London Borough of Camden
Complaint overview
Between 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we dealt with 145 complaints. Of these, 68 were not for us or not ready for us to investigate. We assessed and closed 57 complaints. We investigated 20 complaints.
More about this data
Complaints dealt with – the total number of complaints and enquiries considered. It is not appropriate to investigate all of them.
Not for us – includes complaints brought to us before the council was given chance to consider it, or the complainant came to the wrong Ombudsman.
Assessed and closed – includes complaints where the law says we’re not allowed to investigate, or it would be a poor use of public funds if we did.
Investigated – we completed an investigation and made a decision on whether we found fault, or no fault.
Complaints upheld – we completed an investigation and found evidence of fault, or the organisation provided a suitable remedy early on.
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council – the council upheld the complaint and we agreed with how it offered to put things right.
Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations – not complying with our recommendations is rare. A council with a compliance rate below 100% should scrutinise the complaints where it failed to comply and identify any learning.
Average performance rates – we compare the annual statistics of similar types of councils to work out an average level of performance. We do this for County Councils, District Councils, Metropolitan Boroughs, Unitary Councils, and London Boroughs.
For more information on understanding our statistics see Interpreting our complaints data.
Complaints dealt with
Not for us
Assessed and closed
Investigated
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Complaints upheld
We investigated 20 complaints and upheld 18.
90% of complaints we investigated were upheld.
This compares to an average of 84% in similar authorities.
View upheld decisionsAdjusted for London Borough of Camden's population, this is 8.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents.
The average for authorities of this type is
9.1 upheld decisions per 100,000 residents. -
Satisfactory remedies provided by the Council
In 2 out of 18 upheld cases we found the Council had provided a satisfactory remedy before the complaint reached the Ombudsman.
11% satisfactory remedy rate.
This compares to an average of 12% in similar authorities.
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Compliance with Ombudsman recommendations
We recorded compliance outcomes in 18 cases.
In 18 cases we were satisfied with the actions taken.100% compliance rate with recommendations.
This compares to an average of 100% in similar authorities.
Annual letters
We write to councils each year to give a summary of the complaint statistics we record about them,
and their performance in responding to our investigations.
Reports
The Ombudsman has published the following reports against London Borough of Camden
Find out more about reports
We issue reports on certain investigations, particularly where there is a wider public interest to do so. Common reasons for reports are significant injustice, systemic issues, major learning points and non-compliance with our recommendations. Issuing reports is one way we help to ensure councils are accountable to local people and highlighting the learning from complaints helps to improve services for everybody. Reports are published for 10 years.
London council set to learn from how it handled COVID business grants
Camden Council has agreed to reconsider how it will deal with businesses that missed out on COVID grants following an investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
Camden’s poor complaint response prompts further Ombudsman investigation
London Borough of Camden failed to carry out a recommendation to apologise to a man for its poor handling of a complaint, until the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman chased it for a response.
Service improvements
The Council has agreed to make the following improvements to its services following an Ombudsman investigation.
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.
The latest 10 cases are listed below – click ‘view all’ to find all service improvements.
Case reference: 25 014 016
Category: Children's care services
Sub Category: Other
- The Council will consider the range of people who may be appointed to undertake stage 2 statutory complaint investigations, as summarised in paragraph 3.6.4 and Annex 1 of the statutory guidance, Getting the best from complaints. The Council will also consider the actions it will take to expand the pool of investigators it can call upon to consider statutory complaints.
Case reference: 25 005 458
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council will identify what changes it needs to make to its computer system to allow housing officers to record their rationale of whether homelessness accommodation it provides is suitable for the homeless applicant's needs. The Council will tell the Ombudsman what those changes will be and when it intends to complete them by.
Case reference: 24 018 819
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Assessment and care plan
- The Council will remind officers dealing with complaints of the need to follow the timescales set out in the Council’s complaints procedure and to ensure complaint responses cover all the issues raised.
- The Council will put in place a process to manage/monitor request for care assessments so urgent cases are prioritised and cases are not left to drift.
- The Council will carry out a training session for those completing adult social care assessments to cover the interplay between adult social care and children’s services and the circumstances in which a combined assessment might be appropriate.
Case reference: 24 015 570
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- •ensure thorough investigations of recurring disrepairs are completed and resolved in a timely manner
- •remind relevant staff of the importance of ensuring all disrepair issues have been resolved before the case is closed on the Council’s system
- •by training or other means, remind relevant staff of the Council’s duty to keep the suitability of applicants’ temporary accommodation under review.
Case reference: 24 015 121
Category: Education
Sub Category: Special educational needs
- The Council will complete service improvement actions offered in the Council’s final complaint response of October 2025 listed in paragraph 37c) of this decision.
- The Council will review its complaint handling process to ensure timeliness of the Council’s responses.
Case reference: 24 009 936
Category: Environment and regulation
Sub Category: Antisocial behaviour
- The Council agreed that it would revise its current policy for responding to reports of Anti Social Behaviour to address three current omissions. First, that the policy does not explain how it will respond to reports of ASB where the alleged perpetrator is a social landlord tenant. Second, that the policy does not explain what enforcement powers the Council has to deal with ASB. Third, it does not explain the role or purpose of Community Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Meetings (CMARAC), which consider certain complex cases of ASB involving vulnerable victims or perpetrators of ASB.
- The Council also agreed to brief staff who regularly attend ASB Case Reviews or CMARAC meetings on behalf of the Council to emphasise key learning points from this complaint. That such meetings should aim to ensure there is clarity about the nature of reports of ASB, steps taken so far to investigate those reports and why agencies have not taken enforcement action to date.
Case reference: 24 009 776
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- To ensure, by training or other means, the relevant staff are clear about the difference between the prevention and relief duties when it accepts a duty. The decision letters must clearly state which duty has been accepted.
Case reference: 24 001 962
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Homelessness
- The Council will send a memo to officers dealing with homeless applicants in temporary accommodation to remind them of:the need to ensure applicants are informed of their review and appeal rights;the need to complete a suitability review if a person in temporary accommodation raises concerns about the suitability of it; andwhen the Council accepts temporary accommodation is unsuitable it needs to arrange alternative accommodation immediately rather than just try to do so or wait until something suitable becomes available.
- The Council will put in place a process to ensure management of those cases where a homeless applicant has been placed in unsuitable temporary accommodation to ensure alternative temporary accommodation is promptly sought.
- The Council will remind officers dealing with medical assessments of the need to ensure a formal decision is issued with review rights and that those decisions should ensure all the information the applicant has provided is taken into account.
Case reference: 24 011 470
Category: Adult care services
Sub Category: Disabled facilities grants
- The Council should draft and circulate guidance to all relevant staff dealing with Disabled Facilities Grants about the works that may be considered under a grant and the tests that should be considered when deciding on eligibility
Case reference: 24 005 110
Category: Housing
Sub Category: Allocations
- The Council agreed to produce an action plan for addressing the backlog of medical priority assessments and reviews. This should set out time-limited targets for how the Council will reduce the backlogs and include arrangements for the plan to be monitored by a suitably senior council officer.
- The Council agreed to share my findings about the Council’s complaints handling with staff responsible for responding to housing complaints and remind them they:should address the key points raised by complainants; and where they find further action by the Council is necessary, ensure these actions are effective and are implemented.
Last updated: 4 April 2015