More than £12,000 was paid out in compensation by Wandsworth Council following complaints by residents about the authority’s behaviour.

In one case, the council was told to hand over £1,500 to a social housing resident, who complained he was being forced to live in “a property which was uninhabitable”.

The details were published last week by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) in an annual report for 2009/10, which revealed 110 complaints and enquiries were received in that 12-month period.

Housing was the most controversial service area, picking up 38 comments - 19 were about transport and highways, nine about public finance and eight about planning and building control, among others.

In another case, a pensioner complained after the council ignored its own guidelines and launched bankruptcy proceedings against the elderly resident over a tax matter.

But a subsequent investigation by the LGO criticised the council for its handling of the pensioner, and ordered it to annul the bankruptcy order and the accompanying £250 fee.

One resident received £6,225 and a further £1,000 compensation after the LGO deemed the authority had failed to pay all the tenant’s housing benefit.

The council also came under fire for “delaying” work to resolve damp and mould in a complainant’s property for five months and for failing to make an appointment to deal with a rodent problem reported by a different complainant. In both cases the authority was made to pay out £150 compensation.

Jane Martin, Wandsworth’s ombudsman, said: “Effective local authorities understand the need to learn from complaints as part of corporate quality assurance and performance management, so I hope the LGO annual review will be presented to officers and members as part of these processes.”

A council spokesman said: “Where we have made mistakes we have taken steps to tighten up our procedures and ensure that errors of this kind do not happen again.

“We are committed to continually improving our services and are pleased to see a drop in the total number of complaints which remains well below the London average.”

• What do you think? Let us know by emailing imason@london.newsquest.co.uk, phone the newsdesk on 020 8330 9533 or leave a comment below.