Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Wednesday 18 February 2026, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Wednesday, 18th February 2026 at 7:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Hi, good evening everybody.
Welcome to this meeting of the Finance and Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting.
My name is Councillor Stock.
I chair this committee.
It's lovely to see you all this evening.
I think this is our last meeting before the end of the electoral term, so I hope it's
a good one.
I'll now ask all members of the committee to introduce themselves.
So in alphabetical order, Councillor Apps.
Good evening, Councillor Apps, Shaftesbury and Queenstown Ward.
Councillor Belton.
Good evening, Tony Belton, Battersea Park Ward.
Councillor Critchard.
Good evening, Councillor Alan Marie Critchard, Tooting Beck Ward and Vice Chair of this committee.
Councillor Corner.
Matt Corner, Ninelms Ward.
Councillor Fraser.
Councillor Fraser, South Ballin Ward.
Councillor Peter Graham.
Yep, Peter Graham, Bonta Common and opposition speaker for finance.
Councillor Hedges.
Councillor Hedges, Ballin Ward and opposition speaker for business engagement, the voluntary
sector and culture.
Councillor Lee.
Jesse Lee, Councillor for St Mary's Ward.
Councillor Richard Jones.
Councillor Aled Richard Jones, Councillor for Northcote Ward and Leader of the Opposition.
We also have Councillor Acunola, the Cabinet Member for Voluntary Sector Business Engagement
and Culture.
Councillor Kami Acunola, Cabinet Member for Business, Culture, Voluntary Sector, Deputy
Leader of the Council, Ward Councillor for Tooting Broadway.
Thank you and council Ireland our cabinet member for finance
Andrew Ireland West Hill Ward cabinet member for finance. Thank you
Thank you. And we also have several officers present and they'll introduce themselves when they address the committee
So moving on to the items on the agenda item one of the minutes of the previous meeting

1 Minutes - 22nd January 2026

So we've got the minutes from the 22nd of January our last meeting to agree to any members have any comments on those minutes
Are we happy to agree those minutes?
Moving on to agenda item 2, declarations of interest.

2 Declarations of Interests

Are there any declarations of either pecuniary or other registrable or non -registrable interests?
No?
Perfect.
Thank you, members.

3 Budget and Council Tax Setting 2026/27 (Paper No.26-63)

Moving on to item 3, this is our budget and council tax setting paper proposing the budget
and council tax for our next financial year 26 -7.
So this recommendation in the report
reflects the council's commitment
to putting residents first.
It's freezing the main element of the ones with council tax
for the fourth year running, while also protecting
vital services through a 2 % increase in the adult social
care preset.
That's the recommendation in the paper.
The detailed budgets for the year ahead,
setting out the council's financial management
in a challenging environment and still delivering the lowest
council tax in the country while investing in a cleaner greener and safer
ones earth so just to remind members of our role this evening so we've got this
paper we're scrutinising these proposals ahead of a cabinet decision next Monday
and ahead of the final decision being made at full council next month so these
budgets relate to the next financial year I appreciate the paper does also
touch on the proposed budget framework through to 2029 and I do recognise that
members will no doubt want to explore that, but I would propose that after the paper is
introduced we begin with questions on the budget for the year ahead before moving on
to the estimates that are in the paper for the three -year period.
So I understand, I think our cabinet member finances first of all are going to introduce
the paper and then I'll move on to Mrs. Merry, our Executive Director for Finance.
Thank you, Chair.
This budget continues to deliver better services with the same low council tax putting fairness and compassion at its heart,
delivering on our commitment to make one's worth of cleaner, greener and safer.
The cleaner borough plan includes free bulky waste collections, weekly waste and recycling collections and food waste collections.
The Council Tax Reduction Scheme and the Cost of Living Support Fund provide extra support with bills for our residents.
Community safety, including a strong CCTV network and tackling violence against women and girls.
Investment in parks, green spaces and play areas.
And a decade of renewal, delivering a carbon neutral council by 2030 and resurfacing our roads and pavements.
the access rules scheme to make council services and local activities more
affordable for all our residents and Wandsworth is very proud to be a borough
sanctuary to support refugees. We are a listening council. We have a seven ring
seven day resident guarantee. We've had a very successful year as London's borough
of culture and that will deliver a lasting legacy and the transformation
programme which we embarked on last September will modernise services, support
growth and improve support for our residents. Now we know that our hard
working residents continue to struggle with rising bills and we committed to do
everything we can to help. Therefore I am delighted to recommend that the main
element of the council share of the council tax is frozen at current levels
for the fourth year in a row. Now, recognising the continuing and growing pressures on our social
care services and in line with most councils around the country, I recommend the adult social
care preset increase of 2 % for 26 -27 in order to protect these critical services as much as
possible. Residents in Wandsworth will continue to pay the lowest council tax in the country
under Wandsworth Labour. Now we can do this because we put value for money at
the heart of everything we do. Wandsworth runs excellent services with some of the
highest reserves and lowest debts of any London borough and because of this we
can freeze the main element of council tax and keep investing in what
matters to our residents. That's what this budget achieves and I'm delighted
to recommend it to the council. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Councillor Ireland. Mrs Murray, is there anything that you want to add by way of introduction?
Thank you, Chair. So, as set out in the paper, this is a balanced budget for 26 -27.
We've spoken at this committee in the last two meetings actually about, first of all, demand pressures
and the impact that that is having on the Council's finances and the mitigations that we are taking
to reduce the amount that we suffer by growth in demand pressures.
So we've already had that discussion and then in January we spoke specifically about transformation programme.
And we also talked about what potentially the future outlook might be.
That said, this paper is about the budget coming up and based on the estimates in this paper
with the reserve balances that we are planning to use, the council tax income that we have predicted
and some of the savings that we've already banked in this paper, another £10 million
worth of efficiencies have been taken out, 26 -7. I think that this is a balanced budget
that should be supported. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Murray. So, any questions? Councillor Brown.
Yes, and I will save my questions for the time being about future years, given what
you said, but those are actually the most important and controversial remarks, so we
We will need to turn to them in due course.
The cabinet member said that we had the same low council tax.
Can she confirm that this budget, if it's passed, will make the council tax
in Wandsworth on Wandsworth's element of the bill 8 .2 % higher than the level that she inherited?
How is that the same?
We are freezing the main element of council tax for the fourth year, which is a fantastic achievement.
considering your scare storeys before the election in 2022,
saying that Wandsworth Labour would hike up the council tax, you've been proved wrong.
Well, I don't understand where she's getting that from,
but the fact of the matter is that council tax, Wandsworth's element of council tax,
if this budget is passed, will be 8 .2 % higher than it was in 2022. Is that correct?
So are you suggesting that we do not protect adult social care services when we've got
such a huge demand for our services?
I asked you if that was correct.
Do you accept that that's correct, that the tax is 8 .2 % higher, not the same?
My view is that we are freezing the main element of the council tax to help our residents,
but we are committed to supporting those residents who rely on adult social care services.
Therefore, in common with almost every council, it might be every council in the country,
we are committed to taking the adult social care precept to support those services.
These services are under huge demand, particularly since Covid, so we think that's necessary.
I've asked a very simple yes or no question and we've not had an answer.
Yes or no, does the cabinet member accept that council tax is now going to be 8 .2 % higher,
not the same low council tax, which is what she said?
Councillor Graham, you've asked that question three times.
I do.
An answer?
You have had an answer.
You might not like that answer.
I have got three hands up.
I would also say that I don't know if Councillor Graham agrees or disagrees with the former
leader of his own party, who I think there are leaflets that were put out by Wantsworth
Conservatives in 2022 that talked about a freeze to the council tax the previous year
because it was felt that the single biggest thing that the council could do was to help with cost deliveries,
was to freeze council tax.
And at that moment, the main element of council tax was frozen.
And in fact, the social care preset was put up by 3%.
So I don't think actually there is disagreement in the way that you...
If I can just jog your memory, Councillor Stock.
In the final year, there was a net cut to council tax on the last administration, not a freeze.
And that was with the social pay precept going up.
A net cut.
I accept that in the last year there was a net cut of one but I think actually looking over those four years
The council tax meant up by more than 10 % councillor great a counsellor apps
Thank you very much and congratulations and to
Council Ireland for doing such a good job on kind of bringing this all together
We know that council tax is lowest in the country
But can the cabinet member please tell us a bit more about our position in relation to some of our peers in London?
We are the lowest in London, obviously.
We charge, I think our council tax is just over,
going to be just over a thousand pounds with all the additional precepts. It's
three and a half thousand pounds or more in Kingston. It's also lower than our
other boroughs nearby. Thank you. Did you have a follow -up Councillor Apps or shall I
move on to Councillor Belton? Councillor Belton. Can I ask Mrs. Mary, is it roughly
right, don't let's be too precise about this, that there are 333 ,000 people in this
borough and that suggests that each one of them, if we hold a million pound in reserves,
we're holding a three pound for every person, man, woman and child in the borough. Is that
correct and if that is the correct, does that mean for every hundred million of reserves
we hold, we're holding £300 for every person in this borough, man, woman and child, and
does that mean for any average family we're holding £1 ,000 more or less, and to hold
more than that, does it raise a question of quite why we're holding all this money on
behalf of the residents and whether the residents would have a different view? I think perhaps
that needs to be taken into account in later discussions, unless I've got my arithmetic
completely wrong.
But perhaps Mrs. Merri could point that out to me.
Well, I can confirm your arithmetic is correct and I look forward to your discussion later.
Thank you, because it is interesting the way people on both sides are batting around reserves
for a lot and we always forget that it's actually not necessarily our money that we're talking
about.
So while I'm there, can I just ask one other quick question, Chair?
Again, Mrs Mary, when it comes on page 80, when I find it, I need to find it to remind
myself of what the question was.
But anyway, I now can't find it.
But it's to do with the, here it is, page 80.
The discount for single person occupation.
Is there any kind of qualification or room for manoeuvre on that within the legislation?
I'm thinking that a single person occupation of a one bedroom flat is rather different
from a single person occupation of a six bedroom mansion.
I wonder whether there's any room for discretion on that.
So single person discount is a nationally set scheme.
There's no local discretion around the eligibility or the level of discount that's given at the
moment.
Thank you.
Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, Chair.
That actually leads, on the subject of housing, that actually leads quite nicely onto my point
and as someone who rents and enjoys the single person council tax allowance in this borough.
I just wanted to kind of touch on the, I'm on the Hound Committee as well and obviously
a lot of the items that we've talked on there and reflected in the budget are on the, you
know, the real pressures that we're seeing on temporary accommodation.
And so I just wondered about if we can talk about, and it might be Mr. Marriott or others,
about how successful our homeless prevention work has been to try and tackle what is a
very challenging area right now for all London councils.
So the housing committee will have discussed this I think probably in more detail than
I can give it justice but as an overview we have invested more in homelessness prevention,
we've added additional staffing over the past few years and we are committed to doing more
on prevention in order to reduce the need to pick people up as they become homeless.
Thank you.
Councillor Cornyn.
Thank you, Chair.
I'm very interested in the table at the bottom of page 15, which talks about the use of balances
and reserves.
We know that we needed to use £15 million to balance the budget in this year, 25 -26,
and next year 26 -27 there is a £38 million use of reserves to balance the budget.
If each 1 % of council tax for the forthcoming year is equivalent to £0 .77 million, which
is set out in the paper, could the cabinet member confirm that the £38 million use of
reserves to balance the budget is the equivalent of a 50 % increase in council tax and that
therefore if we didn't have reserves we would be looking at a 50 % increase in council tax
but percentage point increase in council tax just to cover that budget gap.
We do have reserves.
I mean in March 2022 when we took over, we had general fund reserves of 199 million
and last March, we were down to 194 million
and we estimate they will be at 172 million at the end of this year.
Now, we seem to have the same argument every year.
You were saying that we are decimating reserves.
Yet, as you can see, four years on, we still have ample reserves.
And my view on this is the this money belongs to the people of Wandsworth and
it should be used to support the people of Wandsworth and we will use it prudently to invest in transformation and
We will use it to protect our residents from any adverse effects of fair funding you you can't expect
Our risk with us to sit back and watch our residents suffer when we've got the money in the power to help them
Yeah, I
I understand that but you're not using them to invest, you're using them to plug a budget
deficit that's ongoing every year.
For £26 -27 you are planning to use £38 million to just...
That's just a fallacy.
You need to get your argument sorted.
That's on the presumption that none of the money that's been spent, which gives you the
deficit, is not investment.
If it is investment then it's covered.
It's a revenue budget and it's an ongoing deficit.
I am being advised by others that I need to make sure I remind you to come through me.
So there's a lot of people who want to make sure that I manage this meeting fairly.
Councillor Cornyn, I will come back to you.
Thank you, Chair.
It is an ongoing budget deficit and once the reserves run out and will come to future years
later, but once the reserves run out they won't be able to be used again.
So, just to paint a picture of how significant this use of reserves is, if 1 % of foregone
council tax increase is worth 0 .77 million, then the 38 million pound being used to plug
the revenue budget for this coming year is the equivalent of a 50 % increase in council
tax.
Does the cabinet member understand that and does she agree with that?
I think that's the same.
