Council in £50k+ payout after delay in meeting needs of disabled man

Birmingham City Council has agreed to pay out more than £50,000 after a two-year delay in providing for a disabled man’s assessed needs.

The payment comes after a critical report from the Local Government Ombudsman which found that the 58-year-old man (Mr N) did not get the services he should have had and which the authority had a statutory duty to provide.

The report from the LGO, Anne Seex, said that Mr N has a severe learning disability, epilepsy (leading to seizures of varying severity) and atypical autism. He also has poor vision and limited balance, co-ordination and dexterity.

As a result, Mr N needs help with daily living including washing, dressing, using the toilet, eating and keeping safe.

Mr N and his family want him to continue living at home with his 83-year-old mother, who provides more than 100 hours of care each week. His sister also provides help with a range of his needs.

Birmingham arranged and paid for him to attend a day centre. Mr N also received support from the Independent Living Fund.

An assessor from the fund subsequently decided that he needed more help and asked the authority to reassess him. She suggested that the ILF would increase its funding by 25% if the council increased its funding by £35 a week.

But Birmingham took more than a year to reassess Mr N. A report to its internal council funding panel was only made 20 months after the ILF assessor’s recommendation.

The report set out Mr N’s needs, the risks that would be run if his care was not increased and the importance of making a decision. It also said that he was using ‘assistive technology’ and had no interest in moving to supported living.

“Despite this, the Panel deferred a decision and asked the social worker to explore supported living and ‘assistive technology’ for Mr N,” the LGO said.

Mr N only received full funding two years and four months after the ILF assessor’s initial recommendations.

Recording a finding of maladministration causing injustice, the LGO said: “During this period Mr N’s mother lived in the fear that her son would be taken away from their home and moved into residential care. Mr N fell and broke his nose and his mother was injured providing him with care the council later accepted it should have arranged and funded.”

Birmingham has agreed to pay £52,513, representing the value of the payments and services he should have received. Of this amount, £15,608 was for lost ILF payments.

It will also pay £500 to Mr N’s mother and sister in recognition of their efforts to ensure he received the services he needed.

The LGO paid tribute to the work of Advocacy Matters, a voluntary organisation, in supporting Mr N and his family’s efforts to obtain full funding.