Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Social Care and Health Integration presented a report on the outcome of a complaint that had been determined by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) regarding the way that the Council handled payments for residential care.

The Cabinet Member explained that the matter principally concerned the practice of the Council making payments to the residential care home for only the Council’s contribution and expecting the care home to pursue the service user contribution directly.  There were also related issues regarding the Council’s approach when third parties contributed to the cost of an individual’s care and some deficiencies in the care planning process in the case in question.  As a consequence, the LGO had determined that the Council’s approach was contrary to statutory guidance under the Care Act 2014 and had caused injustice to the complainant.  As a number of other Councils were operating similar processes, the LGO had chosen to issue a report in the public interest detailing the outcome of the complaint.

The Cabinet Member acknowledged the fault by the Council and referred to the action plan that had been developed, as set out in section 3 of the report, to ensure that the Council was fully complaint in the future.  It was also noted that the Council had agreed to pay appropriate compensation to the complainant.

The Assembly resolved to:

(i)  Note the report issued by the Local Government Ombudsman and published on 17 April 2019, as set out at Appendix 1 to the report, and that the required notice had been published by the Council on 24 April 2019;

(ii)  Note the remedies that had been offered to the complainant;

(iii)  Note the system improvements that were being worked on to prevent further recurrence; and

(iv)  Request the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to review progress against the action plan in six months’ time, in order to provide reassurance that the system changes had being applied and further such incidents would not reoccur.