Wandsworth will tax its poorest hundreds, but doesn’t plan to tell them

Wandsworth Council plans to charge over 7,000 of its lowest-income households hundreds of pounds in council tax, without writing to them before it decides.

The council’s own assessment of the impact says that the impacted households need “targeted consultation” – under the law – but in the same paper decides that “it is no longer necessary to write to every Council Taxpayer”. Instead, it plans to produce “a Notice in the local press directing people to a page on the Council’s website”.

So the households losing their council tax waiver are to learn of the plan from a newspaper notice, if they see one, and have their say on a page of the council’s website, if they find it. The first letter the plans promise them comes with their bill in March, after the final vote.

The law requires the council to consult people likely to be affected by a change to council tax support, and leaves it to decide how. But in 2014, ruling on Haringey’s scheme, the Supreme Court said fairness demands more of a council when it plans to take away help people already get than when they are only applying for it. In that case, Haringey had delivered the consultation by hand to every one of the 36,000 households then getting help with council tax. The court said those who “most obviously had an interest” were “those who would be adversely affected by it”. When Kensington and Chelsea consulted on cutting its own scheme last year, it contacted the households receiving support directly.

The council’s cabinet is being asked on Monday to agree a public consultation on the plan, due to open the next day and run for at least a month. The final decision comes in January 2027, and the new charges would start on 1 April.

The households include disabled residents, carers, lone parents and families with a child under three, the council’s own report says. Most would move into the group for out-of-work households without children. In a Band D home they would pay £365 in the first year, about £7 a week, rising to £1,071 a year by 2030/31, about £20 a week. Families with children would pay £180 next year and £988 by 2030/31. In July the council also moved to cut holiday food vouchers for more than 10,000 children.

When it announced last month that council tax would nearly double, the council said it would also nearly double what it spends helping people on low incomes to pay. But under the plans going to the council’s finance scrutiny committee on Thursday, that won’t be enough to stop heavy bills landing on the mats of the households that pay nothing now.

The same council has decided the tax rise itself is worth a letter to every household now. Its financial plan says it “will write to residents now to give as much notice as possible so they can plan ahead”.

The consultation is also how the council plans to find out whether these households can afford the new bills. It has not assessed that, and says the consultation will ask them. Its own report warns that the plan “may still increase arrears, recovery activity, welfare support demand and debt advice pressures”.

We asked the council whether the 7,100 households will be written to individually, which newspapers it expects to carry the notice, and for the figures behind its comparison with other London boroughs. We have also asked it to explain why its table does not match the four boroughs’ own schemes. It has not yet replied. We will update this story when it does.

The council also says that even after the change, what households here pay will “remain lower than that paid in many other London boroughs”. But the table it uses to back that up is wrong. The table says it shows the schemes “currently operated across London (2026/27)”. Of the six boroughs we checked against their own 2026/27 decisions, it gets four wrong. And on six boroughs’ own rules, a household where nobody works and someone gets a disability benefit would by 2030/31 pay more in Wandsworth than it pays in any of them now.

Why the council says it must

Of the working-age households who get help with their council tax, about three in four pay nothing at all. They qualify by getting any level of a disability benefit such as Personal Independence Payment or Disability Living Allowance, by getting attendance allowance, or by having a child under three.

The plan arrives as council tax nearly doubles. A Band D bill goes from £1,020 this year to £1,979 from April 2027. Cllr Peter Graham, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for finance, told the council last month that “everyone of working age will pay something”.

The council’s case is that keeping the scheme as it is while the bill rises is “considered unsustainable financially”. The working-age scheme costs £6.9m this year. Left unchanged, the council says, it would cost £13.7m next year and £14.3m by 2030/31.

Under the plan, spending does nearly double next year, to £12.5m, as the council promised. It then falls every year after that, to £7.1m by 2030/31: close to what it spends now, on bills that will have nearly doubled.

The charges rise in steps over four years, which the council says “reduces the risk of sudden hardship”. New income bands would also bring some low-paid working households into the scheme for the first time. The report promises discretionary support and advice, but names no hardship fund and no budget for one. The council’s wider financial plan points instead to its Crisis and Resilience Fund, a government grant worth £3.8m this year, down from £4.4m for the schemes it replaced. Its crisis payments are for one-off emergencies, and the council’s own website says they “are not a replacement for regular income or benefits”. Redbridge’s scheme, by contrast, says that council “will be setting aside a sum of money” to help households who cannot pay in exceptional circumstances.

How it compares

For decades Wandsworth had the lowest council tax in England. The council’s report includes a table of London boroughs’ schemes, showing how much help each gives working-age households on low incomes. For four of the six boroughs we checked against those councils’ own decisions for this year, the table is wrong.

The table says the poorest working-age households in Lewisham pay nothing. Lewisham’s own budget for this year says “everyone eligible and of working-age must continue to pay a minimum of 25%” of their bill: at least £559 a year in a Band D home.

The table has Camden charging £442 a year even to its best-supported households outside its group for vulnerable residents. Camden’s own website says that if you are not working, or earn less than £118.40 a week, “you will not have to pay Council Tax”.

The table says Sutton’s most vulnerable households pay £119. Sutton’s own scheme caps its help at the cost of a Band C home, so the same household in a Band D home pays about £370.

The table puts the smallest discount Islington gives at 15%. Islington’s own scheme for this year puts it at 35%.

The differences run both ways. The table makes Lewisham and Sutton look more generous than their own rules, and Camden and Islington less generous.

Take a Band D household where nobody works and someone gets a disability benefit. By 2030/31 it would pay £1,071 a year in Wandsworth. On each borough’s own rules this year, the same household pays nothing in Camden, nothing in Merton if its income is low enough, at most about £105 in Islington, about £370 in Sutton, at least £559 in Lewisham and about £620 in Redbridge.

Those boroughs may change their own schemes before then. Next year’s Wandsworth figure of £365 is close to Sutton’s; it is the steps after that which open the gap.

The council’s finance scrutiny committee discusses the plans at 7.30pm on Thursday 8 October. Cabinet meets at 6pm on Monday 12 October, and if it agrees, the consultation is due to open the next day.

Residents can write to their ward councillors, and to Cllr Graham. Anyone who expects to struggle with the new charges can ask the council for help early; Citizens Advice Wandsworth gives free, independent advice.

If the plan goes ahead, the first bill these households have to pay arrives in March.