The UK Statistics Authority has written to Council leader Simon Hogg to tell him his repeated claim to have frozen council tax misleads residents. The finding, published yesterday, is the first of its kind the watchdog has ever directed at an English council leader.
The authority found that residents would naturally understand “frozen” to mean their total bill had not risen. It had. By 3.1%. Hogg’s freeze claim appeared on leaflets sent to every home alongside council tax bills, on his website, on social media and on council news pages. The watchdog has asked him to amend all of them.
The UKSA’s finding is specific. In fact, Wandsworth’s bills have risen each year because of increases in the Greater London Authority precept and other charges, even as the council portion has stayed flat. While some of the council’s materials acknowledge this in passing, the UKSA has asked Hogg to take “proactive steps to prevent or minimise the risk of misinterpretation or misuse” of council tax data in future.
“We find it is likely that people would understand the term ‘frozen’ to relate to an increase in their total council tax bill.”
Penny Young, Interim Chair, UK Statistics Authority
The UKSA is a non-ministerial government department, independent of ministers and accountable directly to Parliament under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. It has written to politicians of all parties over misleading statistics, including to the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Its findings are not partisan.
The most unusual letter in 18 years
In its 18-year history, the authority has written to one other elected local government leader: the Mayor of London in 2018, in a letter that was largely complimentary and noted a single tweet that had already been corrected voluntarily. The letter to Cllr Hogg contains no such mitigation. It is an unambiguously adverse finding, directed at multiple communications across multiple channels simultaneously.
The letter was triggered by a complaint submitted on 15 February 2026 by Lord Udny-Lister and Sir Paul Beresford, both Conservatives. Lord Udny-Lister (better known in Wandsworth and Whitehall as Eddie Lister) led Wandsworth Council from 1992 to 2011, longer than any leader in the borough’s modern history, before becoming Boris Johnson’s chief strategic adviser in Downing Street, in an administration that was repeatedly rebuked by the UKSA for its use of the £350 million-a-week Brexit claim. He knows how this works. Sir Paul Beresford is a Conservative MP and long-serving former Wandsworth councillor. The UKSA wrote simultaneously to them and to Hogg on 23 March. The finding, however, is the authority’s own. The complaint was the trigger; the conclusion was reached independently.
“They are unclear that residents’ council tax bills will still rise by a significant amount due to other local authority charges. This does not meet the Supporting understanding standard and has the potential to mislead those whose council tax bills are affected.”
Penny Young, Interim Chair, UK Statistics Authority
The council may note that local authority communications are not within the UKSA’s statutory remit. The authority acknowledged this itself, writing to the complainants that it had “considered your concerns on an advisory basis.” That caveat does not affect the finding. The UKSA has asked Wandsworth to change them.
More porkies from Hogg
Putney.news published a fact-check of Wandsworth’s council tax leaflet on 16 March, checking all four financial claims in the leaflet against the council’s own committee papers, budget reports and scrutiny records. All four were false.
When the council’s Finance Director responded via Cllr Malcolm Grimston, we found her answers confirmed rather than rebutted the original verdicts. The council’s press office did not respond to either story. The UKSA, working from a separate complaint and with no connection to Putney.news, reached the same conclusion about the same materials.
The specific Wandsworth communications cited in the UKSA letter are: a news piece published in February 2026 on the council’s own website, the dedicated freeze page at wandsworth.gov.uk/freeze/, posts on Cllr Hogg’s personal X account, and promotional leaflets distributed alongside council tax bills. The council has been asked to address each of these.
Questions have been put to Wandsworth Council. This story will be updated when a response is received.
The local elections are on 7 May 2026. Both UKSA letters are available to read in full on the UK Statistics Authority correspondence page.
I was infuriated by the leaflet which is so very misleading
‘ A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots ‘ Mark Twain
The leaflets have been circulated and the lie has been sold so its too late ..
I have yet to speak to a resident who sees this as anything else but a rise in council tax. The laziness in thinking that council tax is all that matters is only matched by S Hogg’s breath taking arrogance.
Something has gone badly wrong in Labour nationally and locally.
Expect Labour will get duly punished in the local elections. People are not as stupid as our political leader would like us to think.
For anyone interested, the accusation that voters may have been misled was sent to the UK Statistics Authority by 2 Tory peers, Lord Udny-Lister and Sir Paul Beresford, in May when voting for Wandsworth Council.
Both are former Tory Leaders of Wandsworth Council.
Here is what Edward Lister wrote on PutneySW15.com on February 27 2004:
– “Wandsworth residents will again be paying the lowest council taxes in the country after the council announced a tax freeze for the coming year.”
– “This year the council’s share of the tax bill will be the same as last year while the Mayor of London’s charge will go up by 7.5 per cent.”
Here is what Edward Lister wrote on PutneySW15.com on February 26 2008:
– “The council is freezing its share of the bill this year – so the only extra will be for the amount we all have to pay to the Mayor of London.”
– “The zero increase means people in Putney will continue to pay the lowest council tax in the country – with their bills less than half those in neighbouring Kingston and Richmond.”
See also announcements and claims made in 2021 and 2022 by Wandsworth Tories.
When the Labour administration makes the same claims, it seems what wasn’t misleading as far back as 2004, by Wandsworth Conservatives, is suddenly misleading just before the May Local elections.
Why the double standard by the Tories and Putney.News?
What the UKSA actually stated in reply to the Tory Peers:
“Data and communications produced by local authorities and councils are NOT within the statutory remit of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), as they do NOT constitute official statistics.
However, we have considered your concerns on an advisory basis against the Standards for the Public Use of Statistics, Data and Wider Analysis, which are part of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
Councils are NOT required to follow these standards but we strongly encourage them to do so.”
It’s a bit rich to accuse the Labour administration of misleading the public when you and the Tories are doing precisely that….
Gerry, the historical parallel is a fair point and worth making. But the double-standard charge against Putney.news doesn’t hold: the article names Udny-Lister explicitly, notes his Boris Johnson connection and the UKSA’s repeated rebukes of that administration, and makes clear the watchdog reached its conclusion independently of the Conservative complaint.
On the advisory-basis caveat, the article addresses that too: the UKSA acknowledged it, but the finding stands and Wandsworth has been asked to change its communications.
One small correction: the complaint was submitted in February, not May. The question of what Tory leaders said in 2004 is a legitimate political argument to make to voters; it’s not a rebuttal of the finding.