LGO pans council for wrongly launching adult protection investigation

The Local Government Ombudsman has sharply criticised Birmingham City Council for wrongly starting an adult protection investigation and causing considerable injustice to a man who was the suspected perpetrator.

In a damning report, the LGO, Anne Seex, said the local authority's investigation into the affairs of the man’s elderly aunt had been "unnecessarily and unreasonably prolonged".

The complainant, Mr A, had been given an enduring power of attorney by his aunt.

Birmingham arranged care services for her in her own home. However, a range of problems arose, including care workers using her phone for overseas calls. Money also went missing.

Asked by Mr A to take action, the council set up a ‘money manager’ account transferring money from his aunt’s bank so that care workers could buy what she needed.

In the Spring of 2005, the aunt moved into a residential care home. She paid the full cost herself and agreed to pay Birmingham each week. The council would then pay the home.

A few weeks later, the local authority said she should pay the home direct. Mr A continued to pay into the money manager account and complained formally to the authority.

However, the council did not pay the home. A doctor expressed concern that the home was not being paid and the aunt had no pocket money.

Although officers knew that Mr A had been paying the fees into the money manager account and had made complaints, the council still chose to involve the police and start an adult protection investigation into whether Mr had been financially abusing his aunt.

Birmingham told Mr A that an adult protection investigation had been launched but provided no details. Six months later it told him it could not deal with the investigation and his complaints at the same time.

In July 2006 the council closed the investigation and appointed an independent officer to address Mr A’s complaints.

The aunt died in March 2007.

Mr A was not satisfied with Birmingham’s response to his complaints and asked the Ombudsman to get involved.

In a report the LGO found that the council had failed to treat Mr A fairly. Birmingham accepted that there had been maladministration, and agreed to apologise and pay £350.

In a subsequent meeting, however, the Director of Adult Social Care insisted that the council had been right to start its investigation. This was something Mr A could not accept.

The LGO issued a draft report. The council eventually accepted that its officers had been wrong to start the investigation.

The Ombudsman concluded that Birmingham had failed to treat Mr A fairly and within the rules of natural justice. This was because the officers who started the adult protection investigation:

  • “knew Mr A had complained about them;
  • knew he was paying the council the fees for the home;
  • did not consider relevant parts of the council's policy or follow its procedures;
  • did not re-evaluate as they got new information; and
  • generated suspicions about Mr A on the flimsiest basis.”

When other officers became involved, the LGO said, they:

  • “did not assemble, assess and fairly evaluate the grounds for the suspicions about Mr A and did not consider information that would have put him in a different light;
  • interpreted Mr A's legitimate and reasonable actions adversely;
  • made decisions without reviewing all the available information in a structured way; and
  • tried to justify the adult protection investigation to the Ombudsman with no supporting evidence and with arguments that were contradicted by the facts.”

The council accepted that it had acted with maladministration. However, according to the Ombudsman, senior officers resisted the findings in the draft report until they eventually “capitulated”.

Seex said the council “caused [Mr A] the considerable injustice of being the suspected perpetrator in an unnecessarily and unreasonably prolonged adult protection investigation.”

She added: “Although it acted on my recommendations, the council took years to accept it had been wrong. In the circumstances, and even though the original events happened some years ago, I decided to issue this report as a matter of public interest.”

The LGO said the issuing of the public interest report was sufficient remedy to Mr A.

A spokesman for Birmingham said: “This regrettable case occurred back in 2005 and, since the Local Government Ombudsman issued her report, the Strategic Director for Adult Services has met with the complainant, who shares the council's view that our approach to adult safeguarding has now been completely transformed.”

The spokesman pointed to a range of improvements that had been made. These included:

  • The timescales for investigation, assessment and case conference were all monitored publicly and were “all very good”.
  • Quality audits were in place.
  • The structure had split supervision responsibility away from case management. “Last year 93% of our staff had ten supervisions or more in the year, and the independent nature of this makes it more reflective and challenging.”
  • The council had implemented all the actions arising from its inspection of adult safeguarding, and saw its rating move from adequate to good.
  • Multi agency oversight was much stronger and the including of single agency reports for accountability in the safeguarding review was welcomed.