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Office of the Public Guardian case summary
Mr A applied to the OPG to become his mother's Receiver. Unfortunately, his application was subjected to numerous mistakes and delays by the OPG. These included:
- failure to inform Mr A's mother of a Court of Protection hearing in connection with the application
- failure to ask the Court of Protection to consider granting Mr A with an interim direction while his application was being processed. He needed this to pay for essential care items for his mother
- lengthy delays, which prevented Mr A's mother from obtaining access to money that had been bequeathed to her.
As a direct result of the OPG's failure to handle this case properly, Mr A and his family suffered considerable worry and distress. Mr A also incurred costs in his attempts to get matters sorted out.
Mr A ran his own business and also claimed that the amount of time that he had devoted to dealing with the OPG resulted in him losing earnings.
The OPG acknowledged that they failed to handle the case properly and paid Mr A £250 in recognition of the resulting worry and distress. Mr A remained dissatisfied with the level of compensation and complained to the Adjudicator.
We upheld this complaint.
Our review of the OPG's handling of this case concluded that Mr A had received a very poor level of service from the OPG. We asked the OPG to:
- reimburse Mr A's direct costs, amounting to £255
- pay a further £450 to recognise the worry and distress that Mr A suffered
- pay £300 for the unacceptable manner in which the complaint was handled
- pay £100 each to Mr A's mother and his wife in recognition of the worry and distress that they suffered.
We explained to Mr A that we could not ask the OPG to compensate him for his alleged lost earnings without clear evidence that his business had lost money as a direct result of the OPG's mistakes and delays. As he could not provide acceptable evidence, this aspect of his complaint could not be taken further.
In reaching this conclusion, we noted that the redress guidance provided for staff in the OPG did not explain adequately the conditions that must be met in order for compensation for lost earnings to be awarded. We asked them to ensure that these instructions were made clear.
During our investigation, we saw that there was a discrepancy between the internal instructions used by staff at the OPG and the information held in their Code of Practice - Putting things right, concerning appropriate levels of compensation. We asked the OPG to make it clear to their staff that payments made in recognition of worry and distress can exceed £250, if the circumstances are warranted.
