Service improvements

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

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 - 10 of 15 cases with service improvements

Export results (CSV)

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

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (25 005 717)

    Category: Education Date: 20-Feb-2026

    Summary

    Miss X complained about the Council’s delays in issuing her son’s Education, Health and Care Plan. She also says the Council’s communication was poor, it failed to respond to her Personal Budget request, and it mishandled the school consultation process. We find the Council was at fault for its delay in issuing Miss X’s son’s Education, Health and Care Plan. It was also at fault for its communication with Miss X and it delayed responding to her complaint. These faults caused Miss X frustration and upset, and Miss X’s son lost out on provision. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss X, make a payment to her and implement a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to issue written reminders to relevant staff to ensure they are aware they must comply with the timescales under the statutory guidance and the Code when they are completing an EHC needs assessment.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (25 004 314)

    Category: Housing Date: 06-Jan-2026

    Summary

    Miss X complained about the way the Council dealt with her housing. The Council was at fault for delaying in completing a medical assessment, failing to complete a review of her priority need and poor communication. This caused Miss X frustration and uncertainty. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment to Miss X for the frustration and uncertainty this caused and make service improvements.

    Service improvements

    The Council will send us an action plan showing how it will ensure all housing review requests are recorded and completed.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (25 003 197)

    Category: Education Date: 25-Mar-2026

    Summary

    Miss F complained the Council failed to provide her son with the special educational needs support set out in his EHC plan, delayed issuing a new plan and failed to secure an exam centre for his GCSEs. We found fault which caused Miss F’s son to miss some provision and to miss out on taking most of his GCSEs. The Council has agreed to apologise and make symbolic payments to remedy this injustice.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to write a procedure for how it arranges public exams for students who are receiving education other than at school. This should include how exam centres will be sourced and booked, when it will contact any education provider about exam access arrangements and whose responsibility it will be to take these actions.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (25 001 563)

    Category: Housing Date: 05-Feb-2026

    Summary

    Mr X complained about the Council’s handling of his housing matters. Mr X could bid for ground floor properties so the Council was not at fault. The Council was at fault for failing to inform Mr X of his right to a suitability review for his temporary accommodation. This did not cause him an injustice as he was already aware of the process. The Council was at fault for failing to record how it considered all relevant information when carrying out a review of his priority banding. The Council has agreed to apologise, pay Mr X £200 and decide if it needs to carry out a new review of his priority banding to remedy the injustice caused.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to remind relevant officers of the importance of sending a formal letter offering temporary accommodation that sets out relevant review rights.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (25 001 433)

    Category: Adult care services Date: 13-Jan-2026

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for delaying assessing Ms X for adaptations to her property. As a result Ms X has not been able to wash properly and has had to wait much longer than she should for the Council to agree to adaptations. To remedy the injustice caused the Council agreed to apologise to Ms X, make a payment to her to recognise the delays she experienced and carry out a service improvement.

    Service improvements

    Consider why there was such a long wait to process Ms X’s application and consider what actions it can take to reduce the wait for an Occupational Therapist assessment. The Council should report back to the Ombudsman with any changes to its procedures it intends to make.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (24 023 416)

    Category: Housing Date: 21-Aug-2025

    Summary

    The Council is at fault in its handling of homelessness applications where the applicant has a valid section 21 notice to leave a private tenancy. The Council has agreed to act to prevent injustice to current applicants. The actions already identified by the Council are appropriate steps to improve its services.

    Service improvements

    We are satisfied that the Council has identified the actions necessary to improve its service. The Council should provide a report to the relevant overview and scrutiny committee six months after implementation of the changes, evaluating their effectiveness in addressing the faults identified in this report and identifying any further improvements required.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (24 018 996)

    Category: Housing Date: 03-Nov-2025

    Summary

    Miss X complained about how the Council dealt with her brother’s (Mr X) housing register and homelessness applications. We found fault with its handling of both matters. The Council agreed to apologise to Mr X, reconsider its decision not to backdate his housing register application and make him a payment in recognition of the injustice caused to him. It also agreed to check its records to see if Mr X would have been the first placed bidder on any suitable properties offered by the Council between January 2024 and August 2025, when Mr X’s bidding number was activated.

    Service improvements

    The Council will review its technical processes for issuing housing register bidding numbers to ensure bidding numbers are issued without delay.The Council will check if the technical issues identified in this complaint have affected other housing register applicants.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (24 015 224)

    Category: Housing Date: 05-Aug-2025

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for failing to address damp and mould in Miss X’s temporary accommodation and delay providing alternative accommodation once a review found it was unsuitable. This left Miss X and her baby at risk of harm from damp and mould, which is an injustice. The Council has agreed to apologise, make payments, and act to improve its services.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to share a copy of this decision with staff in the relevant departments toidentify the learning from this complaint.The Council has agreed to provide training or guidance to relevant staff on dealing with damp andmould in temporary accommodation, based on the government guidance.The Council has agreed to tell landlords and managing agents of temporary accommodation that theCouncil expects them to follow the government guidance on damp and mould aspart of the information shared with accommodation providers.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (24 011 517)

    Category: Education Date: 07-Jul-2025

    Summary

    Miss X complained the Council failed to properly provide for her child, Y’s, special educational needs. The Council failed to arrange all the support it said Y should receive, failed to properly oversee their education and communicated with Miss X poorly. This led to Y missing out on significant education and caused both Miss X and Y avoidable distress. The Council agreed to apologise, ensure Y is receiving all the support in their Education Health and Care plan and pay Miss X a financial remedy. It also agreed to review how it oversees none-school-based education packages and issue reminders to its staff.

    Service improvements

    The Council agreed to review how it arranges and oversees packages of none-school-based education. The Council should ensure it has adequate processes in place to check that packages are in place and that these are reviewed at suitable intervals.The Council agreed to review how it manages absences of special educational needs staff to ensure workloads/cases are managed effectively when assigned staff are not available.The Council agreed to remind relevant staff about how they should follow the Council’s complaints procedure, including any requests for escalation, and how to ensure complaints are recorded properly.

  • London Borough of Tower Hamlets (24 008 582)

    Category: Housing Date: 19-Jun-2025

    Summary

    The Council was at fault for delays completing statutory reviews of its decisions about Ms Y’s homelessness and housing allocations. It was also at fault for wrongly recording the gender of one of Ms Y’s children. This meant she could not bid for the size of property she needed, which is an injustice. The Council was further at fault for making its offer of a remedy conditional on Ms Y not pursuing her complaint. The Council has agreed to apologise, make payments, backdate Ms Y’s housing application and act to improve its services.

    Service improvements

    The Council has agreed to stop the practice of offering remedies as “full and final settlement” of a complaint and requiring complainants to sign forms which imply they cannot continue their complaint further if they accept.The Council has agreed to share this decision, our previous decisions about Ms Y’s case, and the actions identified with the relevant Cabinet Member or scrutiny committee to ensure democratic oversight.

LGO logogram

Review your privacy settings

Required cookies

These cookies enable the website to function properly. You can only disable these by changing your browser preferences, but this will affect how the website performs.

View required cookies

Analytical cookies

Google Analytics cookies help us improve the performance of the website by understanding how visitors use the site.
We recommend you set these 'ON'.

View analytical cookies

In using Google Analytics, we do not collect or store personal information that could identify you (for example your name or address). We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data. Google has developed a tool to help you opt out of Google Analytics cookies.

Privacy settings