London Borough of Enfield
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 178 complaints. Of these, 84 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 53 complaints. We investigated 41 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 41 complaints and upheld 32.
78% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 84% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for London Borough of Enfield's population, this is 9.8% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
9.1% upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 0 out of 32 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
0% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 12% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 27 cases.
In 26 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.96% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against London Borough of Enfield
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
Enfield family left in unsuitable accommodation for three years
A disabled dad and his family were left in mouldy, mouse-infested temporary accommodation, despite Enfield council accepting it was not suitable for their needs, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has found.
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
Find out more about service improvements
When we find fault, we can recommend improvements to systems and processes where they haven’t worked properly, so that others do not suffer from these same problems in future. Common examples are policy changes; procedural reviews; and staff training. Service improvements from decisions are published for 5 years and those from reports are published for 10 years.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 24 011 503
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- Remind the telephone team to inform other relevant teams, including the Resources team and the Digital team, as soon as possible if it experiences problems in accessing its systems.
Case reference: 24 010 166
Category: Benefits and tax
Sub Category: Council tax
- The Council has agreed to review whether any improvements can be made to its case management system to alert staff if customers are calling multiple times and there is anoutstanding call back required.
Case reference: 24 004 238
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Residential care
- Further to the events covered by this complaint the Council had begun a review of its adult safeguarding procedures. It agreed that it would update us on what consideration this review gave to the time taken to complete adult safeguarding enquiries. It would also share any recommendations arising from that review designed to reduce or avoid delays in completing such enquiries, such as were present in this case (where enquiries took more than 12 months to complete).
- The Council also agreed to incorporate into that review, or undertake a separate piece of work, on its current arrangements for communicating with relatives when it undertakes safeguarding enquiries. It would review current advice given to practitioners and if this was sufficiently robust as to its expectations, and consider if it needed to brief them further on its expectations in this area. This followed a failure by the Council to inform the complainant in this case of the outcome of its enquiries, despite involving them in the initial stages of its investigation.
- The Council agreed that its contracting team would review any placements currently open for users of services at a named care home, to check the safety and suitability of their care. In particular, if any of those users required mouth care or feeding via a PEG tube, after investigation revealed significant failings in the care the complainant's father received in meeting those needs.
Case reference: 24 003 954
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will remind relevant Special Educational Needs and Disability staff that the Council has a duty to secure the specialist provision in an Education, Health and Care Plan (section 42 Children and Families Act), not just tuition, when it has accepted an alternative provision duty (Section 19 Education Act) for a child with an Education, Health and Care Plan who is not attending school.
Case reference: 24 003 200
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council was at fault because it took 10 months to issue a Deferred Payment Agreement. It will review the time taken from the Deferred Payment Agreement request to issuing the Agreement contract to determine what caused delays and what action can be taken to reduce such delays in future.
Case reference: 24 000 829
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- Within three months of the decision, the Council will review its process of reviewing EHC plans in accordance with its duties. It will refresh the knowledge of all relevant staff to ensure they are aware of the Council’s duties regarding EHC plan reviews generally, and specifically where the child or young person is transferring from their placement. The Council will provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.
Case reference: 24 000 137
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Housing team and Adult Social Care team should clarify what supporting evidence applicants need from Adult Social Care Services when asking the Council for an additional bedroom as per the allocations policy, and how applicants can go about obtaining this.
Case reference: 23 021 072
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- Identify and implement learning from this complaint to improve the time taken to address disrepairs and communication between the Council and its residents.
Case reference: 23 021 012
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed that it will issue a checklist to relevant staff to ensure they always deal with the issue of an applicant’s belongings when they move from their home into interim hotel accommodation and are unable to take their belongings with them.
Case reference: 23 020 377
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council should send written reminders to relevant Housing staff that if 56 days have passed since it accepted the relief duty to an applicant, and no suitable accommodation offer has been made, it should accept the main housing duty to meet statutory timescales.
- The Council should send written reminders to relevant Housing staff that case officers should carry out and record thorough assessments of any support needs household members may have when considering the suitability of interim accommodation it places families in.
Last updated: 4 April 2015