Haringey has been named as England's 'most rotten' borough.
Yesterday, The Standard reported that, per 100,000 of population in Haringey, there were 20 upheld, formal Complaints.
This, on the basis of data from the Local Government Ombudsman.
This is the second year running that the London Borough of Culture 2027 has secured the top place for the number of Complaints upheld by the Ombudsman.
The previous leadership was a menace to public money. They (we) made multi-million pound losses on municipal property wheeling-and-dealing. The current leadership has since failed to get a robust grip on finances.
Are any residents surprised?
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Not that surprised. Imagine if everyone found the time to complain - they wouldn't be knocked off their perch for quite some years
Yes I think that's the sad reality. Most people don't even bother complaining because they have given up. I thought all London boroughs were like this but apparently this one leads the pack
Most people don't even bother complaining
10 years ago when the council started hiring out Finsbury Park over the summer, there were more complaints than there are now. The council's PR-spin machine claim that this reflects increasing satisfaction with their noisy gigs, or at least decreasing dissatisfaction as it were.
The more likely explanation is that those residents who have rung in to complain in previous years, have experienced no answer, or the phone picked up after a long wait and/or an answer that is empty.
The authors of the Major Events policy are content with their policy. Because they have a financial interest in the business and control …
… Haringey Council have no interest in residents' complaints about the park rentals and are in a strong position to disregard concerns. By and large, our local council lacks capability in putting its own house in order:
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This also serves to underline the value of complaining to an outside body,
i.e. the Local Government Ombudsman LGO (although one must first complain to the local council and having not obtained satisfaction).
Adjusted for Borough populations, the number of complaints about Haringey Council that were upheld by the LGO rank No.1 in the country. For the second year running.
I don't know, I daresay as a former resident that Tower Hamlets might well fancy giving Haringey a run for its money!
TOWER Hamlets does have a poor record:
That local authority had 13.1 upheld Decisions upheld per 100,000 residents, which is 44% above the average of 9.1 for authorities of this type:
However, no other local authority in the country compares with Haringey.
On the same statistical basis as above (for authorities of this type), and prepared by the independent Ombudsman, there were 20.2 upheld Complaints.
20.2 is more than double the average for authorities of the same type as Tower Hamlets.
Haringey's rotten record is recognised in the current issue of Private Eye:
Do the Ombudsman's objective statistics not reflect a systemic problem at our council?
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That’s terrible.
What is your view on three of the LibDems’ four London authorities having a higher proportion of complaints upheld by the Ombudsman than Haringey?
And also how many London authorities are there? And so on...
I think there’s a problem with this - it is based on the number of complaints. One person could make 262 (or whatever the figure is) complaints and it would be ‘the worst borough’. Even if it is 262 different people, maybe it’s just that we have more active complainers, which is fair enough but not much of a criteria for being the worst. This is flimsy and a tricky used of statistics. Haringey has its faults but is it really worse than everywhere else? I, for one, live living here
THE claim is based on neither "complaints" per se, nor on the raw number of complaints.
Can I invite you to read the linked article, which is about LGO-upheld complaints, adjusted for population?
It is based on the Complaints that are upheld by the Local Government Ombudsman.
Anyone who has complained to the LGO about their council's conduct knows that, due to the sheer number of Complaints they receive, the LGO sift out only a fraction for investigation. Typically they use the criterion of, has the Complainant been personally affected by a council decision (normally, monetarily).
This is not a fast or a rubber-stamp process. Complaints upheld after LGO-investigation is therefore a good measure of the pain that councils sometimes inflict on their residents.
The number of complaints that the LGO upheld, was then adjusted (pro rata) to the population of the Borough.
And the proportion upheld is higher in 75% of LibDem London authorities than in Haringey. I am not saying that people do not have just cause to complain in Haringey, just that the same criticism should be levelled in other boroughs that are failing their residents otherwise it just stinks of party politics.
Michael Anderson, my poor eyesight and endless distracting popups on the wretched Windows 11 means I'm unable to use the link you gave to check whether you or Clive Carter are right about the basic issue. It would appear that one of you has made an error. Mutual civility is the obvious way for the two of you to resolve it without rancour.
Dick Harris (below) is surely also right about the unnecessary "rotten borough" label. It was fun in Dickens Pickwick Papers. But it's now several years since Haringey Council suffered from rotten property dealings. And incidentally, Clive Carter was one of the good guys who tried to expose these. Including getting himself invited into and taking a video of an empty factory in Enfield which cost our borough substantial sums. The current councillors are those who had to clean up the mess.
Also to be fair to Clive Carter he actually won a tribunal appeal on his last Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request. I'm a fan of FOI. Hopefully the new Borough councillors who are elected next May will value that power. And also value the openness and accountability promised by Haringey's Constitution document.
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Should anyone every draw it to their attention.
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