Surrey County Council has been accused of carrying out "illegal" and "immoral" care assessments of vulnerable adults, and excluding their families, in a bid to save money by reducing their support.
Learning disabled adults face 'dangerous' cuts to care after 'illegal assessments', claim families.
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-02-12/learning-disabled-adults-face-care-cuts-after-unsafe-assessments-say-families
In response, Sinead Mooney, Surrey County Council’s Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care said -
We’ve just approved an adult social care budget increase of more than £27million.
Cyngor Gwynedd have been faking assessments on vulnerable adults and children - for years.
An Ombudsman for Wales report from 2018 -
https://www.lukeclements.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Ombudsman-Gwynedd-Council-report-201700388.pdf
Using a person's disability against them..?
Low hanging fruit..?
Untrained social workers sent out to remove services from vulnerable people by untrained senior social workers - simply to save money.
The PSOW was so enraged it included the case in its hall of shame casebook on human rights -
https://www.ombudsman.wales/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/104483-Equality-and-Human-Rights-Casebook_Eng_v03.pdf
The then cabinet member for adults, Dafydd Meurig, should have presented this case to the care scrutiny committee who could have called for an investigation/review of the department.
Meurig did not...
Ombudsman recommendations...
This case is even more appalling when it was discovered that Gwynedd council had lied to the PSOW by saying that specific staff training had taken place when it had not.
Gwynedd council target children too...
A social worker undertook an assessment on a disabled, autistic child but did not tick the disabled box. This excluded the child from support by Derwen, cyngor Gwynedd's service for disabled children.
An Ombudsman's investigation found that the assessment was 'predetermined to fail'...
On the recommendation from the Ombudsman, another assessment was undertaken...
This time a social worker from the 16+ team, Sharon Keys and Barry John Thomas, a social worker/complaints officer from Derwen assessed the child.
Both social workers said they knew nothing about the PSOW ordering the re-assessment and declined the report when offered it. They said they weren't looking back, but 'taking it from today'.
Incredibly, the social workers said they would not be considering the child's autism for the purpose of the assessment...
Parent bashing...
It was no surprise that the second assessment also denied support for the child.
Instead, the social workers used the 'assessment' to parent blame.
Complaint shut down...
A stage 2 complaint was raised against the social workers assessment.
It was not allowed to progress and was eventually timed out.
Protect the senior officers...?
Emails indicate that the investigating officer and the independent person may have not been as 'independent' as they should.The emails also suggest that Gwynedd's senior complaints manager was more active in the 'independent' investigation than perhaps he should have been.
Both Surrey and Gwynedd councils have been caught faking assessments on vulnerable people.
Whilst Surrey are unlikely to be repeat offenders - Gwynedd council certainly are...
Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...