And then she justifies why that decision has been taken.
That's the same question again, Councillor Cornyn, to which you've had an answer.
Councillor Apps.
Thank you very much.
We were really pleased to see the news after doing some statistical analysis.
It appears that London is probably one of the safest capitals in the world,
which is really excellent and is down to a lot of work by a lot of people, including the mayor, Sadiq Khan.
But nonetheless, and despite the fact we're quite a safe borough in quite a safe London,
crime does still impact on the lives of Wandsworth residents ongoing.
And that is something we're absolutely determined to sort out.
And what investment is planned in relation to community safety through this budget, and how are we funding this?
I'm thinking about things like whether or not we're using CCTV cars, whether or not we're using neighbourhood officers,
those kinds of measures that we could put in place.
Would you like to answer it, Ms. Hahn?
Yeah, I can tell you a bit about that.
So we've spent over one and a half million pounds on borough -wide community safety programmes,
and that does include the use of these rapid CCTV cars.
and the additional CCTV monitoring. We're monitoring an extra 150 hours a month in
addition to our largest existing network. This is what we hear from residents when
we talk to them. They like the use of more CCTV and that's what we're
delivering. Thank you. I think I had Councillor Graham first and then I'll
Yes, so we just heard Councillor Ireland's summary of the reserves position.
The position here is that the Wandsworth Labour Administration will, after the end of this
budget, have gone through over £84 million, in fact, £89 million if you take the total
amounts on page 73.
page 73 shows that there's 121, the reserves, the usable reserves,
which is 121 .9 million with another five and a half to come off from overspends.
The amount that the high point was actually 206 million,
so that's taken a huge chunk of those usable reserves out.
And if you then look at the table on page 15,
Not only do you then have, do you see that going down to 116 usable at the end of 26,
27, but the use of reserves to balance the budget is left blank for 27, 28, and 28, 29.
The relevant figures are actually to be found on page 77 and are 62 million and 92 million.
And the problem with the position is that as identified here, even with a 45 million
pound transformation programme there is a bigger use of reserves to balance the
budget required in 27 28 28 29 then there are reserves left so how does
council Ireland think that position is sustainable we I think it's a very
legitimate use of reserves to plug budget gaps the idea is that you might
save up money for rainy day the you or your the previous administration
built up high levels of reserves during the lockdown from the COVID -19 pandemic,
because you've received funding from the government and the services since
then, the demand for our services have grown. So we are using reserves in this
way. The money belongs to the people of Wandsworth and we're using
that to help plug the budget gap. We do have a very ambitious transformation
I am very confident in the projections we have to the we have the director of the transformation
programme and also the chief executive have got a track record of achieving these savings
at Southampton and we know that they can bring that to Wandsworth.
The executive directors fully support it so we will use the savings from the transformation
to transform the Council and we will use the reserves to help us manage the loss of funding.
In a controlled way, we won't have a knee -jerk reaction of making our residents bay by hiking up Council taxi media.
So just to come back on that, those figures that I read out include the transformation programme.
The transformation programme is set to save 45 million.
Is the cabinet member saying that that can be expanded and save an additional 92 million pounds
on top of the 45 million that is already ambitiously targeting?
Does she think it's achievable or plausible to add another 92 million on top of the 45 million already identified?
Now, I think I made it clear from the start.
what we're here to discuss and my recommendation is about the budget and
the council text with 26 27 as you know we commenced on an ambitious
transformation programme last September work will continue on developing that
over the summer and in the autumn we will come back to this quick committee
with a new medium -term financial strategy which will have our plans shown
very clearly there with detail and then we can review that. But the reality is the
reserves are going to run out and it's all to kick the can down the road to
avoid taking decisions now. I've got a lot of hands there Councillor Hedges. Yeah thank
you chair. So sound financial management in my opinion requires living within our
means and protecting our reserves and ensuring that spending delivers real
value. So one, is this budget genuinely balanced or balanced because of the reserves? And then
two, in terms of sustainability of council tax, how long can you continue on this freezing
part of it, as you say, and putting up the adult health and social care by 2 %? How long
can that continue if spending continues to rise? Thank you.
Well, a large part of the transformation programme and the work that our offices are doing is
controlling demand.
Now Mrs. Mary can confirm the figures but we are still living with the effects of the
hyperinflation caused by the kamikaze budget in 2022.
I think we had a few years but that added 25 million pounds onto our costs and that's
in there every year forever and ever.
We are, excuse me, would you like me to continue?
Yes, also we are investing in 1000 homes
and that will help us keep the accommodation cost
of temporary accommodation down.
At the moment we're paying 60 million.
Sorry, sorry members, no, no, no,
please don't have discussions across the table.
We're all in this one meeting together, please.
No, no, no, please.
Please come on. Let's be respectful. This is our last meeting together this I
Understand this is something that though people feel passionately about and I understand there's a lot of hands up
And I'm taking my time to get get round them. Okay, sure
I'm going to let the council
forward to me and then I'm gonna come to
Councillor Critchard and then to you and then to Councillor belt and those the hands that I can say I'm sorry chair
It's a point of order actually, so I'm sorry. This is never I've been a counsellor for seven years
this has fortunately never happened to me.
But Councillor Apps has just used a profane word about me.
I'd like an apology before this committee discussion continues.
I apologise for calling him sexist, I do, but that is what I said.
No, that's not what you said.
I don't want to litigate this across the table, please.
I'm sorry, look, Chair, this isn't your fault at all, I know.
And you would be appalled if you'd heard it.
that me and my colleague, Councillor Corner, just heard this term.
I've never heard that term be used by any member in this committee or any committee before.
I think it merits at least an apology and then we can move on.
Councillor Apps, is there anything further that you want to say at this point?
No, I think he must have misheard me, but I did say he's sexist.
What's...
Would you hear him?
If you want to...
Council, I'm really sorry. We have got an agenda. There are important things to discuss. We've only got a certain amount of time here
I appreciate you you feel aggrieved
It's not if you had something being said I guess that can be picked up outside of this meeting through the standards processes
And and things like that, so I don't want to litigate it across the table
Would you would you like to make a statement about the sort of language you expect committee members to use?
I have always said that I expect committee members to be respectful
And I hope that can continue with during our last meeting together and that's for everybody here
Council island is anything else you want to add?
In response in an answer or then I think I am coming to you Councillor Richard James for an AC
Yes, do you want to repeat your question?
So I'm sorry and Councillor Ireland
But I was saying is this balance is this budget genuinely balanced or is it balanced because you've used reserves to plug it?
Okay. Expenditure, you can produce a balanced budget in several ways.
That includes controlling expenditure, increasing income,
and also the prudent use of reserves to plug any gap.
Now, we do have the highest reserves in London.
We think that this is a legitimate use of some…
Do we need to take a break?
Is that what is required?
Because there is a lot of murmuring.
I have said we want to be respectful.
You want everybody to be respectful and we are continuing discussions at the other end
of the table.
So should we take a couple of minutes break?
Is that what is needed?
Okay, we are going to take a couple of minutes break.
Okay.
Is that okay?
Okay, thank you
members

3 Budget and Council Tax Setting 2026/27 (Paper No.26-63)

We've just had that kind of
Pause and we'll crack on and now with the meeting and so Councillor Richard Jones. I'll come to you for a question
Thanks chair. It's on the topic of the reserves. Just a short factual question first this executive director of finance
Can she ever recall?
38 million of reserves being used to balance a budget in a single year.
So we haven't used that level of reserves in the past as far as I can remember.
We do have a financial resilience reserve, though.
We haven't had that.
We haven't always had that, and that does have 91 million in it.
And it is specifically there to do things like help to balance a budget whilst we do
longer -term interventions.
So I would say when we didn't have that, we didn't have the scope to use such a reserve,
but we do have that reserve and we are applying that reserve for this coming budget.
So we've never had a use of 38 million before to balance the budget or anything near that.
Last year there was a rate of 14 million on the reserve to balance the budget.
What's been, to put that into context, and Councillor Graham mentioned this already, but
On page 77, there is a 92 million budget gap.
To put that in context for somebody who might be watching this committee and doesn't know
what that means in local government numbers, 92 million is bigger than the Council's entire
annual bin collection, park maintenance, libraries and street sweeping budget combined.
It is huge.
The cabinet member has said that it's the transformation programme that's going to save
all this, but as has already been said in this committee, that calculation of a $92
million budget gap by 2028 -29 already takes into account the maximum savings of the transformation
programme of $45 million.
So another factual, just short factual question I have to the executive director of finance,
Is she aware of any local government transformation programme that has saved £45 million in three
years?
Mr. Travis, I think you are here and I think you've spoken previously on the transformation
programme, so shall I bring you in now to speak to this question?
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
Very happy to come in.
I think just to answer that in the best way that I can, just to reiterate, and you've
covered this already, but just to reiterate, of course, we're looking here formally at
the budget position for 26, 27.
And all views can be expressed about that.
It's a balanced budget.
It uses reserves.
We're discussing that, which is right and proper.
I think the future year's position, of course, is something that will actually have to be
determined by the Council.
September next year will be the normal point at which to form an initial view about that
budget.
And, of course, sorry, I beg your pardon, I do mean September this year, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And then of course every, the council will have to put forward a balanced position and
it will be the officers will advise, executive director of finance will advise on that as
normal and all things would need to be considered to get to that position as at that time given
the advice at the time, the way things move, numbers move at that time.
And, of course, the transformation programme has already been determined as part of the
picture there.
In the work that we're doing on transformation, the 45 million we set towards the beginning
of the process as a kind of broad, reasonable aspiration to get us going.
Now that we're doing the detailed work on the transformation programme, which will come
to fruition in July -ish, in the summer.
We will be able to explore whether that number should
be exactly that, lower, or higher.
And in the work that we're doing,
we're not setting 45 as an upper limit.
We're saying, with the parameters that
have been set and the overall objectives of the programme,
what could be achieved?
And that may be more than $45 million.
It may be not.
And we're doing the work now to establish that.
And then whatever that figure is and can reasonably be assumed in the period will be one of the
things to take account of in September.
But all other things will need to be considered at that time as well.
So just yes or no, have you seen a transformation programme that has saved 45 million in three
years?
Well, I'll answer it in my own way, if that's okay.
It might help just to clarify, because I have other questions as well, but it just might
be helpful, because some residents will want to know, has this ever been achieved before
in any other local authority with the same personnel that will be responsible for trying
to do it here?
Because the cabinet member in her remarks did reference certain personnel directly.
And so residents, I think, would just like to know, has that actually been achieved by
then in the past?
Well, look, what I would say about this is that all these things and numbers are context
specific.
And the best way that I can advise you about that is that we have to look precisely at
our own circumstances, our own context, our own policy framework, and the art of the possible.
and then come to a decision which is right for this organisation at the time the decision
is taken.
And therefore it is not, it doesn't make sense to try and lift an example from elsewhere
and treat it as being directly comparable because it is not.
Starting points are different, context is different, policy frameworks are different.
So, I mean, it's a matter of public record what other councils have done, but it doesn't
necessarily mean that that can or can't be done here.
I think there are some other questions on the transformation programme.
No, Chair.
Because I've got an example.
Just with respect, Councillor Apps had two questions.
Councillor Graham had two questions.
No, no, I haven't.
I haven't.
It's on the same theme.
You can have one more question on transformation, then Councillor Graham I think has a question on transformation.
I know Councillor Fraser has indicated she's got a question on transformation.
But I know that Councillor Critchard and Councillor Belton are waiting.
So if anybody's got any questions on transformation I will gather them together now,
but I do also have Councillor Critchard and Belton waiting on other areas.
Councillor Critchard?
I just remind everybody that what we thought we were doing, and I think I saw nods of agreement
from the minority party, was looking at this year's budget first, then the next year's.
It seems to me that everything that's been, there's been, I understand why you would wish
to do this, but we've not been looking at this year's budget.
I've got questions about this year's budget.
It seems to me the transformation programme is very much what happened.
There will be a bit of how much do we think we're going to get this year for the transformation.
What we don't know is what's going to happen in the future, and I thought we were going to try and frame the discussion in that way.
And I'm a bit disappointed with colleagues opposite, I can understand why, but it would be helpful if we tried that way.
And I think it would help the chair who you, I'm sure, would wish to help.
and that's my comment and my questions are about what's going on this year.
Well, thank you, Councillor Critchard.
We're on transformation now.
Yes, I am happy to take some questions on transformation
but Councillor Critchard is right, this is a paper about this year's budget.
That is the decision that's in front of us to consider in terms of the recommendations
that are going to cabinet next week and it's for us to scrutinise those detailed budgets
and the council tax for next year.
But I know there is real interest in the transformation programme
because it will be a really important part of what the Council is doing in the years ahead.
So I will take some questions now on the transformation programme.
We won't then come back to it.
So we will now take some time to consider the transformation programme.
So, Councillor Rich Jones, one more question from you and then I'm going to come to Councillor Graham.
Thanks, Chair.
And the transformation programme is also in the paper.
You know, it's literally in the paper that we're discussing this evening.
So we don't have any examples before this committee today of a transformation programme
that has saved $45 million in three years.
Assuming it does achieve that full amount, there's still a budget gap of $92 million.
