Haringey Council NRS Cyber Outage: Service Failures & Complaint LBH/15262224

Written by: Daniel McMorrow (dmcmorrow@mage-net.net)
Formal Complaint Status
Stage Submitted Acknowledged Response Due Response Actual
Stage One (2 days late)
Stage Two — (45 days [from Escalation])

Background

I have said time and time again, Haringey Council have a nonchalant attitude towards residents who need extra support and residents who raise concerns/complaints. It is important to note at no point did anyone from Haringey Council speak with me to understand the complaint or the problems it is causing. This complaint was about the Councils equipment provider NRS being completely unavailable. NRS had been the victim of a cyber attack. This had effectively taken them down andAs a result residents with equipment had
  • No Backup
  • No Support
  • No 24x7/Emergency Cover
My personally experience of this is been woken up at 3am due the air-pump for my air-mattress constantly beeping. In that scenario 24x7 Emergency support is critical. It was reported on

Haringey Council

Twitter feed at

Acknowledgment

The complaint was acknowledged by Christabela Wijesundera.

The acknowledgment refers vaguely to an appropriate officer without identifying who they could be, making it impossible to verify their remit or competence.


The acknowledgement fails to clarify whether this was handled under the ASC complaints procedure.

Acknowledgment Date Show Discussion

This date is outside of the day window. It was later clarified. Haringey Council had addopted the new the Housing Ombudsman and LGO complaint handling code from the

This code changes the day response window, from the date the complaint was made to the date the complaint was acknowledged
The relevant officers and Lead Members were briefed during the consultation period before the finalised code was published in Feb 2024.
The relevant officers May have been 'briefed' but the residents of Haringey had not. The complaint policy is for residents not relevant officers the

Haringey Council

Website remains ambiguous
within 10 working days
A reasonable person could take 
'... within 10 working days'
as days from the date the complaint was made. However I had no real method of challenging the so I had to accept it.

Response Stage One: Show Discussion

- Late

This response is LATE. It required myself to chase multiply times in multiply ways. It is important to note that at no point did anyone from Haringey Council

speak with me to understand the complaint or the diffiulties it causing.

- Adult Scrutiny Panel

Dealing with the Adult Scrutiny Panel has proven to be an exercise in futility—they are slow, ineffective, and provide zero accountability. I have repeatedly raised the issue of Adult Social Care using the incorrect complaints procedure template, but the panel has refused to address it. In response to my email on 13 May, Councillor Pippa Connor doubled down on the stance that "Any individual concerns do need to go through the complaints process...", entirely dismissing the fact that Adult Social Care is failing to follow proper procedure regarding complaints. Furthermore, despite reaching out to my three Woodside ward councillors on 26 April 2024 for assistance, I have received no support—even though two of them (Thayahlan Iyngkaran & Lucia Das Neves) sit on this scrutiny panel.

- Woodside Ward / Councillors

I have the misfortune of being in the Woodside Ward, within Haringey. We have 3 ward Councillors. Thayahlan Iyngkaran,Lotte Collett,Das Neves Lucia I received the response at . At I asked my 3 ward Councillors to call me urgently. To date... NOTHING!

- Wrong Template

This issue seems to be a personal attack from Vicky Murphy (Service Director & Deputy DASS Adults, Health and Communities) She has consistently responded and provided the wrong escalation procedure and has an extremely large percentage of late responses. The wrong template issue is with the LGOSCO. My personal view is she should be remove from her role and never be is a position of responsible for vulnerable people again. The Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee have refused to deal with the issue of the wrong template citing it as an individual complaint and they are unable assist.

Response Stage Two: Show Discussion

This was an unnecessary stage. Any involvment with equipment for disability reasons is a clear function of Adult Social Care.

- Date

The stage two request was made Submitted and not acknowledged utill 12 working days later. The Acknowledged advise a Response would be made by Between and 15 Working days. Between and 26 Working days. In the stage two response they Assert.
and then 20 working days from the date of acknowledgement.
These assertion are just not supported by the facts. Especially the last sentence

- Late

If we forget the Response Due Date fiasco and Accept the Response Due Date as being Response Due Date as being
In the stage two response they Assert.
These assertion are just not supported by the facts. I responded to the stage two acknowledgement on I was not till that we find out the invesgator assigned to the complaint has been on leave. The coup de grâce on 5 June 24 you emailed me to state you had just got back off leave. So you’re late because you’ve had inadequate time.

