insensitive authorities

[SusieOwl4]

both of my parents are quite elderly and ill . My mother has parkinsons and my father is suffering with AMD and stress and arthritis . So a few months ago I took out power of attorney to sort out finances . I found a mistake in their housing benefit claim and an odd life assurance policy which my father said just said paid an annuity . So I contacted the council immediately - explained the situation and that genuinely I was not sure but I thought they had made a mistake on their claim - filled in all the forms sent copies of everything . Today my father rang up having a full on panic attack as they owe a lot of money - apparently this life assurance policy had a surrender value and should have been counted as capital . Now I am not annoyed at them as I was struggling to unravel it all , and neither are they about the fact they owed money - if they do then they do - but why after knowing the situation did they send it all to my father who basically opened it and then had a full on panic attack - he just kept saying I cant deal with it I really cant deal with all this paperwork . Although I tried to calm him down and explained I would sort it and pay it he was very distressed . They should have just contacted me don't you think ? It seems to me honesty does not pay .

It is a difficult one.
Everyone is still sensitive about GDPR and how that impacts.
Did you send them a copy of your Power of Attorney ?
(I've not seen one so...) doe it say on it that the people are not to receive any correspondence ?
I would assume that all correspondence goes to the person it is about, at their address, and, where they need assistance, then the person giving that assistance does so when they go round to deal with the paperwork once a week, or whatever.
Unless you expressly wrote very, very clearly, in your letter to them, that, under no circumstances was any correspondence to go to the home address for some reason, then I don't see how they've done anything wrong.

The power of attorney means they can deal with you. They would not automatically send everything to you unless you asked them to put yours as the correspondence address.

yes they have power of attorney - sent all the forms to fill in to my home address and returned the originals to me as well . they also corresponded with me by email as well .