There is no transfer within three years.
There's no transformation programme before this committee that tries to save $92 million in
three years.
And combined, $92 million and $45 million gives a total budget gap of $137 million in
three years.
There is no transformation programme anywhere near these papers of this committee that could
save a sniff of that.
That is the financial crisis that we've been highlighting, and there is simply no answer
to it.
So the cabinet member might be trying to pull off an electoral trick this year by trying
by freezing part of the council tax, although not all of the council tax.
But she can't conceal what is at least a 137 million pound budget gap in the next three years.
That is astonishing.
Her own government expects her to raise council tax by at least 86 % in three years time.
That's in the papers that's going to fool council next week, or in two weeks time, because we put it on the agenda.
Will she address any of that?
Yes, well, the 92 million pound budget gap projected, it's a consequence of the short transition period.
Now, it's very challenging, but we only learnt of this two months ago, two months ago today, and it was unexpected.
And what I'd say to you is this requires very careful handling and I do not intend to be
panicked into making rash decisions.
Now we are confident that we can manage the Council's finance and achieve a balanced budget
in future years while protecting frontline services.
And the transformation programme is a large part of this.
That will be developed over the summer.
And as Mr. Travers says, when we return in the autumn,
the medium -term financial strategy will be published,
it will be discussed at this committee, and that will give more information.
It is a challenge, I agree with that.
But the sky is not falling in. We will cope with this.
We are in the fortunate position of having reserves to help us manage that,
and we will manage it.
And I think the commitment when we had a paper on transformation
The previous committee was to come back quite swiftly on an update of how that is going.
And I think that was possibly before the summer holiday, July or possibly September.
Councillor Graham?
Well, so the cabinet member just said that she was confident that the transformation
programme could be expanded from saving 45 million to saving 137 million.
I just want to ask Mr. Travers whether that he has been given any such instruction or
target by the administration, because if he has not, how could that confidence possibly
exist?
I think the cabinet member would just like to come in and clarify.
I am very confident that that is not what I said.
Then can I just ask him for clarification.
If the gap of 92 million is not being met by an expanded transformation programme, how
is it to be met?
As I've said in my previous answer, we've only had two months to try to process this.
It's going to take time and we've got that time. We will use reserves in the way that
they were designed to be used to buy us more time to plan, to manage the changes we need
to do. But we are not going to slash our services, we are not going to damage our residents'
lives. We will manage this in a proper, careful way.
Reserves will have run out inside two years.
You can't just use the reserves to buy some time,
but then you are hit with a problem that you've just accepted.
The transformation programme won't cover that gap.
What we're talking about is a gap that's bigger than the council's entire payroll.
Literally, we could go down to no staff and you still wouldn't save £137 million.
This is not credible, is it?
Councillor Graham, you've made those points. I think they're comments.
Councillor Fraser will gather any other questions on transformation and then I'll come back to Councillor Critchard
You've had your hand up for a long time Councillor Belton
So I'm going to I am actually going to come to you first and then I'll come to you
Thank you, thank you, thank you very much
First just to try on a couple of facts
I think Councillor Graham suggested that the 45 million has already been counted.
Am I right in saying that actually when I read in the paper somewhere, I'm afraid I couldn't possibly put my finger on it.
But of the 45 million, 14 has been actually -
Power of 32.
Power of 32.
So 14 million has already been counted so that we can't count that again.
But 31 million is still to be found.
Is that, is that, that's correct.
So it's not quite true as I understood you to say, perhaps you didn't say, the 45 million
had already been counted.
Secondly.
It's been counted in the 92 million because the 31 million is included in page 77 on the
sixth line.
Secondly, Mrs. Mary, I'm not being personally offensive, but since when have you been Director
of Finance?
or whatever the word is.
Sorry, since when?
Since when?
February 2021.
Now and how many years before that did you have an in -depth knowledge of the budget?
About 120.
No, sorry, this is a mildly important point just because the person most responsible wants
to make a laugh out of it from a question saying how has there ever been a debt like
this before handled, he translated Mrs. Mary's answer to never.
And so I'm talking to you, Councillor Jones, I wouldn't be so sure about that, especially when you allow for inflation.
How about, for instance, when rates were abolished and we went to community charge?
How about when community charge went to council tax?
How about when this council, you've got a lot of history, I know slightly more than you, and so not for now, that'll be boring.
But before you raise it in the council meeting, let's make sure we've got the facts right.
I haven't finished, by the way.
I didn't interrupt you.
I haven't finished.
No, Councillor Richard Jones, please let Councillor Boulton finish.
If you want an example of transformation producing £40 million in four years or whatever it
is allowing for inflation in particular,
can I mildly respectfully refer to one of your fairly
immediate predecessors?
Do you think the special working arrangements, whatever
you want to call it, between Richmond and Wandsworth
wasn't a transformation?
And it's been estimated, I think,
to have saved over $10 million a year.
So actually, there's an example for you quite recently
when such a transformation has happened.
So...
You just said you couldn't do a 40 million.
I'm just giving you an example of what you did.
I didn't say it was the total answer,
because other things have to happen for the total answer.
Get on to the total answer, because I want to get back to...
Sorry, Councillor Pritchard, what you want to talk about this year.
Can I just cheque one other thing out?
I didn't quite, am I right in saying that a 1 % increase in charges for the council
produces about 50 % more than a 1 % increase in council tax?
I hadn't realised it was that much more significant than council tax, is that right?
Would that take you some time or?
Somewhere or other in the paper it says that a 1 % increase in charges brings in 1 .1 I think,
even in 1 .1 including allowing for what you call it, fair for all, including those things.
But it says somewhere or other 1 .1 million whereas in, as you're quite rightly say, council
tax increase of 1 % brings in 700 ,000 give or take.
So it's almost 50 % more than 1 % increase in charges, which I think is very interesting
because we can bump up the charges, for instance, quite a lot for people with money.
We haven't considered that kind of prospect.
We can bump up all sorts of things.
So we haven't covered all sorts of things that we'll have a whole year to discuss and
not just tonight.
Councillor Belton, I think Mrs. Murray is going to answer the question on the point
of the 1 % increase.
The bell to mate in relation to what I said.
Can I just ask Mrs. Murray to answer the question?
Mrs. Murray, please could you?
So I just want to clarify what Councillor Belton has read which is, you're correct
on page 69 it does reference 1 .1 million that's 1 % over each of three years so
cumulatively after three years a 1 % increase each year would generate 1 .1
million any chair I will be very quick but it was just two points that council
belter made directly and replied to something that I said I will be as quick
as I can sure the first point he made was about you know was this the greatest
rate on reserves ever. He's right that local government financing has changed. I'm pretty
sure I'm right that since the modern settlement under council tax this will be the largest
single rate in every area.
It does because you're not comparing apples with pears where we are. On the second point
about transformation, which is an important one, I don't know how long it took the shared
staffing arrangement to save 10 million a year. I don't know if that's actually the
That's kind of the folklore number that we all repeat.
But the point is, the shared staffing arrangement has been done.
Like the point is that this council has been engaged in very lean service streamlining
for decades and decades now.
We all know there's not a lot to cut.
This is not a response to the line.
This is.
Councillor.
The point is that we.
I'm going to move to Councillor Fraser.
We are nearly an hour into this discussion.
We have other items on this agenda.
There are other points...
Give me two...
No, no, I am sorry.
Give me two sentences and I'll wrap up.
No, no, no.
Councillor Fraser, please, I'm going to come to you on your question.
It's a simple fact that we have been transforming services for decades now.
There is not 45 million left.
There's not 90 million left.
There's certainly not 130 million left.
Can I...
I'm going to ask my question now because I'm going to focus us back to the transformation
programme this year and whilst we've got Mr. Travers at the table, I thought I just wanted
to talk about that because actually as we've talked about you chats about
charts about comparing apples with pears I think you can't come you can't make a
prediction on what the transformation programme is going to find as yet so you
it because it's not found them yet we actually they see no no please stop
talking across the table I'm really sorry but please you I know I know that
you you want to say a lot this isn't the only opportunity you will have to say
We've got a full council meeting.
I think we're going to be there for five hours, as I understand.
So please, can we make the most of this meeting?
This is the first item of the agenda.
We've nearly had an hour.
We've got another two items on the agenda
with other important matters that are going
to deliver for our local residents.
I completely accept this is an important paper.
I'm more than willing to give it more than a third
of the meeting.
But we do have to make some progress.
And please don't speak over each other.
It's just disrespectful.
And it doesn't serve our residents well at all.
So please, can we just lower tensions a little bit
and just keep our questions snappy,
keep the answers snappy,
and let's try and move through a little bit.
So, Councillor Fraser.
Thank you, Chair.
Yeah, so I think what I was trying to focus on
was thinking about some of the ways,
what of the work that the transformation
is gonna do in its first year.
So, are there some examples, Mr. Travers,
that you can talk us through about work
that's ongoing already, what it's achieving,
and whether we're set to achieve that saving,
and you want to give us an example of the trajectory
that we are going to go on with the transformation programme.
Thank you, Chair.
I think we have discussed at the previous meeting the structure of the transformation
programme and the way it goes across the eight different portfolio areas.
Some of which mirror our major spending departments.
So pretty straightforward.
Others are more crosscutting in their nature.
I think that the budget proposals for next year already in that they have savings that
have come from that work, they would represent I suppose quick wins from the early work that
we have done.
And the savings in the papers reflect those eight portfolio areas and can be interrogated
in more detail.
But they are the first phase of the work.
They have, it's been clear that they can be achieved in the next financial year, so they're
in these papers and budgets are reduced in respect of them.
Work continues to identify further savings.
And as I said before, the 45 million was a way in which we collectively and the administration
adopted this policy, was a way of getting going with an ambitious programme where we wanted
to achieve other things as well as savings.
So it's about service improvements.
It is about delivering in broad terms better for Wandsworth and residents.
But yes, of course, the savings are a really important part of that, which is why we wanted
to get going.
We wanted to set what I think is an ambitious and realistic target.
But as I said, as we move forward with the work, we are not setting 45 million as an
upper limit.
We want to see what the art of the possible is.
and that they will then need to be discussed with the council, with the administration,
with council in totality to determine what we should do and what we shouldn't do.
Ultimately, every year the budget has a balance.
We will all be part of that discussion about the parameters, income expenditure, council
tax, everything is in the picture, reserves are in the picture.
decisions will be taken and each budget each year will be will be legal and
balanced.
Councillor Critchard.
Thank you I don't think I've sat through such a long part of the meeting without actually asking something but first of all I'd like to pick up a couple of things that my colleagues opposite have said.
Councillor Corner mentioned that I've forgotten because it was like 15, 20 minutes ago about something about something being equivalent to a 50 % raise of council tax.
We are doing ourselves and our residents a disservice if we imply that that is a power that we as a council or whoever the administration has.
Residents obviously have to be reassured that council tax can only be raised within whatever parameters are given to us by the government.
Councillor Richard Jones.
What you said was wrong.
No.
What you said was wrong.
I'm not.
Next year there's no statutory limit on how much council tax can go up and you know that.
No that is not true.
There is no.
As I said, we're going to be respectful and we're going to continue to listen to what each other are saying.
And we're not going to have this answer across the table.
The next thing I wanted to say is,
Councillor Hedges, there is no way that just because a budget uses reserves,
that makes it less genuinely balanced.
Our financial officer here will only let us set a balanced budget.
That is something that is her, what she is here to do.
I can't remember your particular title for that.
She'll tell us if we can't, right?
Please again, we're using the word genuinely balanced
and raid on reserves.
The reserves are there, they can be used like savings.
They are not going to run out this year
and again, you're commenting back.
So please be careful about the words you use
compared with our residence.
There is no difference whether a budget is genuine,
it's balanced right the next thing excuse me I would right I'd also like to
point out to everyone I think I'm right in saying the turnover of this council
is about a thousand million so the savings of 45 we've got a budget that's
slightly different compared with the turnover.
Sorry, the turnover is about double that.
Excuse me.
And I would also say is obviously we're going to talk in the future.
We were going to talk about what might happen in the future.
There's been a big focus on the transformation programme.
There are other levers available.
Hopefully at that point we will be able to discuss it.
Right, now on this budget, would we, could you give us some indication
there is on page, I've got two questions around this, page 48 which is the adult social care budget.
That's one of the few that's actually got some demand led growth showing next year.
Could you explain, is there any idea how come we've got the demand led growth there,
whereas in for example in children's that isn't happening.
So I'd be interested to know how that, what that reflects and what we're going to be doing about that.
And then the second one, given I've got a chance to speak.
I'm interested in what the second home's premium, and I noticed that we had about 1 ,400 people paying the second home's premium.
