Wandsworth Council has approved £1.9 million of public money to kick off a sweeping internal transformation programme with ill-defined goals, precious few details and seemingly no accountability.
The decision, made at Monday’s Cabinet meeting, gives council executives the control and the money to hire external consultants to entirely redesign how the council operates while facing no accountability measures.
The program’s stated goal is to save money but the plan contains no information about what savings are expected or where they will come from – and the council has refused to supply them citing “commercial sensitivity”.
But worse than that: not only is the council planning to sell off assets to fund the program, its own finance documents show that it is relying on the program’s future cost savings to deal with a mounting debt crisis.
The only public detail is that the money will fund a four-month “discovery phase” – led by consultants – to “develop business cases” for future reforms, followed by a larger, undefined “implementation” stage.
The Medium Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) claims any savings will be “reflected in future budgets”, but makes no attempt to quantify them in even the broadest terms.
With no public oversight built into the process, no metrics to measure success by, and a worrying lack of detail about how the plan was developed or will be carried out, the program threatens to turn into a common council failing: millions spent on consultants to produce a plan that results in no real benefits or savings.
Wandsworth Council has recent form on this: over the summer, it quietly admitted that nearly £2m in “efficiency savings” budgeted into adult social care never materialised, resulting in the department overspending by £1.79m and forcing another raid on reserves.
“Agreed. Thank you.”
The proposal was passed in less than 20 seconds, without a single question or challenge from any Cabinet member.
Deputy Leader Cllr Akinola: “We’re being asked to approve the council’s Medium Term Financial Strategy, and approve the allocation of £1.9 million of the existing Financial Resilience Reserve to establish a new Transformation Programme. Agreed?”
Cabinet members: “Agreed.”
Chair: “Agreed, unanimously. Thank you.”
That was it.
A decision that grants council executives the power to restructure housing, social care, digital services, governance and more – all without further scrutiny – passed with total silence from elected councillors.
How much will be saved? Still no answer.
The transformation programme was tucked into the council’s updated MTFS as Appendix 2 in Paper No. 25-326 [pdf], which was provided separately to other papers and published just before the meeting. The £1.9 million will be taken from the Financial Resilience Reserve to fund the first phase of the work.
The report confirms that the money will go towards external consultants, predictive modelling, early intervention schemes, and establishing a new “programme management” function: all designed to lay the groundwork for future restructuring across major services.
But despite the scale of ambition, the 36-page strategy does not include a single estimate of what the work is expected to save. There are no public figures, no projections, no metrics or targets – and no guarantees that councillors, or residents, will ever see the business cases produced.
The MTFS suggests that benefits will be “reflected in future budgets” but those benefits remain entirely undefined.
Everything’s up for grabs — but no one’s saying who’s in charge
Appendix 2 lays out the true scope of the transformation work. It lists eight thematic areas the consultants will examine during the discovery phase:
- Housing, homelessness and rough sleeping
- Adult social care
- Children’s services
- Customer contact and digital access
- Support services (e.g. HR, Finance, Legal)
- Community and voluntary sector
- Public realm services
- Corporate core and governance
In other words, the entire structure of the council.
Even the way decisions are made, and by whom, is now part of the reform agenda.
Yet no details have been released on who will carry out the work, how they will be selected, or what kind of commercial arrangement is being used. The MTFS simply states that decisions will be made by the Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive, in consultation with the Finance Director.
Cabinet delegated authority in full with no requirement to bring any of it back for review.
Who’s delivering this? We still don’t know.
Putney.news revealed earlier this month that a redacted Procurement Board report confirmed plans to spend more than £1 million on consultants for this programme. That document made clear that work was imminent — but offered no transparency over who would be appointed or how.
The process for approving and appointing consultants is also unusually short – just 20 days – raising more red flags about what is going on behind the scenes.
But with Cabinet’s approval, officers can now move ahead entirely behind closed doors. No councillor raised the possibility that those who helped develop the strategy might now benefit from delivering it.
Given the scale of the remit and the council’s historic reliance on consultancy support, this lack of transparency is alarming.
Cabinet signs away its power
Perhaps most revealing is what didn’t happen.
There was no discussion about accountability or questions about oversight, and no interest in the projected value of the work. The paper was provided to Cabinet late, and there no debate about whether it’s appropriate to outsource such wide-ranging authority over core services.
While the paper mentions that transformation efforts will be “evidence-based”, no supporting evidence has been made public.
This is not shared governance. It’s centralised control – with a consultancy invoice attached.
We filed a FOI. You probably should too.
Putney.news submitted a Freedom of Information request earlier this month asking for basic details the public deserves to know:
- Who contributed to drafting the transformation strategy
- Whether any of those contributors are now in line to deliver the work
- What internal modelling was used to justify the cost
- What procurement process is being used
- Whether any conflicts of interest have been declared
The council has acknowledged receipt but has not responded.
These are questions councillors should have asked themselves — but didn’t. So we will.
If you’re concerned about how this money is being spent — or how this programme could affect services near you — get in touch: news@putney.news
