230 residents have been sent letters from the town hall outlining how much money they owe following a ‘serious error’ with the adult social care billing system, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter

Main image credit: Photo by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash

Waltham Forest Council has apologised after incorrectly charging residents for social care.

Some 230 people, who had been means-tested and were eligible to pay for their care, had not been receiving the proper bills.

They include people who receive extra care and day care, those in supported living, and people receiving direct payments.

The residents have now been sent letters from the town hall, outlining how much money they owe.

Councillor Louise Mitchell, the cabinet member for adult social care, apologised “wholeheartedly and sincerely” for the mistake.

She said in a statement: “This is a serious error that will cause concern for those impacted. It should not have happened – I apologise wholeheartedly and sincerely for the distress caused.

“I want people to know that we will work with them to find a reasonable, manageable resolution to this mistake.”

The issue was discovered after a resident flagged to the council they had not been correctly charged for a family member’s care.

Despite the council’s financial assessment, their account details indicated they did not need to pay towards it.

The authority has since discovered the issues stemmed from workers incorrectly entering data into an internal management system.

“We have given all staff who use this system extra training to make sure the issue cannot be repeated,” Cllr Mitchell said.

She says the council has also referred itself to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), a third-party organisation that investigates complaints about councils in the UK.

She added: “We will cooperate with the LGO in every way that we can and will share their findings if they deem an investigation is necessary.”

Responding to the news, Waltham Forest Conservatives leader Emma Best said: “This is the last thing residents and their families need when dealing with the emotional and physical stress of care. The council needs to be honest about the cost of their failure and make sure affected residents are given grace and not put under undue stress as a result.”

The council has previously been penalised for failures relating to its services.

Most recently, in April, the Housing Ombudsman ordered Waltham Forest to pay £1,000 and apologise to a vulnerable resident after they were left homeless due to months-long delays in processing a claim.

There are around 3,000 people receiving adult social care support from the council in total.

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