I just wonder if that is a reflection of the actuality or if there is more work we can do on looking for second homes
because obviously there are
senses in the in the borough that there are areas where there are a lot of second homes and
Clearly if we can get a second home's premium, that's obviously increasing our revenue, which would be a good thing to do
So to pass that question
Thank you. So on demand -led growth, you're right, we are seeing demand growth in
adult social care, not the same extent in children's social care. If you were
speaking at the Children's Committee, I think you would have heard this in their
discussions last time. Demand is down in children's services, not least because the
number of children in the borough is not growing as much as it previously had, but
also managing risk and the portfolio of social practise that we've got is
managing that demand down. So we're not seeing, whilst it's not totally without
its pressures, it's a more managed position. Adult social care is
particularly manifesting itself in mental health and supportive living
costs which are significant but also more complex learning disability and
older people and mental cognition. So a general position across all of the care
sectors effectively around demand and then we also we've got something on on
homelessness as well. Some of the work we're doing in the transformation
programme is specifically looking at adult social care, it's looking at children's
social care and it's looking at housing but also what we're really keen to
connect together is the, in my head it's a Venn diagram where there are, we have
many clients and residents who are using our adult social care services
particularly around mental health and addiction kind of therapies who are also
our housing clients who are also our children's social care clients so
really making sure we look at that demand management across those three
to see whether there are any interventions or earlier interventions we can make
across the system rather than just the services.
That's the first question.
Can I, sorry, is that?
Yeah, I just, can I just, I just wanted to ask if there's learning that we've picked up from Children's
then that's going to be applied in the other services.
So I think just the general, I mean children's social care is children's social care and
isn't necessarily going to correlate, but I think that point about whole family support
is something that we are definitely looking at and we're seeing that with some of the
work we're doing with our financial resilience for instance. So helping a family with its
financial position will help with its housing position and it kind of, it can catalyst through.
So yeah, we'll definitely see that come through and there'll be some good stuff
I think on that in the transformation programme on the point about second homes. We've done a lot of work on introducing second homes premium
Where we think there is more to go. We've got some really good data that we're using and we've been tracking the
the progress of where we have first of all identified potential properties, but then actually crystallising those into
to second home charges that we are then able to collect.
And there's a lot of work around making sure
that you're able to continue to collect what you charge.
Because ultimately, when we first started,
we didn't have a database of second homes.
That didn't exist.
So there was always going to be that piece of data management
to build up the portfolio of knowledge.
And it's right that we continue to review that.
because as you say, not least the cohort will change,
necessarily it will change,
but also there's more we can do
on some of those targeted areas.
So I would expect there to be further growth
in 26 .7 in that area.
Thank you.
Councillor Belton, then I'll come to Councillor Corner,
and then Councillor Apps.
But again, on this year's budget,
is it right to say that if we can reduce, for instance,
the demands of the cost of the numbers of homeless people being put up in temporary
accommodation by 12%, then we save £10 million. Now I'm not saying that's an easy thing to
do because if it were, I'm sure it would be done, but nonetheless, is it an example where
a transformation could make £10 million difference? And I also recognise that £10 million is only
part of the problem by the way but it's still nonetheless a significant part of
the problem. Is that all right? And then one question after that. So I don't
recognise the figures Councillor Belton but obviously reducing homelessness will
have an impact on our costs. Actually containing demand growth is going to be
the first focus on homelessness. The biggest single factor that would help
the council's position on homelessness is to address the shortfall in housing
benefit that we receive from government which is causing the biggest
charge to our net budget and that's something that we've been lobbying on
for a while now and we'll continue with that.
Okay and one other question, as a chair really, I'd be interested to know whether you've had notice of an amendment to this paper because judging by the
being put forward and the accused irresponsibility involved the amendment
should say presumably that we would recommend that we go for a 4 .9 percent
increase on the top and what would that do to the council tax if that happened
this year?
Councillor Graham I know you wanted to come in on this this point but
Perhaps you can answer Councillor Belton's point.
Do members of the opposition want to propose that because there's been a use of reserves
or otherwise, you propose that council taxes increase this year?
Question is whether this year's budget is responsible or not is a question of what happens
next.
If this year's budget is as it is, but then there is a plan to close that £92 million
gap, then it is a responsible budget.
If there is no plan to close that 92 million pound gap,
it's an utterly irresponsible budget
that is simply burning money to buy a bit of time,
get past an election, and then whack residents
with a council tax increase.
Thank you.
Councillor Corner and then Councillor Apps.
Thank you.
I think it's quite clear that the crux of this issue
is not actually the 26, 27 budget,
as troubling as that is because it's not sustainable.
it's the fact that there is a huge financial crisis looming in the next few years,
which the current budget only exacerbates, it offers no answers for how the council will deal with this.
Councillor Critchard did mention a point I made earlier and a point that Councillor Hedges made.
Firstly, she referenced my point about how each foregone percentage of council tax increases,
essentially the council giving up 0 .77 million.
Well as Councillor Richard Jones correctly pointed out, sorry and the budget gap for
next year would equate to a 50 % increase in council tax.
As Councillor Richard Jones set out, it would actually be theoretically possible for the
council to make that tax increase next year because your government has given councils,
including this one, the powers to raise council tax above the 5 % threshold without a referendum.
What I was trying to do was paint a picture for residents who might not understand the
extremely complicated nature of local government finance about the extent to which the council
tax would have to rise to close that budget gap in future years, even before the impact
of the local government funding settlement that the Labour government has imposed on
Wandsworth Council.
Secondly, there was the point around what constitutes a balanced budget.
Well, I think most people, most residents of Wandsworth, the vast majority would say
a balanced budget is where your costs are not as high as your income.
Okay, they balance.
When we talk about a genuinely balanced budget, that's what we mean.
Councillor Critchard attacked the use of the phrase genuinely balanced budget,
But it's really no different to when the administration talk about genuinely affordable housing.
It's just trying to get a point across that it's about what matters in the real world
and what people commonly understand as a balanced budget or indeed affordable housing.
Using money that we were saved in previous years to plug a huge budget gap in the coming year
is not a genuinely balanced budget.
It is using money that was saved to plug a gap this year that can't then be used again in future years.
That is the issue that we are facing here. And that's what I'm very very concerned
about when it comes to the
cabinet member for finance actually principally and also members opposite have been completely unable to give any explanation for
Any answers about for how the this council is going to deal with that in the coming years?
Councillor Allen, I don't know if you want to come back. I do feel like we are going beginning to go around in in circles
I think we have had quite some some discussion on on
the kind of use of reserves in the budget.
I think Councillor Belton made a point at the beginning of this meeting that ultimately
this is ones with taxpayers money that has gone into, as Mrs.
Mary said, has gone into a financial resilience to support the council at times of financial hardship.
And we've also touched on the fact that we have faced significant inflation over a period of time and
real demand pressures in at least two of our service areas.
And this committee well knows that because we've had a whole session on it before Christmas.
So I don't know, Councillor, if you want to come in on those points from Councillor Corner.
If not, I'll come to Councillor Apps and then I think I've got Councillor Graham and Councillor Richard -Jones.
Just to repeat that using reserves to plug a budget gap is a totally legitimate use.
In fact, the financial resilience reserve was set up for that purpose.
Okay, Councillor App, did I say sorry?
Yeah, thanks very much.
I mean there's no doubt that it is a challenging time and obviously we will be doing everything
to turn over every stone and every opportunity to make sure we make savings and also that
we establish growth to help our budget.
There are obviously some particular areas where we can do that.
looking at some new possibilities that are coming up.
There's the tourist tax.
Are we looking at how the implementation of the tourist tax
might help in terms of council income?
And also, another way is looking at some potential savings
or potential growth.
Have we looked at the capital investment
and what impact a review of the capital investment
could have on the budget framework overall?
Well, I can give you a few examples if you like.
I mean, I said it before, but a large part
of the strain on the general fund
is the amount we're spending on temporary accommodation,
60 million pounds.
Now, Mrs. Murray's explained why that's difficult for us.
It's the fact that building 1 ,000 homes
will help to control those costs.
And we are also working on other areas.
I think we've saved 3 .7 million, is it?
annually through homelessness prevention, the work we're doing on that. And our new
leisure contracts, over the ten years of the new leisure contracts, we will be
refurbishing the leisure centres, including Putney Leisure Centre, for those who are
worried about no investment being made in Putney, it's simply not true. That's
set to save us 30 million pounds. Now there are lots of things that we are
doing that weren't done by the previous administration. The previous
administration might be very proud of their record of having a lean council,
but it's the fact we've achieved other savings without having any adverse
effect on the services. So for instance the use of agency staff, that's decreased
I think in children's it's decreased by 47 % to 3 % and in adults we've decreased
the use by 25%. Now this is saving two million pounds a year, so these are just
small examples and 11 million pounds saved from diverting more waste from rubbish to recycling it goes on and on
You know we've saved 14 million pounds since we took over through service redesign and efficiencies and smarter staffing structures
That's a fact and these will continue so thank you
Thank you
Yes, I'm it's unfortunate in relation to those savings that have been normal set by overspending and additional commitments
have taken on, so it's not exactly improved the net position of the Council.
However, that wasn't my question. I think it is about time we turned our attention
to paragraph 7 of the report on page 6, in which the Cabinet member states that her administration
will not be using the freedom to increase Council tax beyond the 5 % referendum limit
in the coming years as proposed by the Government in December.
The government's proposals relate to 2027, 28, 28, 29.
Those are the years in which that power would be given to us.
So can we be very clear?
Were the Labour Party to win the election in May and form the administration after May,
It is their policy that they would not increase council tax by more than 5 % in either April 2027 or April 2028.
Is that the policy?
My recommendations relate to the 26 -27 year and my recommendation on the council tax relates to that year.
Now, you know very well council tax is not set by the government. It's set locally by us and
The government has said it will lift the referendum limit for 27 28 and 28 29
We didn't ask for this power to increase council tax beyond the current referendum
limit
We are committed to keeping the same low council tax because it's the single most important thing we can do for our residents
Now as always because I'm not faces question every year
Decisions about council tax will be made in accordance with the Constitution and this will be informed by the most up -to -date information available.
We don't have that at the moment.
So that's my answer.
I do need to come back on that because I didn't make the cabinet member talk about coming years.
She's talked about coming years in the report.
She has specifically referenced what will happen in the coming years in which that freedom exists
And what paragraph seven says to me is that were the Labour Party to win in May,
they would not and are pledging not to increase council tax by more than that referendum threshold
in either April 2027 or 2028, despite the fact they would have the freedom to do so.
I'm asking her what her own words mean and she's now said that she can't answer.
I think she can answer that. What do they mean?
What I say to the Councillor is that in situations such as this, too often the response is to
hike up Council tax, but we're not taking that response.
The onus on us is to find innovative new ways of working and modernising how we deliver
our services. Any increase in raising the Council tax, in my opinion, should be the
last option considered. And we're not planning to use these powers just because they are
So what I'm trying to establish is whether your words of paragraph 7 rule out any increase
above the referendum threshold in either of the next two financial years.
That is what it appears to do.
I'm asking whether that is correct or not.
Are you ruling that out or are you leaving it as an option?
Saying that this paper and my recommendations relate to 26, 27, they do...
I'm asking you about your reports.
Councillor Graham, that's the third time I've asked again.
I think Councillor Ireland has now been clear about...
Has she?
What does she mean then?
Is it a yes or a no?
I don't think you asked an yes or no question.
I asked whether it meant that she was ruling it out for those two years.
I think you've been provided with an answer that next year's council tax will be set next
year.
Councillor Richard -Jones, have you got a question?
Yes, thanks very much, Chair.
Two questions.
I think the first one is very important.
Can I ask the cabinet member, do you have your report in front of you?
You've got it.
So if you could take a look at paragraph 7, because it says, and these are your words,
this is the section that you wrote, it says, our administration will not be using the freedom
to increase council tax beyond the 5 % referendum limit in the coming years as proposed by the
government in December.
So does that mean you're setting a 5 % maximum increase next year and the year after?
I think I've said everything I need to say on this. I've made myself very clear.
OK, I'll wait.
Well, it's just the…
I didn't think that I was being respectful.
I think we've made the point, and I think Councillor Graham appreciated that.
He's caught himself.
Councillor Eynold, is there anything else you want to say in response?
I do appreciate that Councillor Richard -Jones is making a very similar point to that which Councillor Graham made.
If he wants to come back again, I'll let him come back again once and then we'll move on to Councillor Critchard.
Is there anything else that you want to add?
No, just to repeat that we did not ask for these powers to raise council tax above the current referendum limit.
and at the moment we have no plans to use them.
That might be a helpful clarification because you say in the paper you will not be using it
and you said tonight you have no current plans to use it, but I'll move on
because we've just tried to elicit a simple answer to that and we can't get one.
My second question is on a similar theme which is about basically whether the council is telling the truth
and whether it's calling a spade a spade.
So, as you're aware, the Labour government settlement takes 85 million out of the budget
every year by 2028 to 2029.
That is among the worst settlements in the country.
Of the hundreds of councils in England, that is one of the worst settlements.
We are amongst six other councils in London to have an absolutely catastrophic settlement.
Now, Richmond had a similar settlement and they found it so alarming that they threatened
legal action against the government.
Westminster City Council has had a similar settlement and they called it a financial
crisis in the Evening Standard this week.
And Kenderson and Chelsea have had a similar settlement as well.
And it's so bad they are now consulting on service reductions and pulling support that
don't want to pull at all from the voluntary and community sector.
Why is it that all of these councils facing similar budget cuts are sounding the alarm
and having honest, difficult conversations with their residents about the choices ahead,
and yet this administration is trying to pretend that there are no problems whatsoever?
