ombudsman

Private Eye reports that LBWF is England’s third most complained about council, while LBWF admits its own complaints procedure is so bad it brings ‘financial and reputational’ risks

August 17, 2026 Ombudsman 0

The latest issue of Private Eye (no.1681, 07/08-20/08/26) includes the following: Coincidentally, the LBWF 2025-26 Annual Governance Statement (AGS) has just been published, and this gives a dismal picture of how LBWF handles its own complainants. The AGS starts with the frank admission that ‘the current level of overdue complaints across both Stage 1 and Stage 2 does not meet the standards set out by the Ombudsmen, nor does it align with the level of customer service the council expects to provide to its residents’, and then goes on to explain why this is happening: What’s even more alarming,... »

LBWF’s commitment to being transparent again in question as campaigner finds c.£500,000 unaccounted for in audit documents signed off by the council’s senior leadership

February 5, 2026 Cllr. Grace Williams, Freedom of Information Act, LBWF spin, Linzi Roberts-Egan, Local Government Transparency Code, Ombudsman

In recent years LBWF has repeatedly failed to uphold its responsibility to be open and transparent, even where this is required by the law. A few examples are illustrative (for further details see the links below). In 2020, the Information Commissioner’s Office took the almost unprecedented step of issuing LBWF with a Practice Recommendation because of its widespread non-compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Four years later, LBWF was revealed to have blatantly ignored the mandatory requirements of the 2015 Local Government Transparency Code, legislation that was specifically designe... »

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LBWF repeatedly claims it is taking residents’ complaints seriously…but just as repeatedly fails to do so

November 18, 2025 Freedom of Information Act, Mark Hynes, Ombudsman

In the last few years, LBWF has repeatedly claimed that it is taking residents’ complaints seriously, and learning from them, explaining: ‘Complaints are an important way for an organisation to be accountable to the public, as well as providing valuable insights into organisational performance and the conduct of staff providing services to residents in order to drive improvement in service delivery’. Of course, many big corporates make similar noises, it’s become fashionable. Yet in this particular case, there is reason to be circumspect, ... »

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The Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman reprimands LBWF over its complaints handling, citing ‘unacceptable’ delays, ‘poor quality, incomplete responses’, and waste of staff time

August 8, 2025 Ombudsman

Every year, the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman sends each council a review letter which contains some tailored observations about their complaints handling. The review letter for 2024-25 just sent to LBWF, specifically CEO Linzi Roberts-Egan, includes the following: ‘During the year, 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... »

LBWF promises always to ‘put people first’, but as yet another example demonstrates, this is a fiction

July 7, 2025 Ombudsman

Renowned Waltham Forest campaigner James O’Rourke spends a good deal of time looking out for his brother, who has a learning disability and resides in supported living accommodation. Like many people in similar situations, taking on this responsibility brings Mr. O’Rourke into regular contact with LBWF, and this has caused him and his brother serial problems. In a recent e-mail to a senior officer about an aspect of his brother’s legal situation, Mr. O’Rourke explains in detail the kind of obstacles they have been forced to contend with: ‘Thank you for your recent update. While I appreciate yo... »

The Housing Ombudsman Service upholds local council tenant Michelle Edwards’ complaints about her lamentable treatment by LBWF, again undermining LBWF’s claim to be resident focused

January 24, 2025 Housing, Ombudsman

In a recent ruling, the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) finds in favour of long-term local council tenant Michelle Edwards over the way that LBWF has handled a series of complaints that she submitted in 2022 and 2023 (the most serious about Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB)) and concludes that that there have been four clear instances of LBWF ‘maladministration’. Some of the details are eye catching. For example, the HOS reports that when Ms. Edwards submitted one of her ASB complaints, LBWF not only failed to log it properly, but then broke the deadlines stipulated by its own complaints procedure a... »

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The Housing Ombudsman makes three findings of severe maladministration in cases involving London Borough of Waltham Forest

February 1, 2024 Housing, Ombudsman

Taken direct from the Housing Ombudsman’s webpages, here https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/2024/02/01/waltham-forest-council-failings-in-three-different-cases/ ‘The Housing Ombudsman has made 3 findings of severe maladministration in 3 cases involving Waltham Forest Council, including poor handling of a damp and mould case involving a vulnerable resident and another resident experiencing Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) for 5 years. With the important role that social housing has to play in giving safe and secure housing to millions, the learning in these reports should hel... »

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The Housing Ombudsman Service berates LBWF for its error-strewn response to a resident’s routine request for information

February 17, 2022 Freedom of Information Act, LBWF spin, Ombudsman, Town hall staff and policies

Hardly a week goes by without someone from the Town Hall popping up to insist that, in everything LBWF does, it is ‘resident focused’. However, as previous posts have suggested, whether such a boast can be sustained remains debateable. In this context, a recent complaint that a LBWF tenant lodged with the Housing Ombudsman Service (HOS) is significant. The tenant had wanted to confirm that her tenancy automatically would be handed down to her son, and believed that the relevant information was contained in a council document called ‘Appendix 10’. But when she had looked for ‘Appendix 10’ on LB... »

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