🏛️ A Treatise on Institutional Negligence: A Formal Appeal to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Date: 10 March 2025
To: Complaints Team, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Address: PO Box 4771, Coventry, CV4 0EH
🎩 Dear Sir or Madam,
I write to you not merely as a concerned citizen, but as an individual compelled — regrettably yet unavoidably — to illuminate the full breadth of dereliction, discrimination, and administrative decay suffered at the hands of Westminster City Council and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC).
My submission to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman seeks formal redress for conduct that has been not only negligent, but wholly incompatible with the standards of lawful governance in a civilised society.
📜 I. Catalogue of Institutional Failings
The conduct of multiple local government departments has been, in a word, indefensible. In particular:
Westminster and RBKC Social Services, whose operatives initiated baseless interventions while wilfully disregarding my documented disabilities and statutory requests for reasonable adjustments.
RBKC Environmental Health, which despite numerous formal complaints, abjectly failed to investigate or address the presence of toxic sewer gas at my former residence — a matter of public health, not mere private inconvenience.
Westminster City Council, which declined to provide even the most elementary support services under the Equality Act 2010, preferring procedural inertia to lawful obligation.
⚖️ II. Breaches of Statutory and Ethical Obligations
The failures detailed above constitute violations of numerous legislative frameworks, including but by no means limited to:
The Local Government Act 1974, mandating investigation of complaints and delivery of fair public administration — standards left conspicuously unmet.
The Equality Act 2010 (Section 20), wherein the duty to make reasonable adjustments was not merely neglected, but dismissed with visible disdain.
The Housing Act 2004, imposing obligations to rectify habitability risks — obligations your authorities treated as suggestions, not statutes.
🩺 III. Consequences of Neglect
As a direct and foreseeable consequence of these cascading institutional failures, I have endured:
Significant physical deterioration, resulting from prolonged exposure to an uninhabitable and toxic environment.
Persistent emotional distress, caused by unjustified and intrusive social service interventions, more concerned with spectacle than substance.
Financial hardship, necessitated by an emergency relocation no person — let alone a medically vulnerable parent — should ever be forced to self-finance.
🛠️ IV. Remedies Requested of the Ombudsman
I respectfully request that the Ombudsman:
Conduct a comprehensive investigation into RBKC and Westminster’s sustained failures to meet statutory responsibilities.
Mandate immediate and enforceable corrective measures to prevent recurrence.
Require mandatory disability competence training for all relevant personnel, to combat the evident illiteracy regarding protected rights.
Recommend formal redress, including financial compensation proportionate to the gravity of harm inflicted.
🖋️ V. Conclusion and Anticipated Response
It is with considerable disappointment — though not, alas, with surprise — that I must pursue external recourse, having exhausted all internal avenues.
I therefore request a formal response within 28 calendar days, outlining the Ombudsman’s intended course of action.
Should satisfactory redress not be forthcoming, I shall pursue legal action under the Equality Act 2010 and for negligence under public law principles.
Please confirm receipt of this correspondence and advise accordingly.
Yours faithfully,
Polly