Wandsworth Council admitted last night that a survey it planned to send to 44,000 pension scheme members contained misleading questions.
The questions as drafted implied workers’ retirement income was at risk from ethical investment. It isn’t. The meeting that followed was, at times, bad-tempered.
The row is about Gaza. For two years, Wandsworth’s council and school workers have pushed the council to sell off the fund’s holdings in companies linked to Israel’s military operations in Palestinian territory. Last night’s meeting was the first since May’s elections handed control of the committee to the Conservatives.
The new chair, Cllr Hampton, insisted that all 44,000 pension members must be surveyed before any decision is taken. That requirement stands even though the fund’s own independent financial advisers had just told the meeting there is no significant financial risk from divestment. The meeting, at points, was not easy to control. When one person in the public gallery shouted that people were dying and that their money matters, Hampton waved her hand and shouted “Off!” The gallery was vocal throughout.
Paul Giuliotti, the council’s Director of Financial Services, conceded in public that the survey questions had been written in a way that implied workers’ pensions could be cut if the fund divested. In a defined benefit scheme like Wandsworth’s, that is not how it works. Members’ payouts are fixed. The investment returns do not affect what pensioners receive.
Richard Huie, speaking for Unison, made the point directly to the committee: “Members are being misled that they will lose out. They won’t lose out because they’re guaranteed the returns on their pension scheme.”
Giuliotti’s own assessment of the survey he had spent the meeting defending: “Hand on heart, the survey’s not brilliant.”
We reported on 31 May that the survey contained misleading wording, including a government minister’s letter used without its qualifying sentence and a selective reading of legal opinion. Last night officers confirmed that reporting on the record.
The money argument has been answered
The unions have been back before the committee four times in two years arguing for the divestment. Each time, officers have pointed to financial risk as the reason the council cannot simply sell the relevant holdings.
Last night that argument went away. The committee heard from Mercer, the fund’s independent financial advisers, that their analysis had found no significant harm to the fund from any of the divestment options available. Councillor Judi Gasser, a committee member, put it plainly: “This Mercer’s report has just changed everything actually. So it does look as though it isn’t a financial worry for us, which is very, very good news.”
That matters because the misleading framing in the survey was built around financial risk. With Mercer’s finding now public, the survey’s central premise has collapsed.
‘That simply has never happened’
The sharpest exchange of the night came when Giuliotti told the committee that the council had never actually committed to divesting at all.
“At no point has this Committee firmly committed to a disinvestment policy,” he said. “That simply has never happened.”
Councillor Aydin Dikerdem, who was repeatedly asked by the chair to stop interrupting, then read aloud from a resolution the same committee passed unanimously in December 2025. It committed the committee to drawing up a plan to sell off any direct holdings in companies identified by the United Nations as linked to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, with timetables and progress reports.
Both statements are on the public record. They cannot both be true.
What changes now
The recommendations were carried, though not without opposition. A small working group will rewrite the survey wording: Giuliotti, committee chair Cllr Hampton, deputy chair Cllr Serra, and Cllr Gasser. The revised wording comes back to the full committee in September for a vote.
The minister’s letter we identified in May will be removed from the survey entirely.
Councillor Angela Ireland, who sits on the committee, said the existing questions had created a false picture: “There are far too many questions which seem to indicate that going for a responsible investment strategy constitutes a risk to the value of the fund. Whereas from the Mercer report that we’ve already seen, it’s very clear that there’s very minimal or negligible risk.”
Officers lost unilateral control of the survey wording last night. But the survey itself remains the chair’s condition for any decision. Whether that changes depends on September.
What pension scheme members can do
Wandsworth’s pension scheme covers council and school workers across the borough. The revised survey wording will come before the Joint Pensions Committee in September. The meeting is open to the public at democracy.wandsworth.gov.uk.
The committee papers, including the Mercer analysis, are public documents. You can request them from Democratic Services at daniel.kuszel@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk.
Putney.news has covered the Wandsworth pension fund and the council’s response to calls for divestment across a series of stories since March 2026. Last week we reported that the fund lost seven times more than the market in a single quarter.
