Wandsworth Council spent the past year hiding a financial crisis it created. Under its spending plans, the reserves that funded the lowest council tax in England would not only be gone, they would leave a £137m gap.
Labour lost the election. A new Conservative administration has taken over, and new council leader Aled Richards-Jones has launched a Spending Review that reports in July.
Your council tax is going up. The government has already settled that: it has withdrawn £79m on the explicit assumption Wandsworth raises council tax to meet the gap. Faced with resistance to that approach by Wandsworth (and five other councils), it went one step further and added a £150 flat-rate increase to force the issue.
A Band D bill will go from £525 now to £886 by 2028/29. The question is not if council tax will rise; it is by how much, and what the council will do with the money it has, and if it will rise tax higher than that to cover new goals and new expenditures.
It will be a delicate balancing act, and Putney.news has eight key questions for the review.
Accountability scorecard · Wandsworth Council
The £137m test
Eight questions Wandsworth’s Spending Review must answer when it reports in July 2026 — and the one the new leader still won’t acknowledge.
How much will council tax go up — and what will it pay for?
Council tax is going up. The government has already settled this: it has withdrawn £79m of grant by 2028/29 on the explicit assumption Wandsworth raises council tax using the uncapped powers it has been given. The question is not if. It is how much, on what timeline, and what the money will actually deliver — because Wandsworth has a track record of raising expectations and changing the figures afterwards.
Grant withdrawn by 2028/29: £79 million
Band D council tax — government’s model
Source: Cabinet Paper 26-80, provisional Local Government Finance Settlement (December 2025)
The eight tests
Will the £45m savings programme be identified — or remain an aspiration?
£31m of the £45m target is unidentified
The Chief Executive described the £45m savings target as “a broad, reasonable aspiration.” Only £14m has been identified. The Medium Term Financial Strategy is not due until September — after the Spending Review reports.
At the Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 18 February 2026, Chief Executive Andrew Travers described the £45m annual savings target as “a broad, reasonable aspiration to get us going.” He could not confirm the target was evidence-based and could not cite a precedent for a council achieving savings at that scale.
The phasing assumes £17m of savings delivered by 2027/28 and £31m by 2028/29 — already baked into the £62m and £92m gap figures. If the £31m is not found, the 2028/29 gap rises from £92.4m to roughly £123m.
The Medium Term Financial Strategy setting out how savings would be achieved was not due until September 2026 — after the budget was formally set and after the May election.
What we’ll check in July
- A line-by-line £45m savings plan with identified items and methodology
- Service-level breakdowns of where the £31m is coming from
- Delivery dates and a credibility test on the timeline
Is there a recovery plan for the HRA and the building safety backlog?
80% of council housing stock is unsurveyed for safety risks
The Housing Revenue Account surplus is on course to collapse 86% in three years. Around 20,000 council homes have not been surveyed. A C3 regulatory downgrade — the worst rating from the housing regulator — followed two near-tragedies.
The HRA overspent by £16.3m on repairs and maintenance in 2024/25 — 40.8% over budget. The Finance Director’s formal warning: “Consideration needs to be given to the scale of the overspend… to ensure this does not compromise the longer-term viability of the HRA.”
An £884m HRA borrowing programme is being serviced through 4.8% rent rises. The HRA surplus is forecast to collapse from £16.2m (2026/27) to £2.2m by 2028/29. Around 80% of housing stock remained unsurveyed for safety risks as of January 2026 — approximately 20,000 homes. 326 fire safety actions overdue.
The February 2025 C3 regulatory downgrade affected 17,000 tenants. Two near-tragedies followed: the Burke Close gas explosion in Roehampton (April 2025) and the Fox House fire in Battersea (September 2025) which displaced 60 residents.
What we’ll check in July
- Published HRA recovery plan showing how the £884m borrowing is serviced
- Survey programme timeline with a date by which all stock is assessed
- Schedule for clearing the 326 overdue fire safety actions
- Resolution path on the C3 regulatory engagement
Where is the homelessness strategy to match the £28.6m spend?