That's far from the truth.
We do know the situation we are facing and it is challenging, in particular the short period of transition.
But we have reserves which we will use.
We will use the time to plan for this.
It's not something that you can just have a knee -jerk reaction to.
This has to be planned very carefully and that's what we are doing with the transformation programme
and that work will be done in the summer.
Listen, when we come back in September, we'll have the medium -term financial strategy,
and that will very carefully lay out what our plans are.
But at the moment, through a prudent use of reserves, it buys us more time, and that's what we intend to do.
We don't want to make mistakes by just jumping to conclusions.
We think we can manage this, however challenging it is.
Thank you.
Councillor Quichard and Councillor Fraser and then we'll wrap up the discussion because we have had quite some time.
Thank you. One of the things that I've noticed here is that a lot of the discussion has been basically focused on what's going to happen to council tax and the use of reserves.
and the transformation programme. What I would also want to know is what other levers are available
because actually there are a lot of government changes coming in that I understand could affect,
for example, yeah the big spend for us is children's, adults and temporary accommodation.
Anything that hits those would help us basically by reducing our costs.
So I'm interested to know what else is available and also whether or not we're seeing our council tax,
likely to see our council tax base grow.
And the other thing I would say is, whoever is running the council will also be looking at exactly what our financial advice has been.
We need to look and see what happens in September. There are things that will change over the summer. We don't know and
That could affect
what we're looking at in terms of a budget gap and I think that one of the things that
we should do is be very clear that
At the moment a budget gap is predicted as yet
We do not know and as you all know very well
Councillor Ireland always says we look at the year. She's always said that she said that every single year in council
And she has said that to you now, and that is how she operates and you know that
Okay, why does Paragraph 7 say what it does Councillor Pritchard?
Councillor Pritchard, do you want to have any other comments or questions?
No, it's about that and about what other levers are available.
I think we mustn't lose sight of that.
Mrs Merritt, do you want to come in on potential national government changes that could impact
the future look?
Yeah, thank you.
That is actually a very good question and it is effectively the fourth lever.
Not fully in our control is the issue.
So in terms of mitigating risk, it's something we need to look at and continue to lobby on.
We talked about earlier the overnight visitor levy,
so the tourist tax, we're putting in a consultation response on that
to ask to share the proceeds of that.
That's definitely something that we think is relevant for Wandsworth.
Changes to the social care system could help,
and we've looked at those in terms of adult social care.
They've been paused, but they're still on the horizon.
children's social care and changes to special educational needs will come
through and we would hope would continue to mitigate the pressures in children's
social care. Homelessness, the renters rights act hopefully
will have an impact increasing the affordable housing and social housing
continuing to pursue grants. We've had some really good grant allocations in
the in recent years so there are lots of things we can do that are led by
national government and we can continue to lobby on. I spoke about the housing
benefit subsidy bill as well so definitely things that we will continue
to look at but not wholly in our control.
Sorry one follow up on that.
Councillor Critchard yes.
So particularly on the rent as rights, what that will reduce is no
fault evictions. Presumably that would have an impact both on the cost of
temporary accommodation and the amount of officer time that would take
to sort these things out.
Mrs. Murray is nodding in response to that.
Councillor Fraser.
Thank you. One of the items on the areas we haven't discussed as part of this is inflation.
So obviously that has had a big impact and continues to have an impact on our budgets
and how we set them. So just wondering what assumptions have been taken into account on
inflation when forming the decisions in the paper?
Mrs. Murray.
Yes.
Yes, so we have had the compounded impact of inflation has had a significant impact
on the budgets over the past few years and we've added in, I think, in the past four years,
we've added 84 million to our base just to cover inflation.
So buying no more products and doing nothing more than just
continuing to service our existing spend.
We've put in estimates linked to national estimates
in future years and obviously reflecting the fact
that the current inflation rate is higher than it
has been in the past and higher than future forecast,
but is obviously lower than it previously has been.
We also have a national pay award and living wage and national minimum wage to factor in
as well.
So we use a blended rate, which for next year is I think quite a good solid rate and then
as we go into future years, the projections are based on assumptions that we will continue
to review.
Thank you.
And Councillor Graham and then we'll move on.
Yes, so it's a comment to wrap up, not a question.
So I mean, Councillor Critchard talks about the levers.
I mean, and we've heard that there are basically four.
We've just heard from Mrs. Mary on trying to manage
some of these demand pressures.
But that is not going to close a gap of 92 million pounds.
A second lever is transformation.
Well, we've already heard the chief executive
describe a 45 million pound transformation programme
as ambitious and realistic.
And in questioning, I think to that we can add unprecedented
if it achieves that level.
To suggest that that 45 million pounds could be expanded
to 137 million is a fantasy.
If that is not the suggestion, we're now starting to run out
of levers.
Because what it comes down to is that the only way,
If you're not going to raise it on demand pressure,
you're not going to raise it through transformation,
you're going to protect all services and not make any reductions to services,
the only thing that is left is council tax.
And that is what the government assumes you will reach for.
A £92 million budget gap would require a 130 % increase.
I'll say that again just in case no one heard it.
A 92 million pound budget gap after the election would require a 130 % increase in local council
tax.
That, unfortunately, given everything that the cabinet member has said, is where we are
going and worse, I think everybody on the other side of the table knows it and this
This is a deliberate strategy of denial to pretend to residents in this borough that everything is fine,
there's nothing to see here, vote for us at the election, and then whack them with more than double the council tax they are currently paying.
That is the policy, it's just not the policy you dare speak because you know what the reaction would be.
Councillor Ireland, do you want to respond?
That might be your view.
the cabinet members answer. She's trying to speak so I think you can show everybody
at the table the respect and actually listen to each other.
Precisely.
And why ask the question if you don't want the answer?
You might not like the answer, but it's my answer.
When we drafted the budget for 25 -26, we predict.
Thank you.
I think it's conduct unbecoming, but there they go.
When we drafted the budget for 25 -26,
we calculated that the loss of fund funding
would be around 19 million for 25, 26, I beg your pardon, for 26, 27.
That actually came, that was actually very accurate.
So we are very confident in our forecasting abilities.
Now nobody's pretending this isn't challenging, but we're not throwing our hands up saying,
oh, there's nothing we can do.
equally we are not making rash decisions. This will be managed very carefully.
That's the way I've always worked and that's the way we will continue to work.
And thank you. And whatever happens we will maintain a low council tax. It will
still be the lowest in the country but that's my guarantee. Okay so let's move
on then to the paper. So we do have recom... this is not a paper before us for
decision. Ultimately the decision is going to be taken by cabinet and then
full council in March but we have the recommendations that are listed at
paragraph 16 which includes the recommendation from the cabinet member
for finance to freeze the main element of council tax for this year and
increase the adult social care precept by by 2 % as I said at the beginning of
the discussion this is a paper that relates to next year's budget and next
year's council tax setting decisions. So do members agree to endorse the
recommendations on their way to cabinet in paragraph 16.
Do we want to have a vote on that?
So all those in favour of the recommendations?
Yes, all those against.
And any abstentions?
Thank you very much.
Obviously in favour of setting an equal budget.
I don't want to set a budget at all.
Okay moving on then to item number four members the proposed additions to their
capital programme. So this paper sets out additions to our capital programme 52

4 Proposed Additions to the Capital Programme (Paper No.26-64)

million of new investment underlying the council's ambitions in a fairer greener
more sustainable borough so the proposed additions are set out in paragraph 5 .3
of that report so they include improvements to leisure facilities
enhancing public realm, community spaces, supporting independent living to improve
the quality of residents lives. So as with the previous paper these proposals
are being considered by cabinet next week so this is the committee's
opportunity to scrutinise these additions and again similar with the
previous board I would appreciate as we have got this paper for pre -decision
that we really focus our discussion on the recommendations that are actually
going to Cabana on the additions to this programme.
Councillor, I didn't know if you intended to do an introduction to this report
or if Mrs. Murray wants to do a short introduction. Anything else to add?
Thank you, Chair. Yes, so as you say, the additions in the capital programme
are proposed in this report. There's a number of them across a number of service areas
and funded from a number of different funding sources,
totaling $52 .3 million. There's a confirmed commitment to the Alton
regeneration and commitment to the family hub community space that the
ports would place in here. As we spoke about earlier, the Leisure Centre
investment programme which will continue to deliver our revenue income
and actually improve our revenue position with savings that have been
in the medium -term financial strategy. There's also investment in the children's respite
home, and we're using a number of different forms of funding in order to deliver that,
maximising the use where we can of contributions that we've received from developers, either
through Section 106 agreements or through the Community Infrastructure Levy.
Thanks very much, Chair. So this, as you said, is an update on the capital programme and spending.
The debt now on the capital programme, I think, totals now $169 million. Part of that is because
the administration is now borrowing to fill potholes, when what it could have done, rather
was get that money from property developers instead.
The cabinet member in the previous paper
commented that she had a commitment
to making developers pay.
I think that's a reference to payments under SIL
and payments under section 106.
So those are payments that developers are legally
required to pay when they get permission
for a certain development. So I wanted to know what the cabinet member was referring
to there. Was she referring to something else that the administration had gotten out of
property developers, or was she referring to still in section 106?
Well, over half of the funding for this capital programme is from developers. That's, is it
236 million out of the 470 million.
And this is all about protecting, maintaining,
and improving our assets for ourself and future generations.
Now, we're doubling our investments
in streets and pavements.
We're repairing bridges and tunnels.
We're enhancing our parks and green spaces.
And over half of this is paid for
by developer contributions.
Now, I can see myself every day
The results of the underinvestment in our assets, I mean, I had for three years water
coming through my roof.
I'm a council leaseholder, continually non -stop, while at the same time for 23 hours and 55
minutes of the day, no water coming through the main tap in the kitchen.
And this was all because the previous administration and ones to that did not invest in assets,
did not look after the stock. So we are correcting that. It's decades of under -investment and
we are making use of developer funding to do this.
This paper doesn't discuss the Council's housing stock. This is just the capital programme. But
just wanted to be clear that the developers' levies that you're talking about, I mean,
most of them are permissions that were granted under the previous conservative administration.
I just wanted to clarify, is there anything, when you say your commitment to making developers
pay, that's basically just a rhetorical way of saying you're collecting what they legally
do to pay?
That's the requirement of the plan, missions, yes.
So you're not doing anything extra.
There's been no change in the administration's policy towards developers' levies.
You're just collecting what's legally due from them.
I don't know if Mr Moore wants to come out.
I think there's a conversation around SIL and our approach to SIL and I think it touches
in a way on the paper that we've got next on the agenda in terms of the growth plan
and the opportunity to collect more SIL.
I don't know if you want to come in, officers want to come in at this point on SIL.
I was just asking the cabinet member what she meant.
You don't need to deflect by bringing in other officers.
I just wanted to ask Councillor Ireland what she meant by her own words.
That's all.
I think you've had your answer.
Councillor Critchard.
Thank you.
One of the things that's changed with the capital programme at the moment is we've had a new model of working,
which I think is about a year or so old, where we've got the committee capital programme and the development pool.
So what's happening is these changes are going into the development pool and I just wondered,
my first question was how is this new approach working?
Because obviously I think it was due to bring in, make improvements and I'd like to hear
about that.
And then I've got a couple of specific questions on the actual changes in the programme.
So the revised process and governance process that was agreed, we think it has had an impact
because of what it allows us to do is really identify those schemes that are actually shovel -ready
and are delivering and to make sure that we monitor those as closely as we can.
Notwithstanding, we still want to progress those that are not yet shovel -ready and are
in what we call the development pool.
So it has allowed that focus.
What we need to make sure we do is use that increased focus to improve the deliverability
of our schemes and make sure that we're delivering those schemes that are ready to be delivered
as efficiently and as effectively as possible.
And as part of the work that we're doing in the transformation programme, we're looking
at how we can do that and whether there's more that we can do. What we have found is
the scale of the capital programme is big and that scale in and of itself delivers issues
with making sure that you keep on top of all the schemes as best you can. So we really
need to make sure that our officer capacity and our external capacity helps us to deliver
at this level of programme and that's a bit we are still doing but aided by that better
view of what our programme is and those elements of the programme that are ready
to be delivered as opposed to not yet ready. And then a specific one, I was very
interested in the disabled facilities grant, the extra five million. I'm quite
interested in knowing how well publicised that is and what the take -up
is because most residents who are finding it more difficult to live
independently, would really prefer to live in their homes to stay at home. And I think that also
is a cost saving to stay at home. So how good's the take -up? What sort of publicity will be on
there? And I dread to say this, but is that enough? Or should we be looking at a bit more in there that
might make us a saving elsewhere? Obviously that will be looked at somewhere else. Thank you. So
So the adult social care directorate deliver on the spend in disabled facilities, which is fully covered by grant.
We actually get a good level of allocation, I would say, and actually there's a consultation out at the moment that's just confirmed that one's allocation will continue at that higher level,
which is good because some councils have seen their allocation cut.
And it's linked to the work that social workers are doing
to prevent households coming into any kind of social care need.
So I'm not sure of the detail of how well taken up it is,
but I know that as part of our prevention programme,
that is definitely one of the tools that the social workers
and the occupational health team use to keep people in their own homes.
