The government has told Wandsworth its council tax must rise by 34% next year. That is not a threat, a projection, or an opposition claim. It is published government policy, confirmed in Wandsworth’s own Cabinet papers and approved at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting after less than six minutes of discussion.
Wandsworth Council leader Simon Hogg says he will not let it happen. His own papers [pdf] show the council will run out of money within two years if he keeps that promise. There is an election in May.
Last April, Hogg’s administration sent a leaflet to every home in the borough claiming it had frozen council tax when bills had gone up by 2%. The BBC exposed it. There was no apology. This pledge is bigger.
What the government has done
The government has cut Wandsworth’s funding and told the council it must raise taxes locally to compensate. This is not a request. The government has already removed the funding on the assumption Wandsworth would raise it. If Hogg refuses, the money does not come back. The gap gets larger.
One number explains the mechanism: £150. The government has assumed Wandsworth will add a flat £150 per year on top of its normal annual rise in both 2027 and 2028. On a current bill of £525, that single addition produces the 34% jump. The year after adds another 26%. By 2030, the government’s own model shows Wandsworth council tax rising from £500 to £930. A near-doubling in four years.
To make those rises possible, the government has also suspended the normal rule requiring a public referendum for any rise above 5%. Wandsworth is one of only six councils in England given this treatment. Hogg can raise council tax by 34% without asking residents to vote on it. The government has given him that power because it expects him to use it.
How it got this bad in December
The council tracked the funding settlement through the autumn, running a lobbying campaign to protect its position. Four iterations of the numbers exist in its own Cabinet paper, showing how things changed from August onwards.
Up to 5 December, the numbers were bad but manageable. Then in the fortnight before Christmas, the government added the £150 assumption. That single change stripped £23 million more from Wandsworth’s funding in 2027 and £48 million more in 2028. The lobbying had failed. Putney.news had warned in October that the cliff edge was approaching and that the transformation programme was speculative. In November, we reported that Wandsworth had been granted a graduated transition but the December change gutted it.
At Cabinet today, Ireland said the council “only learned about this two months ago.” Two months ago is December. But the council’s own paper shows it was tracking the settlement from August. What it learned in December was that the lobbying had collapsed.
The numbers
Wandsworth’s reserves stand at £122 million. The budget gaps in the two years after the election are £62 million and £92 million. Combined: £154 million. The gap is bigger than the pot.
The transformation programme is supposed to deliver £45 million in savings. As we reported last week, the Chief Executive described that figure under direct questioning as “a broad, reasonable aspiration to get us going.” The council’s own budget paper states that reserves “cannot be used indefinitely” and that even at maximum council tax rises, further cuts would still be needed.
Maximum council tax rises are the rises Hogg says he will refuse.
What Hogg said, and when he said it
The government provided its settlement to the council on 17 December. It showed Wandsworth’s funding being cut on the assumption the council would raise council tax sharply. The lobbying had failed. The numbers were on the table.
Seven weeks later, on 10 February, Hogg published a press release on the council’s own website, with a video, announcing a council tax freeze for the fourth year in a row. “Value for money is at the heart of everything we do,” he said. “Wandsworth has one of the lowest levels of debt and some of the highest financial reserves in London. This allows us to freeze the main element of Council Tax, keep more money in your pocket and invest in what matters to you.”
The press release is still on the council’s website.
Those reserves he cited, the ones that “allow” the freeze, are the same reserves his own Cabinet papers show are smaller than the gap he needs to fill. He knew that when he published it.
Yesterday, in the London Standard, he was still categorical: “My administration won’t be using it. It’s the right thing to keep council tax as low as we can.”
At Cabinet today, Ireland reached for the line that Hogg and every Labour cabinet member repeat at every meeting, in every paper, in every press release: “Sound financial management is at the heart of everything we do.” She added the administration was “not looking to make residents pay” and would focus on internal savings first.
No Cabinet member asked what happens if those savings do not materialise. No one asked what a 34% rise would mean for residents. The paper was approved and Cabinet moved on. The discussion lasted under six minutes.
Six minutes
Paper 26-80 is eight pages long [pdf]. It shows Wandsworth’s funding being cut by £79 million a year by 2028, a 36% loss of core spending power. It documents the December lobbying failure. It shows the trajectory to a near-doubling of council tax. It was presented “for information.”
Ireland introduced it. Dikerdem responded, not to question the numbers but to warn that the council’s achievements should not be “used as basically sacrificial lambs in terms of any attacks that we get from our opposition and from the media as they circle in on Wandsworth.” The paper was approved. Cabinet moved to the Local Plan.
Seven weeks from the election, with £154 million of gaps to fill, Hogg is making a promise his own papers show he cannot keep. Ireland closed the Finance Committee last week with a guarantee: “Whatever happens, we will maintain a low council tax. It will still be the lowest in the country. But that’s my guarantee.”
The council’s own papers show what keeping that guarantee costs.
What you can do
The budget requires formal approval at Full Council on 4 March 2026. Wandsworth council meetings are open to the public.
All Wandsworth councillors are up for election in May 2026. You can find and contact your ward councillors at wandsworth.gov.uk/councillors. You can check whether you are registered to vote at gov.uk/register-to-vote.
