Council that failed to pay respite care for seven years pays foster parents £25k

Croydon Council has offered to pay more than £25,000 to two foster parents after failing to properly pay them for missed respite service, an investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has revealed.

The Ombudsman found that the council was at fault for its failure to fully pay for respite care for a disabled child they were caring for but did not make any recommendations of its own as it found the council's remedy sufficient.

The husband and wife behind the complaint are registered foster carers with the council and also provide respite care to children with disabilities. They provided care for a boy – referred to by the Ombudsman as Y – who has complex health needs.

In 2012, the council placed Y with the couple  (Mr and Mrs X) on a long-term basis. The couple agreed to look after the boy provided they would receive respite care and two weeks of block respite care each year.

From 2014, Mrs X and her husband became permanent foster carers to Y.

In May 2020, Mrs X complained to the council about the lack of respite care from the council. She said several social workers told her the respite care would start soon, but it never did.

The council investigated and concluded that it had not been able to find a respite placement which would have been capable of meeting Y's needs. The council upheld this part of the complaint and agreed to pay the couple £19,992 for the two weeks of block respite care to reflect the seven years when it had not provided the service.

However, Mrs X escalated her complaint as the council had not considered providing a financial remedy for the lack of one-day-a-week respite care over the past seven years.

The complaint report agreed and recommended the council provide a financial remedy for this missed respite service for the past seven years. It recommended the council calculate this based on the net amount that would have been paid to carers during this period.

The council considered the report's findings. It wrote to Mrs X and said: "Following a review of comparable cases our view is that the Council should compensate you at the level of £300 per month for the 7 years that services were not provided, amounting to a total of £25,200 (84 months x £300)."

The council said this payment included the £19,992 it had already provided to Mrs X and Mr X therefore, the amount left to pay them would be £5,208. In addition to this payment, the council offered £500 to Mrs X and Mr X for the time and trouble they went through to escalate their complaint further.

Despite this, the couple was still unhappy with how the council calculated the payment and complained to the Ombudsman.

After investigating, the Ombudsman found the initial remedy of £25,200 to be appropriate to address the injustice caused by the faults identified.

A Croydon Council spokesperson said: “We have apologised to the carers in this case for our past management of their respite payments and the impact this had on them. The compensation previously agreed through our complaints process was upheld by the LGO.”

Adam Carey