My other follow -up, is there something that we as councillors can do when we see people?
I mean, I must say, if I do see an older person, I quite often ask have they got everything
that's necessary, but maybe that's something that we can help with when we see people through
advice sessions or just on the doorstep.
What I can do is get social care colleagues to send you some information on how best to
make those kinds of referrals.
Yeah, I'll get them to send you something.
Councillor Graham.
Yes.
So this paper just adds 37 million to general fund debt.
And I say it just because it has to be seen in context.
And the context is the plans before this to borrow over 1 .1 billion pounds.
And this is borrowing going into a financial crisis.
It's borrowing for basics, as Councillor Richard -Jones pointed out, filling potholes.
It is borrowing which is going to cost more to repay than the principal sum actually borrowed
in the first place.
We're going to end up spending more in debt interest than we are for the actual amount
borrowed.
1 .1 billion borrowed at a cost of approaching 2 .5 billion pounds over 50 years.
And it's on the way in to a financial crisis.
Now, Councillor Ireland was asked in the previous paper whether she felt that the budgets that she was projecting were sustainable.
And I don't think her answers were convincing.
Should she really think that given that context, this is the right time to be borrowing so much money when what she inherited was external debt going down to zero?
Well, I would say the right time to be borrowing money was during the years of the previous
administration when interest rates were at rock bottom.
That would have saved us a lot of money.
It is upsetting that we've inherited assets that need a lot of work to bring them up to
the standard to do the repairs.
We think that's very important.
The borrowing remains affordable.
If at any stage it doesn't, then we will adjust our plans accordingly.
but we are committed to maintaining the borough in the best way possible.
I just come back because this is the point previously made.
This 37 million has got nothing to do with housing stock.
Now actually, under the previous administration, all homes are brought up to proper standards,
decent home standard.
Under the previous administration, our housing services weren't being rated as failing.
So I don't think she should cast stones about on that.
Clearly, there was long -term expenditure needed on estates, and all of us recognise that.
But her administration, her decisions, and those of her colleagues are choosing to add
beyond those costs a whole load of others, including this $37 million in front of us.
Given the extreme financial uncertainty, which even she, I think, has accepted exists, is
this a sensible or prudent approach?
You might have claimed that 100 % of the homes met the decent home standard, but we all know
that that standard wasn't fit for purpose.
I've given you the example that you dismissed about living with water coming through the
roof.
I can give you – well, okay, right, thank you.
Well, you didn't seem to think it was important.
I can assure you it was very important to me and my neighbours who were suffering in
the same way.
Now we do... Councillor Richard -Jones, let's...
Thank you, thank you Chair.
We do not accept that that is the right thing for our residents to tolerate,
so we are doing something about it.
Now, you have constantly made reference to, we would hike up the council tax,
we would wreck the...
We would wreck the council's finances.
We've been in office now four years. It's quite clear that we haven't done that.
You talked, I don't know how to manage this.
Okay, again, as you mentioned, reserves. The only reserve that's decreased significantly is the housing revenue account.
The other reserves are being used for their proper purpose
Yes, that's all I've got to say really we intend to carry on investing in our residents and our borough
That's important to us and I think it's important to our residents
And I'll repeat repeat if at any stage this doesn't look affordable
Then we will adjust our plans accordingly move on a counsellor Fraser
Thank you
And actually it leads on from a point Councillor Graham mentioned on potholes because actually,
I think through proactive working investment in our highways and our footways, it reduces
costs in the long term, but also it really creates improvements.
And I say this as someone who enjoyed one year as cabinet member for transport and a
few years as chair for transport committee.
So I'm delighted to see some of the things mentioned in here on the achievements that we're making on on Burwood Lane
investing in the Queenstown Road corridor skiing one of the
Most used cycling corridors in London helping our residents get to work by filling in potholes it
It helps not just those who drive but those who cycle those who walk those who wheel
It helps people like Vera who live on the ride veil estate in Southland to actually leave her house to be able to walk on
the pavements that we've invested in.
And I've got residents now who've
got pavement envy because of the amount of pavements
that we've done.
And we've not done her road just yet,
because it's not met that threshold.
But actually, that investment and that investment
before it's needed, before it gets
to that worst possible state, is actually
front -loading to lessen costs in the long term before it gets.
And actually, that, and I don't know,
Councillor Allen, if you'd want to reflect on the work that yourself and Councillor Yates are doing on the decision we've taken to put that investment in highways and putting that investment in before it's needed.
Yes, that's true and it is long overdue and it will also help our residents to take part in active travel, walking and cycling which will improve the health and wellbeing of our residents. It's well worth it.
Councillor Belton?
All right, can Mrs. Mary point me to,
if I got this right, the revenue implications
of the additions in the programme?
There must be revenue implications.
I think Mrs. Murray is doing it.
I can see her looking through.
Yes, yes, we've got, yes.
I think we're looking at page 43, Mrs. Murray.
Can you just show me more?
Sorry, sorry.
Page 43, the detailed budget there shows the last line near the bottom is the treasury cost of capital investment.
So that's the revenue cost of the capital programme.
The borrowing, the total borrowing is a, generates a 10 million pound revenue cost by that third year.
And I thought that one of the minority party was trying to make a distinction.
I'm just interested to know whether he is Rosarite between SIL and the capital account.
In fact, in revenue implication terms, does it matter which one it's from?
After all, they're just two different pots of money.
In revenue terms, does it make any difference whether it's SIL or capital account?
It does because borrowing has an increased cost.
So there is an additional cost of borrowing, which is more than the gain you have from
not using SIL.
So yes, borrowing is a more expensive overall use of resource than...
Because SIL is just taking out what money is invested somewhere other.
Correct.
It's interesting as opposed to interest out.
Okay, so there is a slight difference.
Right, thank you for that.
I just I
Was once told by someone that the postcode I lived in
I think in fact was slightly wrong probably one slightly further down the road was the most indebted in postcode in the country
The implication from this person was thinking that the Thirlley Road North road area was the poorest place in the country
Now anyone who knows Surly Road, and I'm sure the Councillors opposite me know,
that that's the very last thing is the poorest.
And what it shows, having massive great overheads as they have,
is that they've invested in their property and made a bundle out of it.
Now it's really strange that when we invest,
and the particularly strange, I mean, Councillor Fraser's given a few good examples,
Here's one everyone knows surely and that's the bridge on Falcon Road.
I heard a lot of scepticism at the time about waste of money.
Anyone who thinks that now, just look at the letters coming in.
I actually like going down there and go down there for a walk
and all the wealth that will generate in terms of the improvement of Clapham Junction
by that relatively small capital expenditure.
So I wouldn't give up all the good things in life,
just because you're a little bit afraid of debt,
which, of course, all of us have,
all those of the opposite, who have been only occupiers at any time.
That's what you expect.
Most of us would take the opportunity.
I'm sure Councillor Fraser... I hope she doesn't mind me saying this.
I'm sure Councillor Fraser, if she had the depositing ability to do it,
would love to have the debt, rather than being paying rent all the time.
So, you know, I just don't get too worried about it
Mine's a comment and a question
So when I first joined the council
I was in my first ever environment committee meeting and the former one of the former cabinet members who'd covered leisure
Talked about the terrible state that some of the leisure centres were in and I was fairly shocked at the time
It is important that we protect our assets as a borough and not protecting them doesn't necessarily, as Councillor Belton's pointed out, bring you financial advantage.
Because if our leisure centres are not well looked after, then people will not want to visit them and they will not spend their money there.
So it's a really important thing to make sure that we keep our leisure centres in good condition.
I've also had a resident contact me to say she had great difficulty in opening the doors in the
Latchmere Leisure Centre because of her disabilities and so I was really glad to see that we're making the doors better for access
etc as well as other investments in our leisure centres.
So, but that kind of brings me on to our Invest to Save
projects and
I think we could definitely count leisure as one of those. So I was keen to know how much of the
12 .5 investment in leisure facilities is going to help with the generation of income from
through charges for our residents.
Thank you.
So if I understand the question it's how much of the investor save is on the leisure. Yeah, that's 8 .3 million.
That we've all already got
investment in the capital programme to
make sure the leisure centres continue to be fit for purpose and then in addition to that we've got this investment to generate additional income based on the contractor's view of the best use of those assets.
Within the contract itself there's also significant investment from the contractor so it's almost a kind of a three -way investment in leisure but it's all bringing together
a set of proposals that will, number one, protect the assets that we've got, enhance the use of them,
and then as a consequence of that, to generate additional income that's being fed into the revenue budgets.
Now I've got Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Chair. Just following on from something Peter said about borrowing,
We've got those two figures there, 28 million from borrowing and then the further 94.
And then you've got the 9 .4 million mentioned as well.
Can you confirm what the annual cost to taxpayers is likely to be?
Thank you.
So the line that we referred to earlier would be 10 million by the end of year three.
That's the cost to the general fund, yeah, revenue, yeah.
Richard Jones.
Thanks very much, Chair.
I mean, obviously, we on this side of the chamber and the committee room, we obviously
want potholes to be filled.
We want our roads to be maintained.
I think anyone's arguing that.
The issue is, is that we're sounding the alarm when day -to -day basics are paid on debt.
There is no revenue return, the kind of local government sends to filling a pothole.
That doesn't generate you income.
So, if you're filling potholes on debt, what happens when the next set of potholes come
along?
You take out more debt.
And, Councillor Belton's analogy about personal finance and bringing Councillor Fraser into
it, it doesn't work in this instance because you only take on personal debt that you think
you can reasonably afford relative to your income.
We've already discussed at this committee how there's a 137 million pound revenue budget
gap.
On that basis, it's irresponsible to take on debt.
No, no, no, you don't, you don't.
The, the, Councillor Belton, at the end, at the end, at the end, at the end, Chair, will
you...
Councillor Richard -Jones, have you got a question?
Because I've got a question.
Yes, I do.
It's Mrs. Mary on the back of the points being made, so please get to your question,
I'm not sure that's mine.
It's just that you're very comfortable calling me towards her, but not Councillor Belton
towards her, but that's fine.
I'm happy to call everybody to order.
Glad to hear it.
Please use, ask your question.
Sorry.
At the end of this budget forecast,
the usable reserves are forecast to be 121 million pounds.
That's less than the 137 million budget gap.
Okay?
Now, no, I'm gonna ask my question.
Councillor Belton, no.
If you want your right of reply,
you can wait for Councillor Richard Jones to finish
and then you can reply.
So that's why the analogy with personal debt doesn't work, because you only take on personal
debt that you can actually repay.
And on the figures tonight, which is the last forecast from this administration, the picture
looks absolutely dire.
I've got two specific questions on the capital additions.
One is that – so this paper adds $2 .9 million to the Northcote development, so that's
the library, community hall and the residential units.
I'd like to know what's actually happened to this development.
This isn't the first expansion of the budget to this.
And officers will be aware that it's now been about two and a half years since the library
was opened.
There were significant snagging issues that had to be dealt with in the library.
And the community hall, I think, just last month has opened after two and a half years
of substantive completion.
So residents want to know, I think, what's happened to the management of this project
where there have been delays after delays, the full facilities aren't yet in use, when
of course the shovel went into the ground in the last administration, an additional
three million is being added to the capital budget.
The second specific question I have is that there is also an additional half a million
pounds to the Bradstow Special School site.
And as this committee knows, it's to my mind a shameful
footnote of this administration that despite protesting the
contrary for years and years, it is shutting Bradstow School
when that thing is financially viable had it been allowed to
take more students and had the unreasonable controls not be
placed on it.
But why is there then capital investment going into the site, if not actually to make the
asset a more valuable one to sell off, which was of course the parents of Bradstow Schools'
anxiety all along, which is that the council was trying to divest itself of this precious
facility to get a quick capital receipt.
Mrs. Murray, I think there's a few questions there.
In terms of the last question, I think that very much aligns with the question I wanted
to ask, which was clearly there have been points made about the size of the capital
programme.
We've also touched on kind of the various different pressures that the Council are facing
and the financial challenges ahead of us.
And we've got the transformation programme that's exploring kind of all the opportunities
on their table for us to manage that financial situation in the future.
So I am myself interested in the work we're doing to review the capital programme, which
which could no doubt have an impact on the borrowing costs
that we've currently projected in the budget.
So if I could add that question to Richard,
Councillor Richard -Jones, then I'd be grateful.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So two questions then.
The specific of Northcote, I can't and won't comment
on the delivery of the scheme and the project management
of it, because I don't have that information,
but I do know the drivers for the increased cost
largely relating to asbestos found underneath the existing
library, to the new library on that site,
and also asbestos found underneath the old library.
There's also, there was a delay linked to UK power networks
and the supply to the sites.
The challenge is that those increased costs
aren't on current forecasts likely to be covered
by increased market sale receipts.
So ultimately that any increased cost that isn't covered by market sale,
and obviously we will try and recover as much as we can,
anything that isn't recovered will be a net cost to the Council.
But ultimately what you're seeing here, the way that we manage our capital programme,
is separate to the receipts that come in that will fund it in the future.
So at this point you'll see the whole of that increase,
and any increase in capital receipts will come through if and when they materialise.
