London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 95 complaints. Of these, 39 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 42 complaints. We investigated 14 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 14 complaints and upheld 13.
93% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 84% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham's population, this is 7 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 4 out of 13 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
31% 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 6 cases.
In 6 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% 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 Hammersmith & Fulham
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.
No reports published
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: 24 009 667
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council has agreed to remind staff in its homelessness/housing review team to ensure that extensions to deadlines for review requests are agreed with the applicant and confirmed in writing.
Case reference: 24 008 841
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council will review its process for ending the prevention duty to ensure it always sends a decision with the advice on the right to ask for a review.
Case reference: 24 000 718
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- Remind officers in writing of the importance of discussing issues with interim accommodation with residents before a decision is made ending the interim duty.
- Remind officers in writing of the importance of noting the thinking behind decisions made.
Case reference: 24 000 426
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- Provide a quarterly report to the relevant committee or cabinet member on the Council’s progress in reducing the delays in considering the main housing duty and brining its case completion times within the required timescales. This is to ensure the Council maintains progress and to ensure democratic oversight.
- Provide evidence of the Council’s new process to assess the suitability of interim and temporary accommodation.
Case reference: 23 014 985
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- •by training or other means remind staff of the importance of record keeping and providing applicants who bid for properties with clear and updated information about the Council’s bidding and selection processes. This must also be done in a timely manner
- •remind relevant staff of the importance of adhering to the Council’s complaint policy timescales and to ensure the Council’s responses address applicants’ complaints.
- •produce a factsheet which explains the Council’s process from shortlist to property offer, this should also include viewings and timescales in which applicants must accept offers. The Council should then ensure it provides all shortlisted housing applicants with the factsheet which gives them a clear understanding of the process.
Case reference: 22 015 527
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council will review how long its homelessness service is taking to determine homelessness applications and decide whether any action is necessary to improve performance. It should also consider whether there needs to be checks in place to ensure there is not the drift in deciding applications that happened here.
- The Council will review the approach it takes when a homelessness applicant is facing eviction and the point at which it will offer accommodation.
Case reference: 22 013 242
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Refuse and recycling
- The Council has agreed to do a spot check on all of the recycling bins at the block of flats concerned, shortly after the recycling is collected. The Council has agreed to provide the Ombudsman with photographic, date-stamped evidence that all of the bins were fully and properly emptied. If the recycling bins have clearly not been fully and properly collected, the Council has agreed it will tell the Ombudsman what it plans to do to rectify this situation.
- The Council has agreed to remind all relevant staff in the departments involved here that they are to respond to complaints in line with its complaints procedure.
Case reference: 22 012 408
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council has agreed to confirm that the improvements to its annual review procedure includes guidance to schools in ensuring clarity in the annual review reports and quantifiable recommendations, based on the available evidence. - within one month
Case reference: 22 010 276
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council will remind relevant officers of the need to share appropriate review rights with housing complainants. This will help to ensure people know of their right to request a suitability review of their current temporary accommodation.
- The Council will share the Ombudsman’s guidance on effective complaint handling with relevant officers so that complaints are handled in a clear, effective and timely manner. This will help to ensure that mistakes are apologised for and complainants know what to do if they remain unhappy.
Case reference: 22 005 303
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will issue a briefing note to all housing staff, including managers, to remind them of the legal duties to protect someone's personal belongings regardless of whether or not it still owes a housing duty to that person. This briefing note should also remind staff of the Council’s policy on Discretionary Housing payments and how they can be used. The Council may wish to share this decision with all housing staff to illustrate the injustice that can be caused by failing to act in line with its duties, as well as what those duties are.
Last updated: 4 April 2015