hours being used, it found that there was a delay in processing the complaint.

The council has been ordered to pay £500 compensation.

The ombudsman stated: "There are no grounds for me to conclude the council wrongly reduced the amount of daily care support that [the child] receives.

"The reasons the council provided for this are based on the evidence of the hours being used and of the care being actually being provided, rather than those it had agreed to provide.

"There is fault in the council’s handling of Ms D’s complaint. In particular, the handling of the stage 2 investigation was very delayed though, as I have said, I consider the investigation itself was thorough and I have no concerns about the quality of that investigation.

"I consider the delay resulted in injustice to Ms D in the form of avoidable time, trouble, inconvenience and frustration."

A Luton Borough Council spokesman said: "In line with the findings of the ombudsman, the council has made a payment of £500 to the mother and apologised for the administrative delay in notifying her of its decision.

"It has also reviewed its processes in order to ensure such delays are not repeated in the future.

"We believe our policies and procedures to be fair and in the best interest of both child and family.

"The ombudsman judged that in this case we have acted consistently within our framework and when challenged by the child’s mother, concluded that there were no concerns about our decisions or the quality of the subsequent investigation."