Successful complaints during the 2024/25 financial year cost Waltham Forest £274,850, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter
Waltham Forest Council paid out more than £274,000 in compensation to residents in 2024/25, the latest figures show.
Successful complaints during the 2024/25 financial year cost Waltham Forest £274,850, according to a report published this week.
Of that three-figure sum, £11,625 was paid through a total of 30 complaints upheld by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).
The LGSCO is a third-party body that acts as an adjudicator between residents and local authorities, handling serious complaints. If an ombudsman deems that a council has committed an “injustice” to a resident, it will often order them to pay a “remedy”.
It upheld 21 complaints against Waltham Forest relating to housing disputes, issues with adult social care, and special educational needs (SEND).
That rate of 70%, while high, is an improvement on the 84% average for similar authorities. It is also a personal improvement for Waltham Forest over the year prior, which saw 96% of cases upheld.
The bulk of complaints related to housing options, which made up ten of the 30 investigated and cost the council £4,765. Eight regarding adult social care were investigated, costing a total of £950, while the ombudsman looked at four relating to SEND, where the council paid out £3,450.
One of the ombudsman’s biggest concerns about Waltham Forest was its slow response to enquiries.
In a letter sent to chief executive Linzi Roberts-Egan in July, local administration chair Amerdeep Somal said there were “several occasions when our investigations were delayed by your council’s failure to respond in a timely way to our requests for information”.
“In one case the delays were such that we took the unusual step of threatening to issue a witness summons before we received the information we needed. This is not a step we take lightly,” they added.
On top of the delays, there were “instances of poor quality, incomplete responses to our enquiries or draft decisions, which meant my staff spent time chasing additional information”.
Despite the ombudsman’s concerns, the council says it complied with 100% of remedies requested by the body and has vowed to improve.
The council previously said it needed to “strengthen internal processes, apply policies consistently, and improve the quality of our responses”.
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