Wandsworth Council has still not implemented key recommendations for how elections are run, 15 months after an embarrassing failure in the General Election left 6,500 votes uncounted.
Councillors aren’t helping either – even though they are all up for re-election in just six months using the same counting systems that failed.
At a meeting this week, councillors asked detailed technical questions about safeguards for May’s local elections, where their own seats will be decided. But no one challenged why internal audit involvement is still in “discussion” phase 15 months later, or why improvements to communications were simply marked as “noted” with no action described.
Council officers – whose actions in 2024 had necessitated the review in the first place – recommended the committee simply “note” the update, a procedural designation that discourages scrutiny. The committee followed that recommendation unanimously.
What happened at the meeting
The General Purposes Committee received an update on implementing recommendations from Andrew Maughan’s independent review [pdf] into the July 2024 election count error.
Councillors from all parties asked forward-looking questions about technical safeguards for May 2026:
Cllr Angela Ireland, Labour’s Cabinet Member for Finance, asked specifically about spreadsheet protections: “It would be reassuring that simple things like making sure the cells can only accept whole numbers and that the columns crosscast the row and there’s like a checksum so that the totals equal the number of bits of paper that came out.”
Cllr Sara Apps (Labour) used a cycling accident analogy to ask whether the focus on count accuracy was causing other election day risks to be neglected.
Cllr Lynsey Hedges (Conservative) asked about long-term polling station accessibility strategy.
Electoral Services officer Mr Smith provided substantive, specific answers about the technical safeguards being implemented for May 2026.
What didn’t happen
However, no councillor from any party challenged the gaps in the implementation update itself.
No one asked why internal audit involvement is still in “discussion” phase 15 months after Maughan recommended it. No one questioned what “noted” actually means for communications improvements when Maughan had detailed serious communication failures.
No one pressed on whether Finance “reviewing” spreadsheets is the same as Finance “leading creation” as Maughan recommended, or why benchmarking compared Wandsworth to councils doing it “similarly” rather than better.
The committee voted unanimously to “note” the update.
Eight recommendations – four still incomplete
Maughan made eight specific recommendations [pdf]. This is the current status of each:
| Recommendation | Advice + response | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Resources & benchmarking | Consider resourcing and compare with similar councils. Wandsworth benchmarked 10 London boroughs “all of which run counts in very similar way to us already.” | PARTIAL – Compared to councils doing it similarly, not better |
| 2. Finance leads spreadsheet creation | Finance should “lead on the creation of spreadsheets.” Wandsworth says Finance “will review and add further reassurance once these are completed.” | INCOMPLETE – Changed from “lead creation” to “review after” |
| 3. Design with double-checking | Multiple individuals should share responsibility with checks built in. Wandsworth says Finance will review once completed. | INCOMPLETE – Review after completion, not shared responsibility |
| 4. Declare total votes cast | Include overall votes in declaration. Wandsworth says “this will be done as a matter of course.” | DONE |
| 5. Announce rejected vote categories | Publicly declare categories of rejected votes. Wandsworth says “will revert to doing so.” | DONE |
| 6. Share figures with candidates | Provide verification figures to candidates during count. Wandsworth says figures “will now be produced automatically.” | DONE |
| 7. Internal audit review | Involve internal audit to review processes and controls. Wandsworth says “a discussion with Internal Audit on how they can best assist with this work is underway.” | NOT DONE – Still in “discussion” after 15 months |
| 8. Better communications | Communicate comprehensively and early with all stakeholders. Wandsworth’s response: “Noted.” | NOT DONE – No implementation described |
The simple procedural fixes – declaring totals, announcing rejected votes, sharing figures – have been implemented. The systemic accountability measures remain incomplete or diluted.
What went wrong in July 2024
The recommendations stem from a catastrophic error at the July 2024 UK Parliamentary General Election count for Putney constituency.
A spreadsheet formula excluded one entire counting team’s results – over 6,500 votes from Wandsworth Town ward, where the council building is located. While all votes were counted, they weren’t included in the totals declared on election night.
The winner was correctly identified, but in a tighter race the missing votes could have changed the result. It was a fundamental breakdown in democratic process – thousands of votes counted but not included in the declared outcome.
The error made national news and prompted council chief executive Mike Jackson to commission Andrew Maughan, Borough Solicitor at Camden Council, to conduct an independent review.
Maughan’s September 2024 report identified the root cause as “a lack of resource being directed to the process” rather than simply a faulty spreadsheet. He found the system had “a single point of failure” with election manager Andrew Smith working 20 hours straight with no one else able to spot the error.
Excel itself had flagged the formula error with a warning marker, but no one checked.
The communications gap
Recommendation 8 addressed what Maughan identified as serious failures in how the council communicated about the error once discovered. His report detailed how officers delayed telling councillors while waiting for legal advice, failed to publish a holding statement with the corrected results, and were “overtaken by events.”
Maughan wrote that communications “should have been more comprehensive” and stressed “the need to communicate with all those with a legitimate interest including the media.”
The council’s response to this detailed criticism: “Noted.”
The pattern continues: officers criticised for poor communication in 2024 have now presented an update that limits transparency by recommending councillors simply “note” it rather than scrutinise it.
What happens next
The May 2026 local elections will be the first test of the new safeguards. All 58 Wandsworth councillors face voters, with their results determined by the same counting processes that failed in July 2024.
The council’s update states that spreadsheets “cannot be finalised until after close of nominations.” However, nothing prevents the entire counting system being built, tested and verified using placeholder candidate names, then having a single final check once actual nominations are known – avoiding the compressed testing timeline that contributed to the original error.
The Finance team review is promised “once these are completed” but no specific timeline before May 2026 is provided.
The internal audit review that Maughan recommended 15 months ago to examine “what went wrong” remains in the “discussion” phase.
Wandsworth Council was contacted for comment.
Accountability Statement
We contacted: Wandsworth Council press office.
Request sent: 4 December 2025
Wandsworth Council
Press Office
Status: No response received.
Questions asked (click to expand)
When will Finance team review of May 2026 spreadsheets be completed?
Why is internal audit involvement still in “discussion” phase 15 months after Maughan recommended it?
What communications improvements have been implemented under Recommendation 8 (currently listed as “Noted”)?
Is Finance leading creation of election spreadsheets or reviewing after Elections staff complete them?
Why can’t the counting system be tested with placeholder candidate names before nominations close?
