To consider any items admitted at item 3 above.
Minutes:
Dominic O'Brien, Scrutiny Officer, explained that this item followed the consideration of a Quarter 1 update report on the Corporate Delivery Plan at the meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 18th September 2025. A KPI in the report was:
Number of complaints upheld by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman per 10,000 population - The Ombudsman investigated 61 complaints and 53 were upheld (87%). Adjusted for Haringey's population, this is 20.2 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. The average for authorities of this type is 9.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
It was also noted that further details about this was provided in the Annual Feedback & Resolutions report which was scheduled to be brought to the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 20th October 2025. A report on the Council’s response to the Ombudsman was provisionally scheduled to be brought to the Adults and Health Scrutiny Panel on 16th December 2025. However, the purpose of the current Urgent Business item was to have an initial discussion on the key points.
Sara Sutton commented that the number of upheld complaints related to the Council as a whole but reported that the specific adult social care data would also be made available. It would then be possible to bring a more detailed analysis of this information to the Panel in due course. She noted that 70% of all contacts to the Ombudsman about Haringey were either outside of the jurisdiction or were closed. In addition, Haringey had achieved 100% resolution of the Ombudsman’s recommendations arising from upheld complaints. However, she acknowledged that the number of upheld decisions in proportion to the population was high and the Annual Feedback & Resolutions report outlined a number of actions that the Council was taking to resolve this. An improvement plan was in place for the timeliness and quality of responses. Significant progress had been made over the past quarter in relation to statutory adult social care complaints with on-time performance increased by 29% compared to the previous year. The new Infreemation system referred to earlier in the meeting would enable improved tracking of Ombudsman cases.
Cllr O’Donovan noted that there were explanatory paragraphs for each case on the Ombudsman website and suggested that it would be useful to go through these paragraphs at the December Panel meeting to ascertain what lessons could be learned for the future. (ACTION)
Cllr das Neves assured the Panel that she read every Ombudsman report and also discussed them with senior officers when there was learning to be established. Jo Baty observed that there had historically been an email-based culture within the Council which could overcomplicate cases so there was a need to streamline the processes. She added that it would also be beneficial to have earlier conversations with residents because going to the Ombudsman should usually be a position of last resort. Sara Sutton added the importance of candour and transparency, apologising at the earliest opportunity when the Council had not got things right and identifying consistent themes in the upheld complaints.
Cllr Connor commented that the letter from the Ombudsman had made reference to the lack of a swift response from the Council to the Ombudsman and not just to the complaints. She suggested that this should be scrutinised in more depth at the December Panel meeting. (ACTION)