Haringey sorry for 1,100 unread social work emails

The council admitted there were hundreds of unread welfare reports

A north London council has been told it needs to make "lasting changes" after it admitted it had hundreds of unread welfare reports.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGO) revealed there were more than 1,100 unread emails in Haringey Council's social work inbox "including 500 police reports".

The death of a child, known as Baby P, in Haringey in 2007 saw the council heavily criticised over safeguarding failures.

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."

'Shocking case'

In its report the LGO referred to a case where a resident at risk of homelessness and who had health issues did not receive any help.

A friend and the emergency services had both contacted the council about the vulnerable adult but the man was not helped.

He later "had a fall during a seizure" leaving him with "a life-changing injury", according to the LGO report.

Julie Odams, the LGO's chief executive, said: "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."

She added: "I hope this shocking case will spur the council into making lasting changes which will benefit other vulnerable people in the borough."

'Cleared the backlog'

Cllr das Neves admitted the council should have responded more swiftly when concerns were raised about the resident's health and vulnerability, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

She said: "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."

But the opposition party on Haringey Council said the findings were "absolutely shocking" and "utterly negligent".

Cllr Pippa Connor, Lib Dem spokesperson for social care, said: "Haringey, of all places, should have fail-safe 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."

An official report in 2010 into the death of Baby P said the case exposed "the incompetence of almost every member of staff who came into contact with him".

Peter Connelly died in August 2007 at home after months of abuse.

His mother, her boyfriend and a lodger were jailed for causing or allowing Peter's death.

The 17-month-old boy had suffered more than 50 injuries, and had been visited 60 times by the authorities in the eight months before his death.