£2,226/month per family in TA vs £645/month in a council home
The temporary accommodation bill is rising 20% a year. The queue is up 17%. November 2025’s 34-page report described the crisis without an action plan. Wandsworth has the second highest rate of statutory homelessness in London.
TA spending reached £28.6m in 2026/27, up 20% year-on-year. The number of households in TA has grown from 4,143 (March 2025) to 4,618 (Q1 2025/26), forecast to reach 5,008 by year-end. 385 families need 4+ bedroom homes. Black residents are 31% of those in TA against around 13% of the borough’s population.
The November 2025 Housing OSC report ran to 34 pages and contained no action plan. The “£3.7m saved annually through homelessness prevention” claim used in the council tax leaflet was rated false in the Putney.news fact-check — the figure does not appear in any committee paper before it surfaced on a PR page in February 2026.
What we’ll check in July
- A published TA strategy with year-by-year reduction targets
- Measurable milestones for permanent housing placements
- The false £3.7m prevention claim retracted or replaced with a sourced figure
Has the SEND Reform Plan been submitted — and does it address volume demand?
£33m DSG deficit; £29m bailout conditional on a plan not yet submitted
The dedicated schools grant deficit reached around £33m. A £29m government bailout covers pre-March 2026 debt only — and only if Wandsworth submits a Local SEND Reform Plan the DfE approves. As of March 2026 it had not.
The High Needs Stability Grant offers up to 90% write-off of accumulated DSG deficits as at 31 March 2026 — for Wandsworth, around £29.7m of a £33m deficit. The grant is conditional on submission and DfE approval of a Local SEND Reform Plan. As of the March 2026 Schools Forum meeting, the plan had not been submitted. The bailout arrives autumn 2026 at the earliest.
The bailout only covers pre-March 2026 debt. The structural driver — 27% more EHCPs per head than statistical neighbours (49.7 vs 39.29 per 1,000 aged 2–18) — has not been addressed.
Seven formal recommendations from the EHCP Task and Finish Group were approved by Children’s OSC in February 2026 and explicitly deferred to Cabinet after the May election. They sit with Richards-Jones’s administration now.
What we’ll check in July
- Confirmation the SEND Reform Plan has been submitted (or a published timeline)
- Cabinet’s formal response to the seven Task and Finish recommendations
- A specific volume-demand plan — not just capacity expansion
Why was Serco never formally enforced — and will the framework change?
Zero formal enforcement notices in 18 months of contract failure
18 months of bin collection failure produced £43,682 in fines on a multi-million-pound contract — and no formal enforcement. The same contractor running the same vehicles in Richmond hit 42.6% recycling against Wandsworth’s 27.9%.
By autumn 2024, missed collections were running at nearly three times the council’s target rate. An FOI response in June 2025 confirmed: “No formal enforcement action has taken place.” Zero warning letters, zero performance improvement notices, zero breach notices. Total Serco fines: £43,682 across 12 months. Penalty amounts were initially refused on commercial confidentiality grounds and disclosed only after five months of follow-up.
The same Serco contract, same staff and same infrastructure in Richmond produced 42.6% recycling against Wandsworth’s 27.9% — a 14 percentage point gap that strongly suggests the problem was Wandsworth’s management of the contract, not the contractor.
The service was eventually brought within target by autumn 2025 — through intensive operational management (five new monitoring officers, daily oversight meetings, in-cab tracking) not through contractual enforcement. Wandsworth still ranks 10th from bottom in London for recycling despite a 5.1pp single-year improvement.
What we’ll check in July
- A review of contract enforcement mechanisms across all major contracts
- A published recycling rate target benchmarked to Richmond
- An account of why formal enforcement was avoided for 18 months
What is the contingency for the £77m Alton funding gap?
