Service improvements

London Borough of Newham

Showing service improvements between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026

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.

Showing 1 - 2 of 2 cases with service improvements

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Downloads the current filtered list of service improvement decisions for London Borough of Newham as a CSV file.

  • London Borough of Newham (24 023 405)

    Category: Benefits and tax Date: 05-Feb-2026

    Summary

    Mr X complained about the way the Council dealt with his Council Tax account. We have found the Council at fault in failing to reply to Mr X’s correspondence and delay in responding to his complaint. The Council agreed to apologise and make a symbolic payment to Mr X.

    Service improvements

    The Council will provide the Ombudsman with a copy of the reminder issued informing staff when a council tax account holder requests confirmation of action taken a reply must be sent.

  • London Borough of Newham (24 021 331)

    Category: Benefits and tax Date: 14-Sep-2025

    Summary

    Mr X complained the Council wrongly pursued him for council tax debt. He also complained about the Council’s decision to take legal action against him and the process it followed. We found the Council at fault for misleading wording on its website which caused Mr X avoidable distress. The Council has agreed to make a payment to Mr X to recognise his distress and make changes to improve its service. We cannot investigate the other parts of this complaint because the issues Mr X complained about have been, or reasonably could have been, discussed in court.

    Service improvements

    The Council will amend the wording on its webpage titled “Council Tax and moving in or out of Newham” to make it clear that if a resident updates their address using the government’s register to vote service, this does not inform the Council’s council tax department their address has changed.The Council will tell us the outcome of its review into how it records information and documents on residents' council tax files.Through training or a staff briefing, the Council will remind all relevant staff about the importance of recording key information, such as council tax reminder letters, on residents’ case files.

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