Decision Report 201403409

Summary

Mrs C applied for a crisis grant for a door entry system. The next day the council told her that her application had been declined, and Mrs C asked immediately for the decision to be reviewed. She told us that she did not hear from the council for over two weeks so she asked them what had happened to the review. The council told her that the review took place on the day she asked for it, and it was declined again. Mrs C did not believe that the council could make a decision and then review it within 24 hours. She also said that they did not explain to her why a door entry system could not be funded by a crisis grant.

The council confirmed that the review was indeed dealt with within one working day, as they were up to date with these at that time. This was reasonable and we did not uphold this complaint. We also found, however, that Scottish Government guidance says that the council should have explained why they refused the application. They admitted to us that they did not do this in Mrs C's case so we upheld that complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the council:

• apologise to Mrs C for failing to explain why a crisis grant cannot be given for a door entry system when they communicated their decision; and
• explain to Mrs C why a crisis grant cannot be given for a door entry system.