Haringey Council has been ordered to make “lasting changes” to its social care system after it was found to have left hundreds of welfare reports and police emails unread.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) revealed the council’s social work inbox contained more than 1,100 unopened messages, exposing serious failings in safeguarding and welfare oversight.
The north London borough, already notorious for past failures following the 2007 death of Baby P, admitted mistakes and apologised. Lucia das Neves, the council’s cabinet member for health, social care and wellbeing, said: “We recognise the seriousness of the findings and fully accept that mistakes were made, for which we apologise.”
The LGO’s investigation centred on the case of a vulnerable man with health issues who was at risk of homelessness. Despite repeated contact from emergency services and a friend, the council failed to provide help. The man later suffered a seizure and fell, leaving him with a life-changing injury.
Julie Odams, the ombudsman’s chief executive, said: “Because of the council’s inertia, the man at the centre of this case was left at risk of significant harm.
“While we cannot say the accident which caused such a major injury would have been prevented if the council had acted sooner, the man’s friends and family are left not knowing whether things might have turned out differently if he’d had the help he needed earlier.
“The council has agreed to put in place an action plan to improve how it responds to safeguarding alerts like these, including training staff on dealing with safeguarding referrals. I hope this shocking case will spur the council into making lasting changes which will benefit other vulnerable people in the borough.”
A statement from the LGO said the council had agreed to pay both the man and his friend by way of compensation; a sum of £2,000 in the first instance for leaving him at risk of harm and £200 for his friend “to acknowledge the time and trouble spent pursuing the complaint”.
Cllr das Neves said the council had since “cleared the backlog of unread emails” and taken steps to address the failures. “We are approaching this with honesty, accountability, and a clear focus on improvement,” she said.
But opposition councillors said the findings were “absolutely shocking” and “utterly negligent”.
“Apologies are no longer enough: we have heard ‘this must never happen again’ too many times before,” said Liberal Democrat spokesperson for social care, Pippa Connor.
The scandal has drawn comparisons to the Baby P case, in which 17-month-old Peter Connelly died in 2007 after months of abuse despite being visited 60 times by authorities. A subsequent report found the case exposed “the incompetence of almost every member of staff who came into contact with him.”
