Council apologises for failing to remedy disability allowance row
A LOCAL authority has apologised to the parents of a disabled woman after the councils’ watchdog found it had failed to carry out the remedy for a complaint upheld against it.
North Yorkshire County Council said it fully accepted the findings of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and had overhauled its systems following what had been a unique and inadvertent error.
The authority had agreed with the watchdog in June 2018 to undertake a fresh financial assessment for a disabled woman known as Ms X within a month to resolve an ongoing dispute with her parents over transport costs and the Disability Living Allowance.
Councils must assess a person’s finances to decide what contribution he or she should make to a personal budget for care. If a person incurs expenses related
‘We fully intended to carry out all the ombudsman’s recommendations.’
to any disability he or she has, known as disability related expenditure, the council should take that into account when assessing his or her finances.
A month after agreeing to carry out the assessment of Ms X’s finances the council confirmed to the ombudsman that it had visited Ms X for the task and the ombudsman closed the case. However, the ombudsman received a complaint from Ms X’s parents some 15 months later to say they still had not received the assessment, despite repeatedly asking the council for it.
Following an investigation, the ombudsman ruled against the council again, finding “fault causing injustice”.
Councillor Michael Harrison, the council’s executive member for adult social care, said: “We recognise that we didn’t carry out all the recommendations that the ombudsman made at the time of the first report and have taken steps to do that, and more importantly, have changed our internal processes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We fully intended to carry out all the recommendations.”
He said the council “often goes beyond what the ombudsman recommends”.