- I'm Good...BUT.

In the stage two response they Assert.

These assertion are just not supported by the facts. If the complaint was made on how in flying fudge could I have discussed The complaint on the ? The more logical explnation is the phone call on the failed to resolve my concerns, so I raised a complaint.

- Out of Hours.

In the stage two response they Assert.
provided you with alternative methods of contact.
These assertion are just not supported by the facts. However reading the above makes the stage one response make sense. This is partly true. The indvidual who contacted me on did offer alternative contact email addresses but
  • I already had these
  • NRSs systems where down this included phonelines and EMAIL. Giving me @nrs addresses is a clear indcation you don't understand the issue
As at no point did anyone from Haringey Council speak with me to understand the complaint or the problems it is causing. They have assumed the number was their out-of-hours number. When In relatity it was number for NRS.

- as effective as a chocolate teapot

In the stage two response they Assert.
.

These assertion are just not supported by the facts. The only thing Vicky Murphy (Service Director for Adult Social Services) needs is a p45. Fortunately in another Complaint the LGOSCO found that four of eight complaints used the incorrect template (and offered me an escalation when they should not have done)
That's a 50% failure rate by a DIRECTOR just with me. The Website remains ambiguous

Email, Tweets and SMS

Between and I have sent.... Kirsten Webb (Feedback & Resolutions Manager ) 20 Sent. 1 Reply. Any extemaly poor excuse/response.
Andy Donald (Chief Executive) 22 sent. 0 Replies
Vicky Murphy (Service Director for Adult Social Services) 19 Sent. 0 Replies
Three Woodside ward Councillors Thayahlan Iyngkaran,Lotte Collett & Das Neves Lucia 12 Sent each. 0 Replies each.

Notification Letter

Haringey Council finally advised service users of the service disruption on 11 April 2024—nearly two weeks after the Easter bank holiday cyber incident began. The letter was written by Beverley Tarka (Director of Adults, Health and Communities), someone who clearly lacks experience of needing this type of equipment due to illness or disability. The language used and processes described are unworkable, and serve as clear examples of indifference on the part of Haringey Council.

Key Deficiencies Identified in the Council's Notification

  • Inadequate Escalation for a 24/7 Service: Directs users with urgent issues to standard-hours prescribers or an email address (urgent@nrshealthcare.co.uk), leaving evenings and weekends unstaffed and offering no viable pathway for critical, round-the-clock equipment breakdowns.
  • Unacceptable Communication Delay: Dispatched on , nearly two weeks after the cyber incident began over the Easter bank holiday weekend ( to ), exposing vulnerable users to prolonged unnotified downtime.
  • Contradictory and Vague Contact Details: Suggests calling phone numbers located on equipment while simultaneously stating only "some" lines are working, providing no clear list of operational contact routes.
  • Digital Exclusion: Relies heavily on online FAQs and structured emails, disregarding disabled and vulnerable service users who do not have digital literacy, active devices, or internet access during an emergency.
  • Failure to Address Data Breach Safeguards: Frames the cyber event strictly as service disruption while remaining silent on personal data exfiltration risks or safeguarding measures against phishing and impersonation.
  • Impersonal Drafting: Opens with a generic salutation ("Dear Haringey Resident") despite being mailed to a named individual, and ends carelessly with "Kind Regards/Yours Sincerely".

Ombudsman

I officaly contacted Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman on

Ombudsman ended their investigation on

They refused on

Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council communicated with service users following a cyber-attack. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

— Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman [Ombudsman]

Read the Local Government Ombudsman Decision

Impact

Following the LGSCO’s decision not to investigate, Haringey Council’s procedural and statutory failings under complaint LBH/15262224 remain entirely unremedied, leaving systemic administrative errors unaddressed and me without formal redress.



By declining to intervene, the Ombudsman effectively endorsed an environment where statutory non-compliance carries no regulatory consequences.

As a direct result of this abdication of oversight, the Council has been emboldened to continue the same conduct—perpetuating a cycle of administrative evasion and unaccountability free from independent scrutiny.