Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council slammed for ignoring hundreds of police welfare reports
From the Haringey Community Press
Haringey Council has been slammed after hundreds of welfare reports were left unread in an email inbox.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) revealed there were more than 1,100 unread emails in the council’s social work inbox “including 500 police reports”.
Julie Odams, the LGO’s chief executive, said the council needed to make “lasting changes” following this “inertia”.
In a scathing report the watchdog refers to a case where a resident, who was at risk of homelessness and had health issues, didn’t receive any help despite a friend reaching out – along with the emergency services – to the council.
The resident consequently “had a fall during a seizure” leaving him with “a life-changing injury”.
Odams 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.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Pippa Connor, the opposition group’s spokesperson for social care, said the findings were “absolutely shocking” and “utterly negligent”.
She said: “Haringey of all places should have failsafe measures in place when it comes to serious safeguarding issues like these. It seems inconceivable to me that managers were not aware of these longstanding issues prior to the ombudsman’s intervention.
“Apologies are no longer enough: we have heard ‘this must never happen again’ too many times before.”
Cllr Connor called for “senior officials and politicians” to explain what “robust monitoring processes” were “now in place” and “how this was allowed to happen”.
In response, 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.
“We should have responded more swiftly when concerns were raised about the neighbour’s health and vulnerability.
“A series of actions have already been undertaken to address the concerns raised about our handling of this case and we have cleared the backlog of unread emails highlighted in the report.
“We are approaching this with honesty, accountability, and a clear focus on improvement.
“The council is committed to learning from this case, and we are carrying out an independent review of our safeguarding arrangements to ensure that we are delivering the highest standards of care and support to our residents.”
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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IF this area were a focus of attention, then a case like this would not arise. No PR here, no glamour, no photo opportunities. In the circumstances, the LGO's description of "Inertia" is diplomatic. Meetings, meetings and more meetings. It is depressing that the council intends putting in place (another) action plan. It may even be called "robust". Do the priorities of the leadership not lie elsewhere?
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mahoney on
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This alone should cause the leadership to resign en masse.
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These are the current senior managers.
Will anyone take responsibility?
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Wider awareness of this: it has now reached the BBC News website, and is a news item on BBC Radio London's broadcasts.
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ONCE again, Haringey Council makes national headlines for all the wrong reasons.
No one is to blame; no one is responsible and no one is accountable. There will be no resignations.
In the run-up to local elections, the New Labour Government is unlikely to place any part of a New Labour Council into Special Measures.
Chronic council culture in 2025 is certain to continue.
One might be more confident that this would not happen again, if the public relations reaction contained less of the typical PR crisis/damage-limitation content.
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In January 2025, the council's bloated public relations team published—with typically over-mighty satisfaction—a notice of two key appointments.
It seems possible if not likely that the failures (LGO "inertia") occurred before these appointments, but some humility might have been in order.
At the foot of the corporate self-blandishment, it is unclear of the current council CEO said the following words, or if he merely approved them:
Haringey Council employ the largest—or among the largest—number of staff paid more than £100k among London councils.
From March 2024, pay at Grade HB3—that included the role of "Director of Adults, Health and Communities"—was a salary band of £165,000 to $170,000 with an Employers Pension Contribution of £36,992.
Also from March 2024, Grade HB1 pay for the then Assistant Director for Safeguarding and Social Care was in a salary band of £125,000 to £130,000 with Pension of £30,362 p.a.
Source: Haringey staff list with pay grades 2024
Haringey Council Senior Manager Pay scales
Haringey Council's April 2025 Pay Policy Statement
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There are serious questions about responsibility for the Council's inertia to ask, not only of the directors of Safeguarding and Social Care, Adult Social Care, and of Adults, Housing and Health, but also Cllr. Lucia das Neves as their political lead. On previous occasions when the Council has been found to be at fault, most recently in 2020 when Harringay ward councillor Zena Brabazon was sacked after the High Court ruled on failures in protecting two children from a convicted paedophile, the cabinet member responsible has resigned or been dismissed. Cllr Brabazon was reappointed lead for children, schools and families less than a year later by Peray Ahmet when she took over as Council Leader.
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Where are the managers in all this?
Is the council serving the public or its own staff?
Is there not a chronic tolerance of poor performance?
In a previous era, there might have been resignations.
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A noticeable feature of the press-reporting of the Ombudsman's investigation, is that there are no dates.
My own informal enquiries suggest that this appalling backlog may have been uncovered at least nine months ago.
If so, then the bombastic announcement ("two key appointments") dated 29 January 2025 was smug, cynical and poorly judged.
The CEO and/or the PR team would surely have known by then about the background of 1,100 unopened emails in Adult Social Care. Was the hope that no one would complain or find out?
Due to previous incompetence, council staff may now be going through the emails. They would appear to have the awkward task of approaching possibly at-risk or vulnerable Haringey residents, on the basis of sensitive—or time-sensitive—information received last year or earlier.
Some emails may no longer matter; others may warn of serious threats to Haringey residents that existed many months ago.
The leader might spare some urgent attention from Borough of Culture 2026 to Adult Social Care.
Questions need asking.
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ROTTEN BOROUGHS
Years ago, a former Labour politician suggested to me that the golden rule of local politics is to stay out of Private Eye magazine's Rotten Boroughs Column. Another long-time Labour supporter has just sent me a cutting from the latest issue of the Eye. Haringey is the leading local authority under the Rotten Boroughs column. Again.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson
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Your view of Cambridgeshire County Council (LibDem controlled) losing £63.8m on a £128m loan?
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