Wandsworth’s Cabinet decides tonight on plans to save £79m a year and drop £77.9m of building projects, after a rushed round of committee meetings that changed very little. The paperwork is still catching up.
Three of the seven committees that examined the plans have published no record of their meetings, and the report meant to tell Cabinet what all seven found had still not appeared this morning. Where councillors found mistakes, the papers go to Cabinet uncorrected.
Officers apologised for errors in the council tax support paper and accepted that its definition of the households losing full support was incomplete. The building cuts paper still says money taken from climate budgets will go to council housing, a line officers said probably should not be there. The waste paper still prices a fly-tipping stencil trial at £35,000; the environment committee was told that figure was “inflated” and the real cost £5,000.
The council’s own papers say £59m of the savings come from “efficiency opportunities”, £4m from decisions already taken or under way, and £16m from savings still “to be identified in later years”. The biggest shares fall on adult social care, at £21.9m, and housing, at £21.3m.
Cabinet is also asked to suspend the Wandsworth Grants Fund for four years, end the Borough of Sanctuary programme, end Access for All on 31 December and close the council’s own Kite reablement service. They propose ending full council tax support for 7,102 low-income households, through a consultation the papers say is due to open tomorrow. The building projects dropped include £9.5m for Portswood Place on the Alton estate. Cabinet meets at 6pm at the Town Hall, and the meeting is webcast.
The seven scrutiny committees met between 21 September and 8 October. Their report to Cabinet, “Recommendations from Overview and Scrutiny Committees”, has been listed on the agenda as “to follow” since the agenda was published on 2 October.
Was there time to change anything?
Five of the committees met before Cabinet’s papers were published on 2 October: health, children’s, environment, transport and housing. What they said could still change a paper, though not always with much warning: the health committee’s share of the savings plan was published on the Friday afternoon before its Monday evening meeting, and Labour’s opposition speaker there complained about the notice. The enforcement committee met on 5 October and the finance committee on 8 October, after the papers were fixed. Their only written route to Cabinet is the report that has not appeared.
Paper by paper, this is what happened between committee and Cabinet:
- The savings plan and the building cuts: discussed at six committees, unchanged.
- Council tax support: errors admitted by officers, unchanged.
- Access for All, policing, libraries, the housing business plan and leasing scheme, closing Kite: discussed, unchanged, apart from a slide removed from the libraries report and a corrected staff figure in the Kite paper.
- Moving the Putney Bridge crossing: opposed by Labour councillors, unchanged.
- The consultation on how council homes are allocated: not examined by any committee.
The changes that were made were small. After questions at the transport committee, including from Conservative councillor Zarah Wiles on holding operators to account, the e-bike charter now carries tougher penalties for hire operators and for riders who keep breaking the rules, and a promise that the council will recover its costs. On Weiss Road in Putney, a plan to make the one-way trial permanent became a plan to consult residents first, as an officer had promised at the meeting.
What councillors raised, and what happened
Putney.news went through recordings of the committee meetings. Councillors raised over 50 issues about papers going to Cabinet tonight, most of them from Labour, alongside one deputation from UNISON. Officers and Cabinet members promised at least ten times to come back with more information. None of it is among tonight’s papers.
At the transport committee, Labour’s Councillor Jenny Yates questioned capital figures in the transport share of the savings plan that do not appear in its published appendix. An officer said they did not have the breakdown, and the chair promised a reconciliation. The savings plan was taken as the last item of the evening. Labour’s Councillor Toby Hopkins listed twelve walking, cycling and street improvement schemes cut or scaled back; the figures were not disputed.
At the enforcement committee, Labour asked for a fourth recommendation to Cabinet: a cross-party group to oversee the council-funded police officers. The chair said nothing raised affected the three recommendations already going to Cabinet, and offered an informal session in two to four weeks, after tonight’s decision. Officers said the full cost of the police plan, including work at the town hall, would follow in February.
At the finance committee on Thursday, councillors of both parties raised challenges.
- Labour’s opposition speaker, Councillor Angela Ireland, proposed an urgent review of the freeze on the Grants Fund. It was never put to a vote, and the four-year suspension is unchanged in tonight’s papers.
- Labour’s Councillor Graeme Henderson asked for a paper on what will replace the Borough of Sanctuary programme. Councillor Peter Graham, the Cabinet Member for Finance, said “it’s not my paper to bring forward” and that the council’s policies would be clarified. No such paper has been published.
- Cllr Henderson called dropping Portswood Place “a serious kick in the teeth” for residents waiting on the Alton renewal. The building cuts are unchanged.
- Cllr Ireland asked what removing £20m from the net zero strategy and £8.2m from the environment and sustainability strategy would do to the council’s climate targets, and why the paper said the money would go to council housing. Officers said no schemes had been identified for the money, accepted the housing line probably should not be there, and said they would check it. It is still there.
- Labour’s Councillor Michelle Cook asked for Access for All to be kept. Cllr Ireland asked about cheaper hall hire at the Open Door community centre in West Hill; officers said it “would not continue”.
- Cllr Henderson asked whether the council had modelled the combined effect of the tax rise and the support cut on low-income households. An officer replied: “We haven’t modelled it.” He also asked for modelling of spreading the tax rise over two years, which was promised; it is not among the papers published for tonight.
- Conservative councillor Aled Richards-Jones established that the paper’s definition of the households losing full support is incomplete. Officers had already apologised for “a small number of minor transposition errors” in the paper’s London comparison table, which they said made no “material difference”. Neither has been corrected.
Questions to the Cabinet member had to be submitted in advance, the chair told the meeting. Three were, all from Conservative councillors. When Cllr Ireland later tried to put a question to Cllr Graham, the chair stopped her: “we can’t change the rules now.” Cllr Graham said he was happy to answer, and had earlier told the committee that Labour chairs of other committees had insisted on questions in advance.
At the transport committee on 24 September, Labour councillors opposed moving the Putney Bridge crossing and asked for their objection to be “clearly stated in the minutes”. The recommendation is unchanged. At the health committee on 21 September, a UNISON representative addressed the committee about the closure of Kite. The recommendation is unchanged; the only change was a staff figure, corrected from “28 FTE posts” to “27 staff posts”.
The libraries report that the environment committee examined on 23 September included a slide headed “Wandsworth costs £15.09 per resident”, against £25.16 in Richmond, concluding that “procurement should protect this cost efficiency”. The version going to Cabinet has no such slide. No reason is given in the papers, and the council’s published recording of that meeting ends before libraries were discussed.
The official record
The published decision sheets of the health, environment, transport and housing committees record each paper only as “considered for scrutiny”. The transport sheet does not mention Labour’s objection. The children’s, enforcement and finance committees have published no decision sheet or minutes at all.
Government rules for Cabinet meetings, the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012, say every report must be available to the public at least five clear days before the meeting. They also say a report does not have to be made public until Cabinet members have it themselves. Whether Cabinet members have seen the scrutiny report, and when they received it, is not on the record.
What happens next
Cabinet meets at 6pm tonight. The council tax support consultation is due to open tomorrow, and the finance committee is due to look at the scheme again in December.
The council has not answered questions Putney.news put to it last week about the council tax support paper.
What you can do
- Watch Cabinet tonight at 6pm on the council’s webcast site, wandsworth.public-i.tv.
- Respond to the council tax support consultation. The council’s papers say it is due to open on Tuesday 13 October. If you or someone you help gets full support now, this is the change that would end it.
- Speak at a scrutiny committee. The council’s procedure rules let committees hear from residents and deputations. Agendas and contacts for every committee are on the council’s meetings pages.
- Tell your councillors what you think before Cabinet decides: find them by ward.
