New Freedom of Information figures reveal ten Lambeth councillors handled 43% of the borough’s resident casework over the past four years.
The data, released by Lambeth Council, records every member enquiry raised by councillors between May 2022 and May 2026.
These are cases submitted on behalf of residents covering issues such as housing, repairs, antisocial behaviour, parking, and council services.
The 24,000 cases submitted during this period were shared unequally between councillors, however.
The ten busiest councillors handled 10,351 cases between them, while the bottom ten handled only 383.
The councillor who by far handled to most cases was former Knight’s Hill councillor Jackie Meldrum, who handled 1,706 cases – more than the bottom 34 councillors combined.
Following her was Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction’s Deepak Sardiwal, with 1,397, and former council leader Claire Holland with 1,306.
The figures also expose a political pattern. During the recent local elections on 7 May, the Green Party won 29 of the 63 council seats, putting an end to two decades of Labour control.
Several of Labour’s busiest caseworkers lost their seats in the win.
Four of the five heaviest caseworkers who stood for re-election were defeated: Meldrum, Sardiwal, Alison Inglis-Hones, Regina Chowdhury, and Sarbaz Barznji.
The data shows the councillors who lost in May had, on average, handled more cases than those who were re-elected.
Defeated councillors dealt with an average of 538 recorded cases, compared with only 333 for those who returned to Lambeth Council.
Evidently, high casework completion did not guarantee surviving the elections.
Many of Labour’s most active caseworkers represented wards that became key Green targets, including Knight’s Hill, Herne Hill and Loughborough Junction.
The new Green-led council, headed by Martin Abrams, inherits that workload. Cllr Abrams himself, an ex-Labour member turned Green, was ranked 20th on the casework table, with 428 cases.
The test will now be whether the relevant Lambeth wards residents will see the impact of this change in leadership.
Feature Image Credit: DeFacto, Wikimedia Commons
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