The local government watchdog has criticised Redbridge for the second year in a row for hindering its investigations into residents’ complaints.

Each summer, the independent Local Government Ombudsman (LGO), which handles the final stage of complaints about councils, writes an annual review letter summarising each council’s performance.

For two years in a row, the LGO has urged the Redbridge’s chief executive to reply to ombudsman investigators in a more “timely way” and to stop providing “incomplete responses”.

Last year the council had to be threatened with a witness summons before it would send investigators information about one case.

LGO chair Michael King said: “I will usually only consider a witness summons where the council has not provided a response after considerable time and despite our continued efforts.”

King added that the council’s complaint handling had “fallen below the standards we expect” and that the delays showed the council suffered from of “corporate, systemic issues”.

This year, the ombudsman’s annual letter reminded new chief executive Claire Symonds of last year’s issues.

He added: “It is disappointing to again report concerns about your council’s responses to our enquiries.”

The LGO noted that in the past year it took the unusual step of publishing a detailed report on Redbridge’s failure to carry out a proper annual review of an autistic and learning disabled man’s education, health and care plan.

It did so because of the council’s “unwillingness” to accept the findings or recommendations.

In response, a Redbridge Council spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the “crucial point” is that it always responds to the ombudsman but accepted there is “room for improvement”.

They added: “We’re actively working on this and we now have a range of measures to ensure the timeliness of responses getting to the ombudsman.  

“There has been progress in this area and we’re confident we will improve on this over the next year.”

Annual statistics in the letter show the LGO upheld 26 of the 36 complaints that residents escalated after reaching the council’s third stage of complaints.

This is compared to 31 of 42 investigated complaints upheld in Newham and 14 of 22 in Waltham Forest.

Redbridge’s spokesperson said the council has seen a 33% increase in stage one complaints in the last year, reaching a total of 1,730.

Unhappy residents escalated only 11% of those complaints to stage two.