£77m GLA grant assumed in budget — not yet applied for
The Alton Estate regeneration is proceeding with a £77m external funding gap, a live legal challenge unresolved at planning approval, and capital borrowing across the council that will cost £10m/year in debt service by year three.
The pre-ballot Cabinet paper (No. 25-174) presented the Alton scheme at around £100m net cost requiring approximately £16m of GLA grant. The post-ballot Cabinet paper (No. 25-415) — weeks after residents voted Yes — gave a total GLA grant assumption of £77m across components, a nearly five-fold increase. The grant has not yet been applied for. Block A carries a separate £12.6m funding deficit. A right-to-light legal challenge from a Hersham Close leaseholder remained unresolved at planning approval.
Capital borrowing across the council will generate roughly £10m/year in debt repayment costs by year three. The September 2025 £424m capital programme was approved without a single committee question on revenue impact. Pothole and highway maintenance are now being funded by borrowing.
What we’ll check in July
- Status of the GLA grant application and the contingency if it does not arrive
- Published debt-service trajectory across the forecast period
- Formal explanation of the post-ballot Alton cost escalation
- Position on the £500k Bradstow capital investment on a closing school
Will the Spending Review be transparent — or repeat the pattern?
Four false claims · two disclaimed audits · gap buried on page 77
The UK Statistics Authority issued the first adverse finding directed at an English council leader in 18 years. Three further false leaflet claims established by fact-check. £3.7m IT contract frozen for 13+ months while a £932,675 workaround was awarded 15 days after starting.
The £137m gap was buried on page 77 of Cabinet Paper 26-63’s appendix while the main table left those years blank. UKSA’s March 2026 letter — to Council leader Simon Hogg — found that residents would understand “freeze” to relate to their total bill, which had risen. The first such finding directed at an English council leader since 2018, when the only previous letter was largely complimentary to the London Mayor.
Three further leaflet claims rated false: the “£30m saved on the leisure contract” rests on figures in exempt Paper 25-177A that no scrutiny committee has seen; the “£3.7m saved annually through homelessness prevention” does not appear in any committee paper before it surfaced on a PR page; the “£230m collected from property developers since 2022” omits that 78% of cumulative CIL was collected before May 2022.
Cabinet’s head of finance was unable to state total council borrowing when directly questioned in committee in December 2025. The IT procurement zombie — £3.7m contract frozen for 13+ months — sits alongside a £932,675 parallel contract awarded to the incumbent on 20 April 2026, 15 days after the contract had already started, at £67,325 below the Cabinet scrutiny threshold. Two consecutive disclaimed audit opinions — auditors refusing to sign off the accounts — went unmentioned at the budget meeting.
What we’ll check in July
- Medium Term Financial Strategy published with identified savings, not aspirations
- The £30m Places Leisure methodology published or the claim withdrawn
- Formal corrective response to the UKSA finding
- A path to resolving the audit disclaimer
- Procurement governance review examining the sub-threshold pattern
- IT contract resolution after 13+ months
Read more
Busted: stats watchdog mauls Wandsworth over council tax freeze lie Fact-check: the claims in Wandsworth’s council tax leaflet Council’s £3.7m laptop contract sits untouched for over a year £1m laptop contract comes in £67,325 below the scrutiny threshold Cabinet’s head of finance doesn’t know how much council has borrowedTwo case studies
The Serco contract: when council management failed and the framework didn’t catch it
£43,682 in penalties on a multi-million-pound contract — and zero formal enforcement notices
By autumn 2024, missed bin collections were running at nearly three times target. Council messaging spoke of “relentless pursuit,” “monthly performance reviews,” and “financial penalties.” An FOI response in June 2025 confirmed otherwise: “No formal enforcement action has taken place.” Zero warning letters. Zero performance improvement notices. Zero breach notices. Five months of follow-up were required before the council disclosed the total fines: £43,682.
