Issue - meetings

To consider the annual report which provides an overview of the feedback received by the Council in 2024/25 and how the Council has acted on the feedback to drive improvements.

Cllr Seema Chandwani, Cabinet Member for Resident Services & Tackling Inequality, introduced the report for this item. She acknowledged the high number of complaints recorded in the report, but reminded the Committee that the figures could not be easily compared with other Councils, for example if they had lower levels of housing stock compared to Haringey. Her main focus was on the content of the complaints. She also noted that some complaints received sometimes included factors which were not in the control of the Council.

Kirsten Webb, Feedback & Resolutions Manager, informed the Committee that the report provided a comprehensive summary of positive and negative feedback received by the Council between April 2024 and March 2025. It also reflected how resident feedback had driven service improvement and provided details of progress in specific areas. In Housing, there had been a high compliance rate of 99% for completion of orders issued by the Housing Ombudsman by the target date. However, there had been a significant rise in the number of Stage 2 escalations across the Council, with a 44% rise compared to the previous year. The placed greater pressure on Council resources as these cases tended to be more complex and time-intensive. Of the determinations made by the Housing Ombudsman, a higher rate of maladministration was attributed to Haringey Council when compared with the national average. In response to this, the Council was investing in additional staffing, a new case management system and the strengthening of internal monitoring.

Cllr Chandwani, Kirsten Webb and other officers then responded to questions from the Committee:

• Cllr White expressed concern about the deterioration over the last five years in the number of cases responded to on time. He asked if the Complaints team had the resources to deal with the volume of cases received. Cllr Chandwani highlighted specific changes such as the new case management system which would streamline the working of the team and ensure quicker responses. She also highlighted the emphasis on using complaints to inform improvements rather than adopting a defensive stance. Claire McCarthy, Director of Strategy, Communications & Collaboration, agreed that the new case management system would help with managing demand, including by reducing the amount of manual input required and freeing up more time to work with services on driving improvements.

• Cllr White asked what was going wrong with the Stage 1 complaints that was leading to so many cases reaching Stage 2. Claire McCarthy noted that some additional staff resources had been secured to deal with the increase in Stage 2 cases. She also reiterated the need to reduce defensiveness and to acknowledge mistakes at an earlier stage which would help to prevent the unnecessary escalation of complaints.
• Cllr Connor referred to the annual review letter from the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman in July which stated that the Council’s timely compliance with recommendations remained poor, as it had the year before. She expressed concerns about the generally poor trajectory of performance in this area and noted that, according to the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 42