Council criticised for bath delay
A Lancashire council has been criticised over a bath installation for a severely disabled teenager.
It followed a complaint by a council tenant in West Lancashire who needed the bath for his son.
The boy died shortly after his father complained to the Local Government Ombudsman about West Lancashire District Council.
The council has agreed to apologise to the tenant. The ombudsman called it "maladministration causing injustice".
The ombudsman said the council had also agreed to review its procedures and pay the complainant £250.
It was told by the ombudsman, Patricia Thomas, that arrangements to install the facilities were flawed by delay, poor communication and a failure to follow its own guidance.
'Bitterly disappointed'
She found that "the effects combined to delay the completion of a satisfactory adaptation to only a few months short of the point when Peter [not the teenager's real name] was no longer able to benefit from it".
The details are in a report issued by Mrs Thomas who investigated the complaint.
She described the council's response to the complaint as a satisfactory remedy for the injustice.
In a statement, West Lancashire District Council said it accepted the report's main findings but was bitterly disappointed that the Ombudsman had concluded it was maladministration causing injustice.
The council, which acknowledged there were lessons to be learnt, said it had been trying to resolve the matter without the need for a report of this kind.
It said it was "fiercely proud of its record in relation to complaints to the Ombudsman, as shown by the fact that this is the first case of maladministration against it for many years".
Neither the father nor the boy have been named.
Source: The BBC (17/06/2005)
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