The Richmond comparator is the controlled experiment. Same Serco contract, same staff, same infrastructure. Richmond recycling rate in 2024/25: 42.6%. Wandsworth’s: 27.9%. The 14 percentage point gap is the gap in council management. When Wandsworth eventually brought the service within target by autumn 2025, it did so by deploying five new monitoring officers, daily oversight meetings and in-cab tracking — operational management, not contractual enforcement.
The Alton Estate: voters approved one scheme; the council costed another
The GLA grant assumption rose nearly five-fold — weeks after the ballot
The pre-ballot Cabinet paper (No. 25-174) presented the Alton Estate regeneration at around £100m net cost, requiring around £16m of additional GLA grant beyond existing HRA reserves. Residents went to the polls between 22 September and 16 October 2025. Of the 41.5% who voted, 82.4% backed the scheme — 1,158 yes votes from a pool of 3,395 eligible voters, on an estate with a population of around 8,000. The council described it as the largest ballot held under the GLA’s guidance.
Weeks later, Cabinet Paper No. 25-415 landed. The main scheme HRA gross cost: £190.8m. The total GLA grant assumption across components: £77m. Total indicative gross commitment across the regeneration: around £252m. The grant has not yet been applied for and the scheme is not viable without it. Block A carries a separate £12.6m funding deficit. A right-to-light legal challenge from a Hersham Close leaseholder remains unresolved at planning approval.
The bottom line
Combined 2027/28 + 2028/29 budget gap before assumed transformation savings (the £137m headline is the same gap after those savings are delivered)
Usable reserves at the start of 2027/28 — already £32.5m short of the two-year gap
The year Wandsworth’s usable reserves run out on the current trajectory — confirmed in the Chief Financial Officer’s Section 25 statement
The Spending Review reports in July 2026. We will update this page with verdicts on each test when it does. The one to watch is the one the new leader still won’t put on paper.
How the crisis happened
The previous Cabinet Member for Finance guaranteed residents: “Whatever happens, we will maintain a low council tax. It will still be the lowest in the country.” When pressed at committee on what that meant in practice, the guarantee shrank to: “We have no current plans.” Labour lost control of the council in May. The guarantee went with them.
The gap is £137m across the next two financial years, rising to £154m if the planned savings don’t materialise. Two-thirds is a government grant cut: Wandsworth is one of six councils (with Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, the City of London, and Windsor and Maidenhead) assessed as historically underpaying council tax. The council’s Chief Executive has described the plan to cover the rest as “a broad, reasonable aspiration.” The plan for how it will be delivered is not due until September.
Why the money alone is not enough
The Alton Estate: residents voted in October 2025 to back a regeneration scheme at around £100m, with £16m of external funding needed. Weeks after the vote, a Cabinet paper revised the required GLA grant to £77m, a nearly five-fold increase, on a bid not yet submitted. The scheme cannot proceed without a grant that hasn’t arrived. Residents voted on one set of figures. The council changed them afterwards.
The Serco waste contract: collections failed for 18 months at nearly three times the acceptable rate. The council publicly promised “relentless pursuit” and “financial penalties.” A freedom of information request found zero formal enforcement actions. Total fines on a multi-million-pound contract: £43,682. The same contractor, same vehicles, achieved 42.6% recycling in Richmond against Wandsworth’s 27.9%. The problem was not Serco. It was management.
The same pattern runs through the SEND budget, the homelessness bill, the building safety backlog, and the £45m transformation programme: £31m of its savings remain unidentified, with no delivery plan due until September, two months after the Spending Review reports.
The transparency test
The £137m gap was buried on page 77 of an appendix while the main budget table left those years blank. The Cabinet’s head of finance, asked at committee how much the council had borrowed, did not know. The external auditor has refused to sign off the accounts twice running. None of this was raised at the meeting that set a £400m budget.
Richards-Jones spent a year in opposition demanding answers to these questions. He now has the job of providing them. We will be grading the answers in July.