In terms of reviewing the capital programme,
I think Brad's actually a really good line to have highlighted.
That isn't a new addition.
It's in the development pool because that was added in.
I think that was added in last year when we did have plans to try and continue with the site.
And actually that point about making sure the site was fit for the purpose for the future was why that investment went in.
So I think we will be reviewing, for instance, that line in particular will be reviewed.
And your point about whether we need to spend any money on the site to do whatever it is that comes next with that site.
I mean, we've got a budget there that we can spend, but ultimately, as part of that review, which Councillor Stock mentioned,
you know, that's exactly what we need to do, make sure that we are focusing on delivering the schemes that can be delivered,
that are still a priority, recognising that the development pool gives us that immediate kind of distinction between schemes that have already started and those that haven't yet started.
So I think we're in a good place to have a look at that programme overall.
that said, the majority of that programme is linked to investment priorities that this administration have chosen to make over the past few years.
So if that, as Councillor Isen said, if that ambition to invest is still there, then I would expect that capital programme to support those investments, even with a review in the summer.
Councillor Graham, unless Councillor Belton wanted to come back, but I think we've moved on from the point, so I'm not encouraging it and I would prefer to move on.
I agree we've moved on. I think there are other things that could be said about Councillor Richard Jones' contribution, but I won't.
Councillor Graham.
get a response from someone, I would like it as well.
As a local resident, I'm concerned that it's been empty
and not being used.
So if we can have a response about what on earth's going on,
that would be good.
Yeah, I think Mr. Sass and Mrs. Murray are nodding
and we can hopefully get an email, and Mr. Moore as well.
We can get an email round to all members.
Can I ask Graham?
Thank you very much.
So just in passing, since Brentwood Lane was mentioned, I mean, those improvements are
being paid for from developer contributions at Springfield.
And indeed, a lot of improvements have been paid for by developer contributions.
And it is an unfortunate fact that those contributions are drying up, because even where things have
been given permission, they're not being built out in the current London market.
That is part of the context here.
And I think that if borrowing is the answer now, when you've still got some of that contributions
that you inherited, you know, even more borrowing in the future is the only logical conclusion
from where you're coming from.
But I'll turn to my question, which is not— Just on that point, Mr. Graham, Councillor
Graham, I do think that's exactly why we've got the next item on the agenda, because that
exactly is part of how we can improve the borough, is by driving growth, and it is by
those contributions developed.
So let's make sure we leave enough time to come back to that and I'll let you take your question.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's just put a time lag on these things is that anything that gets going now,
you're talking 5, 10 years before you start to see something off the back of it.
And we've had a period now in which there's been nothing.
So there is going to be a problem regardless.
But I'll come on to my question.
So we had Councillor Ireland tonight in the previous item defending, indeed promoting spending from the reserves.
And on this item, we had her defending and indeed promoting borrowing large amounts of
money, indeed over 1 .1 billion.
And yet in her report on page 6, paragraph 6, she says that Wandsworth has some of the
highest reserves and lowest debt of any London borrower ensuring our financial stability.
Well, if high reserves and low debt, in her words, ensure financial stability, what do
low reserves and high debt, I'm sure.
I don't think I've promoted.
I'm saying that a legitimate use of reserves which we do have,
that's what I want to see and we will be using them to help us manage the change in funding.
Now, perhaps you could tell me what you think the purpose of reserves are.
What is the point of building up millions in reserves
if you don't use it when it's needed?
They are there for a rainy day.
I'll start answering her question since she answers mine.
What will low reserves and high debt lead to if the opposite is what ensures our financial stability, in her own words?
We will ensure that we have adequate reserves to make sure we maintain financial stability.
As always, we are borrowing to invest and I'll say it for the fifth time I think this evening,
that if at any stage this does not look affordable, then we will review our programme.
I have a very simple follow -up. It's a yes -no question.
Did she write the comments that are on page six that are in her name?
Were they, are those actually her words?
We have moved on from that.
I would like a question to that, because it seems to me that, well, for the first time,
we've had the Leader's Office intervening and imposing a whole narrative that their
own Cabinet members don't even agree with.
Did she write those words on page six?
We have moved on from that paper.
There are other opportunities.
Why are you trying to protect an answer?
Genuinely we have moved on from that paper.
Councillor Fraser.
It refers to debt, which is what we're talking about.
Thank you, Chair.
Actually, it leads on the point on affordability.
Mrs Mary, you said that there are differences in the way that the capital programme is formed
and the money that is committed to it.
So, and this might be one for Mrs. Maryam
and for Councillor Ireland to mention,
but to respond to, but I'm assuming
you wouldn't be proposing something to us tonight
if you didn't believe it was affordable.
So it's important that we maximise the use
of the different sources of funding that we've got,
and that's always been our priority
with the capital strategy.
We've done that in this programme,
and there are things that still, despite that,
and because of that, because of the kind of things
that you can spend some of those funding sources on,
we do still need to borrow.
Borrowing isn't in and of itself a bad thing,
and I think we've talked about that before.
We certainly talked about that at this committee
just before Christmas when we had a bit of a deep dive
into treasury and borrowing.
borrowing to invest is in housing, there is a whole kind of equation where that is a good thing to do
and notwithstanding over stretching is the point and making sure you don't over stretch.
But also borrowing in the general fund on capital is in and of itself not a bad thing.
Reactive repairs as opposed to responsive and proactive repairs.
there's a life cycle of maintenance of assets where if we intervene earlier and if we preempt
issues with repairs and maintenance, overall there is a lifetime benefit from doing that.
So if borrowing facilitates that, then again that isn't a bad thing. But that point, and
I get Councillor Grosvenor's point about overstretching and making sure that what you're proposing
is affordable in the round, that is a really important point that we do need to keep coming
back to, making sure the programme is affordable and picking up that point when we review the
medium -term financial strategy. Because this is now a part of Wandsworth's revenue position
now includes, and we always knew it would, I've been flagging this for a number of years,
five, six years I think, that we would always need to borrow and it is starting to come
into our revenue funding so definitely something we need to keep an eye on.
Councillor, I was going to come to Councillor Batter but Councillor Lee you haven't spoken on this item so.
No I think I wanted to sort of yeah we focused a bit about the borrowing to
invest and the highways or legislature I sort of wanted to come back to the human
aspect of it for our residents and think about the
Measures that some of the measures we're putting in place like the family and a community hub on the Alton regeneration
and again back to
Councillor Chris Charles point about the
support for independent living that these are
measures which have a long -term
not just a cost benefit but a human benefit, mental health benefits.
Would save, potentially save money in the long term,
preventing residents from turning to other reactive mental health services or social services.
And they also safeguard, I think the major value in them is the safeguarding of our residents.
So for example, having a family and community hub will serve to support and
protect and be there for our residents no matter what happens in the years to come.
So I don't know if I have a question.
No, I just want to make that point.
I'm around future benefits.
This is the investment you're putting in now.
I'm happy for -
Yeah.
Would you like to ask a question, Councillor Lee?
No, I'm happy to just make the point.
Councillor Cawley, you haven't spoken on this item either. Do you want to come in?
Yeah, thank you. Just to follow up on the position about individual projects, paragraph 8 .1, predominantly on page 97,
refers to the administration's policy on on sill and obviously it says that
previously still income rising within the nine arms opportunity area would be
subject to special arrangements to support the regeneration there but this
administration reversed that and unring fenced that funding back in July 2024
it's good to see some kind of long long term big ticket items such as the nine
Park and the school in the capital programme. There's still a lot more still to be raised
in Nine Elms and the real need for kind of place building initiatives to be delivered
there. Does the cabinet member see value in re -establishing the Nine Elms Strategy Board
which is largely not met during this council term,
to improve the delivery of community infrastructure levy funded projects in Nine Elms.
And does she support our view, which is that residents in Nine Elms
should be consulted on what the priorities should be there.
If I may, I'd like to refer to Mr Moore, who knows much more about this than me. Thank you.
Good evening, members.
Can you hear me?
Paul Moore.
So I am interim director of place and growth here on behalf of Naz Hussain, who clearly
is the serving point executive director.
To return to Councillor Cornyn's questions around the change in the approach to seal
for Battersea and Nine Elms, yes, that was a policy shift in 2024.
That was consulted in accordance with the regulations, was consulted at that point in
It was all dealt with appropriately within those regulations, including the developer
community.
And that decision made quite correctly by the Council.
To the earlier discussion, I was going to do this as part of my intro to the next item,
but forgive me for dancing around slightly.
I was going to just add in relation to the funding discussion, investment discussion,
of course, this is one of those additional levers.
key word here is being flexibility for the council.
The council has not made any decision not to invest in any projects in any part of the
borough, including Battersea and Nine Elms.
Those decisions around priorities now take place in the future.
So the council has flexibility.
I think that's the key word.
And that's important when we get into the next paper on the borough -wide approach to
growth.
Members, you've spoken of the apparent need for investment in a range of services, core
council services, and that policy shift was part of that tool to give that flexibility.
I would just add that you have undertaken a ballot in Roehampton, in New Alton.
I've been part of the team involved in that work.
It's clearly incumbent as we move forward and part of what the Growth Plan seeks to
do is enjoy very broadly based collaboration with residents, with our key partners, with
and with investors going forward.
So a very clear principle of the growth plan
is to maintain that alliance, identify priorities
and secure funding for those priorities going forward.
I hope that's a partial answer to your question,
Councillor Corner.
We haven't ruled anything out.
We continue to invest in those key projects.
School, Mr Diamond's worked very nobly on the health centre.
The investment is taking place in the road.
And indeed the council has sought to go further recently with its alliance with the Battersea Power Station on those 200 homes members.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm going to try and wrap up the discussion.
I know Councillor Island wants to come in.
I'll come to you two first and then Councillor Island to wrap up.
Would you want to come?
Just a clarification, thank you Mrs. Mary, that the Nine Elms element has been used for the Queenstown Road corridor, so that's listed on page 111.
So the money from the Nine, it's just around the corner isn't it? That's an example for you. Thank you.
Just to be clear, I'm keen that we focus on the paper and the proposed additions, that's what we're here to talk about.
So Councillor Graham and then Councillor Richard Jones.
Given that it's clear from tonight that there is total commitment from the administration
for continuing these plans to borrow over £1 .1 billion and that they think that's perfectly
defensible and reasonable, can I ask when council publicity will stop referring to Wandsworth
having the lowest debt of any London borough and instead start referring to what they have
voted to do?
I know the position which we've discussed previously at this meeting is that we have
no external debt.
I think the paper is also quite clear that we have got some internal borrowing.
That wasn't my question, was it?
My question was the Council of Publicity is consistently putting out time after time after
time that we have the lowest debt in London, which is of course the position that you inherited.
It is not the position you will leave behind.
So why is the reference to what you inherited and not what you are doing?
The reference is a factual state of how it is at the moment.
That is what you would expect.
It seems to me that you regard it as something that residents will appreciate and indeed
think is a good thing that the debt was very low.
And indeed that is our opinion.
But you do not want low debt.
You want to borrow 1 .1 billion pounds at a cost of two and a half.
So why won't you tell residents that?
The position of having no external debt at the moment enables us to invest in the borough and correct decades of underinvestment.
We are in the fortunate position of having the lowest debt, but we also have infrastructure that requires urgent attention.
It's not going to stay the lowest, is it? And you don't want to tell people about it, even though you're doing it.
Again, we did have a previous paper talking about investments in borrowing.
We have spent some time talking about that and the merits of that.
Council Richard Jones.
On this theme of what the council says and what the reality is, reserves are relevant
for this part of the agenda too because if reserves were higher that might alleviate
need to borrow.
Councillor Graham has already questioned whether the cabinet members' words in paragraph 6 and 7 are actually her words.
In paragraph 6, the cabinet member says that one staff has some of the highest reserves in London.
On a point of order.
Can you finish your point and then councillor?
Actually, our point of order takes precedence as he played earlier this evening.
So it's the point of order.
Final understanding orders, councillor.
Yes, there's a point of order.
Councillor Richard -Jones, please finish your point and then I'll come to Council.
Thank you very much.
I just appreciate the direct answer on the cabinet member on this.
The cabinet member said in paragraph 6 that one of the some of the highest reserves of
any London borough.
Which London borough has the highest reserves?
Councillor Belson, what's your point of order?
In my understanding, a point of order always takes precedence over everything, but that's
beside the point.
My point of order is the Honourable Councillor is referring to a paper that has already been
passed and voted on and we have moved on.
It does matter for getting on with the agenda.
You can have that discussion with me if you like in the pub afterwards but the meeting
is finished on that item.
The question is valid because it relates to the substance of the paper.
My question is simply, if the cabinet member asserts that Wanser has some of the highest
reserves of any London borough, can she tell us which borough has the highest level of
reserves?
Thank you, Councillor Richardson for your question.
Councillor Ireland, do you want to answer that question and sum up and then we'll move
on to the next paper.
The aim is not to have the highest reserves in London.
Which borough has the highest reserves in London?
Councillor Richardson has been very clear.
Let Councillor Ireland provide you with an answer to the question and then we're going
to vote on the paper.
I'm the cabinet member for Wandsworth.
Wandsworth has some of the highest reserves and we are going to make...
