London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 012 930)

Statement Upheld Domiciliary care 07-Apr-2024

Summary: Ms Y complains about the Council’s mistakes in record keeping which impacted its care for her brother. We find the Council is at fault and caused Mr A an injustice. We also consider there is a fault with the time the Council has taken to respond to Ms Y’s complaint. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to Mr A and Ms Y in recognition of this.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 008 371)

Statement Upheld Council tax 17-Apr-2024

Summary: Miss K complained about the Council’s handling of her council tax account. Miss K said this caused her great distress. We found fault with the Council’s actions which caused injustice to Miss K. The Council will apologise to Miss K and make a financial remedy to her.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 008 465)

Statement Upheld Safeguarding 18-Apr-2024

Summary: Mr X complained the Council delayed carrying out a social care needs assessment, wrongly decided he does not have any social care needs and has failed to respond to safeguarding concerns. The Council was at fault for the delay in assessing Mr X’s needs. It has already apologised for this which was an appropriate remedy. There is no evidence of fault in the way it assessed his needs or responded to safeguarding referrals it received.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 005 698)

Statement Upheld Special educational needs 22-Apr-2024

Summary: Ms X complained the Council failed to take sufficient action to ensure her child, Z, who has an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, received suitable education after they were permanently excluded from school. She says this meant Z was out of education for longer than needed. The law prevents us investigating most of these events, as they occurred too long ago or because Ms X had a right of appeal to the tribunal, and it was reasonable for her to have used it. However we found the Council did fail to arrange some special educational needs provision for Z for ten term-time months and this matter was not linked to the issues Ms X could have appealed to the tribunal. It also significantly delayed responding to Ms X’s complaint. In recognition of the injustice caused to Z and Ms X, the Council has agreed to apologise, pay Ms X £2,150 and carry out service improvements.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 005 845)

Statement Upheld Charging 06-May-2024

Summary: Mrs X complained the Council mishandled payment arrangements for her mother, Mrs Y’s, care at a care home. We discontinued our investigation. That was because the Council provided a suitable remedy for the injustice. We could not add to the Council’s investigation, and were unlikely to achieve a different outcome.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 016 825)

Statement Upheld Refuse and recycling 30-May-2024

Summary: Ms X complained the Council failed to return her bins to the correct place, despite receiving assisted collections. We find the Council at fault for failing to follow the assisted collection agreement. We recommend the Council apologise to Ms X, monitor her collections and make a payment to recognise the injustice caused.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 011 416)

Statement Upheld Allocations 01-Jul-2024

Summary: Miss X complained the Council failed to properly consider her medical evidence when reviewing her application for medical priority on its housing register. The Council was at fault. It delayed and later failed to consider Miss X’s requests for reviews. This caused Miss X avoidable distress, uncertainty and frustration. The Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment and carry out a new review.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 015 405)

Statement Upheld Homelessness 29-Jul-2024

Summary: Ms X complained about the suitability of the interim accommodation provided to her by the Council. The Council was not at fault for the accommodation provided. It was at fault for delays in advising Ms X it owed her the relief duty and in reaching a decision on her homelessness but this did not cause a significant injustice.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (23 014 183)

Statement Upheld Planning advice 31-Jul-2024

Summary: Mr X complained the Council provided him with wrong planning advice, which cost him more money. Mr X said this distressed him and impacted him financially. There was fault in the way the Council did not record the pre-application advice and communication with the Council was poor. Mr X was frustrated by this and caused uncertainty during the application. The Council should apologise and make a financial payment.

London Borough of Waltham Forest (24 004 818)

Statement Upheld Homelessness 08-Sep-2024

Summary: We have decided not to investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s award of band 3 on its housing register. The Council has upheld the complaint and agreed to remedy the injustice caused by carrying out a fresh review of its decision.