How can you make that statement if you don't know who has the highest reserves?
Everyone knows that.
Councillor Richard -Jones.
Councillor Rylance, do you have anything else to add?
Are we moving on to a vote?
This paragraph is under a heading, comments of the cabinet member for finance.
But the cabinet member for finance can't answer basic questions about this part of the paper.
Did she actually write this part of the paper?
Okay, that is a question on the previous paper.
Councillor Rylance, do you have anything to add or are we moving towards a vote?
I stand by everything that's written in paragraph 7.
It's all...
Did you write it?
It's a simple question.
Did you write it?
That's not what I said.
And actually asking questions about outside Wandsworth is outside my remit.
But you've made a statement comparing Wandsworth to other boroughs, and I'm asking which boroughs
were you comparing Wandsworth to.
We are going to move on to the next agenda item.
So in terms of this paper, do members endorse these recommendations, paragraph 2 .1, are
on their way to Cabernet?
Do members endorse those recommendations?
Those in favour?
To repeat, we've got recommendations at 2 .1 of the paper around additions to the capital
programme.
Do members want to endorse those recommendations before they go to Cabernet?
Those in favour?
Yes.
Those against?
Those abstaining?
Well, yeah, we're abstaining because, for example, on at least half a million of expenditure
on Bradstow School, the Executive Director of Finance has fairly confirmed that that's
going to have to be reviewed.
So the...
That's not what we're voting on.
We're voting on additions to the programme.
We're voting two additions to a programme that already we know needs to be reviewed, so that's why we're abstaining.
I think during the discussion we've agreed that review is taking place.
So moving on then -
Yeah, so pending the review we abstain.
agenda, moving on to the next agenda item, Councillor Belton.
I was just wondering whether I understood that the opposition had abstained on the rents,
on the council tax, and on the capital additions.
Really strong points, I think.
Yes, because these proposals are a mess.
That's why, they're a complete mess.
We're moving on to agenda item five,
paper on Wandsworth growth and economic development.
So I think we've heard during the course
of kind of the discussion tonight,

5 Wandsworth Growth and Economic Development (Paper No.26-62)

the council's renewed focus on a borough wide vision
for growth.
I think we've already seen over the past five, four years,
over 500 social homes being built in the borough
with more in train.
And I think Mr. Moore, when he spoke earlier,
talked about as a council advancing those major
regeneration projects on the Alton, in Roehampton,
and in Winstanley, in Battersea.
So this paper kind of looks at firstly,
so there were some lines of inquiry that we developed
as a group looking at how the growth plan really
is aligning with the wider work of the transformation
programme, which I know we've talked about a lot this evening,
but also how growth is developing high quality,
well -paid jobs and opportunities for local people. So I think Councillor
Acanola is going to give an introduction and then I think we've got
Mr Moore and Mr Diamond who I think have got a presentation that they can go
through online. They'll try and put it on the screen but if the technology fails
us we'll plough on with it with a short introduction nevertheless. So
So, Councillor Acunola.
Thank you.
On to a very engaging part of our meeting.
So this paper focuses on opportunities, growth, skills and employment, and work ongoing.
And also in the pipeline, which will help to bring economic stability to the borough and to our residents.
And I'm particularly impressed with the progress around supporting people who are long term sick,
disabled and young people into work and the cross boroughs,
I should say, approach that's been taken by the Work Match
team to increase opportunities for economically inactive
people and also want to take this moment just to thank
Work Match and other teams involved who've mobilised very,
very quickly in order to deliver real jobs because we already
have people who are in work for our residents and I believe
that our year as borough of culture has enabled us to shine a spotlight on the exceptional
creative businesses of which partnerships will be pivotal as we move forward with the
creative future of our borough.
So I'll pass over to Mr. – oh.
Good evening again, members.
For the purposes of this evening, we've got three things before us.
A brief summary report paper, a slide deck, which I'm very pleased we can see in front
of us on the screen.
I think we appended a copy of the approved current Wandsworth Growth Plan.
So I'm just going to just top line, I guess, a few key points and really try and move directly
to answer this first key line of inquiry, or scope this first key line of inquiry.
So taking on board the word aims, what is the growth plan aiming to achieve?
Well, in paragraph four of the covering report, page four of the growth plan, we draw out
three essential features of the plan.
What we're targeting, themes, the approach and our focus.
Putting people first.
That seems fundamental to any good growth plan.
I've spent years in the development world, but development only counts if it's for and helps and supports people.
It is about quality placemaking, which is about connected placemaking, about balanced placemaking,
And it is, as we've touched on earlier, a balance between development, the new things,
the new schemes and housing and homes, but also the management of the existing space.
So the third key strand then is inclusive growth.
And it's about having legitimacy with our residents.
It's about trust.
It's about confidence.
It's about advocacy on behalf of communities, that we will do the right things and using the convening power of the Council to do that.
That clearly matters for its own right, but it's also central to bringing income into the borough, from investors, but also in terms of GLA grant,
and the trust and confidence that we need to demonstrate through ballot processes.
I suppose the second area to draw out from the papers, you've got them there in paragraph
seven and also pages 14, 15 of the plan in terms of commitments and outcomes.
What's the plan trying to achieve?
Not unsurprisingly, it's about housing.
And we touched earlier this evening about the power pressures to the human cost and
financial costs to temporary accommodation.
That housing is essential.
We all see that on a daily basis.
And how important a stable home is
to the prevention agenda,
to families and wellbeing and mental health.
It's about inclusive growth in the round,
as I've said already.
We touched on infrastructure.
So it is quite directly about transport infrastructure, the jorytery here, and thinking about Clapham
Junction, the busiest transport station interchange in the country.
It's about liveable places which are inclusive, and I've already touched on the council's
role with the steward of the place.
Those are, I think that's the focus, that's the direction of travel of the growth plan.
In terms of its link to transformation programme, I've touched on a few of those, I think, through
housing, preventative agenda, just to expand the link to transformation.
We've also touched on income generation here.
It's about council tax.
I have sadly worked too frequently in boroughs that have not been growing and have faced
the kind of financial challenges that you've spoken of here this evening members. Wandsworth
is a growing borough. It's young, energetic, dynamic, it's creative, it's a space that
Inwood invested an interest in. So that should give us confidence around a growing tax base,
council tax, business rates, still 106, all of those things. I've also mentioned GLA grant
in there. It complements the prevention agenda clearly. It is about creating spaces that are well, that are happy, that are fun, creative and energetic spaces.
Because that's where the investment community wants to invest.
It can, growth can support service transformation, the number of front doors that we have and
experience and use and pay for as a council, as a borough.
And it can also enable asset review and think about new and creative approach to assets.
So a range of agendas in there.
I just want to touch then on some of the drivers.
Can we go back one, Steve?
Just a previous slide in terms of what's the direction of travel on our growth plan.
It's clearly coming from a national mission.
It's clearly stimulated and needs to be aligned with the London Growth Plan.
That is absolutely critical and that has driven us into the growth plan last summer.
That's essential for a range of reasons, alignment in terms of strategic planning.
On a point of order, I'm sorry, but the national graphic there is not a government
graphic, it is a Labour Party graphic from a Labour Party event, and that is not appropriate
as an illustration in this Council, which should not be partisan.
Thank you very much for that comment.
I can take that away.
Clearly that has been in the papers.
it would have been good for you to highlight that previously but I think that could be
correct.
We've all got a colour, I think we all understand that.
Mr Moore, sorry, members my apologies, no, I apologise if there's any offence caused
there, I was simply trying to make the point of government policy and a national mission
around growth. I mean it's clearly a policy perspective that I'm flagging here and that's
clearly been driven down through a London growth plan and the choice for this borough
is to step forward proactively. The point I was trying to get to and make just to conclude
on this slide is one of being investor ready. We've spoken this evening about you know
The fiscal challenge is the growth plan is accepting that fiscal challenge through transformation
agenda, but it's about being investor ready.
The Council will not be able to fund all of these projects, all of these schemes, programmes
going forward.
So that does introduce the need to be, and the plan is written with that intention in
mind.
Just on to the next slide, Steve, if I may.
So one of the other key principles in the plan is the growth corridor.
And that's clearly drawing out from that economic engine
in the north -east of the borough, Battersea and Nine Elms.
But it's seeking to continue that principle further down into the heart of the borough.
Clapham Junction members, you'll be well aware of the number of challenges there.
I guess the growth plan is seeking to lay the ground for investment into Clapham Junction in the future,
but also to work with key partners, Network Rail, to stimulate the discussion about a more connected approach to Clapham Junction over that,
over the station platforms there, and then obviously extending to Wandsworth Town.
So those are just highlighting, I think, that there is real substance to the plan.
It's not a plan detached from substance or serious programmes, and you'll be familiar with
a number of those.
I'm going to pause there, hand to Steve.
Thanks.
Yes, just a follow -up from Paul's section here.
The second question was around the key growth sectors, and particularly about high -quality,
well -paid jobs for residents.
It says in the paper, I think just before we look at which sectors are growing, it's
worth having a look at how the economy is structured.
These are the jobs by the sort of high -level sectors in the borough.
So the blue line is for Wandsworth, the orange dots are for England, and as it says there,
you can see that certain sectors, Wandsworth has a degree of specialisation in higher proportions
for accommodation and food services, retail, wholesale, arts, entertainment, professional,
scientific, but particularly for health.
It's probably worth saying that otherwise it's pretty broadly balanced.
It's not too dissimilar, but health really stands out.
I've actually inserted another slide in the pack.
It's not in your pack, but this is showing the same thing.
I'm sorry, the sectors are not quite in the same place, but it's showing it compared to
London, which is the pink line, and again, Wandsworth is blue.
And again, you can see, even though there's obviously a lot of a big health economy in
London, Wandsworth does stand out.
Just to say, other boroughs that have similar shapes to this usually accommodate a very
large teaching acute hospital.
And obviously, St. George's is really important in that, and you see this in other boroughs.
But broadly that's the shape of the economy as is.
It's probably been fairly stable but there are parts that will be growing.
Paul mentioned the London Growth Plan.
There are locations in the London Growth Plan in Wandsworth that are identified,
particularly around Battersea when it comes to creative cluster,
industrial innovation, visitor destination, and at St. George's for life sciences, just
sort of translating that down into things that I think are a bit more tangible at the
local level, that cluster around Battersea, particularly the Royal College of Art, but
also firms like Foster's, Apple, Shark Ninja, and Vivian Westwood, which has recently got
consensory enlarge its HQ there. That is a real cluster of London importance. It's
a huge number of creative students and employees there and is probably the most
recognisable cluster in the borough that has a good opportunity to
really grow high knowledge, good quality jobs. London Borough culture, so it's
saying that obviously the borough as a whole has a rich fabric of cultural
organisations, music in Wandsworth, dance around Battersea, theatre in
Battersea, whilst they're not necessarily clustering in quite the same way, a real
potential. Food and horticulture around New Covent Garden market, that is really
noticeable in the figures as well. Again something you don't really see in many
other parts of London, we will soon have the only wholesale market in central
London and within that there's a lot of innovation and growth going on with some
really interesting companies. Of course the power station has turned that part
of the borough into a real focus for the London's visitor economy, a huge number
of visitors to there. We're seeing development in hotel sector and
accommodation sector so we're seeing beginning to see some ripple effects
outside of the power station itself.
And then finally, again,
St. George's a really important hospital,
big employment generator, but it is a university there.
It is emerging as a centre of research,
particularly since the pandemic.
And obviously the university has recently merged with Citi,
which will also add other capabilities there.
So those, it seems to me, to be the sort of areas
that we're going to see growth in the next decade, driven by London's economy obviously,
but there's some real opportunities in the borough there.
In terms of what making the link between Wandsworth residents and getting benefit from that, they
will see ripples throughout the economy, but we can try and directly work on that through
Work Match and the Council's employment and skills initiatives.
As it says in the paper, Wandsworth has a very healthy, comparatively healthy labour
market, low unemployment, high employment rates, lower rates of economic inactivity.
Nonetheless, there's about 9 ,000 residents that are on the claimant counts and about
6 ,000 who are economically inactive who would like to work.
So nonetheless, a large number of people that need support.
And if we go to the next one, the other characteristic of ones with...
Mr Diamond, I'm so sorry, there are some murmurings at the top of the table, and it is fair to
say that members were very interested in the first two papers, so I am sorry that we are
running a little short on time.
On this important paper about what's going on in the borough and the exciting...
Do you want me to stop there and ask questions?
No, no, no, I think it is, I think you can take the report as read I suppose, but if
there is anything you wish to add on those remaining slides or draw to our attention,
I'm happy for you to do that, but take the words of the report as read.
Okay then.
Well, just to make it clear that there's in -work poverty as a characteristic we're keen on,
work match, we've got the job brokerage service, everyone be aware of that, the case studies
try and explain the two types of service delivery we've got there. Brokerage is
about getting people into work quite quickly, people who may have been like
here unemployed for maybe just a few weeks but helping to broker them into
jobs that we work with employers on. Connect to Work is a new service that
Councillor Acanola mentioned. This is something different, this is for people
who've been out of work for a long period of time and particularly it's
working with health partners to try and move them into careers.
So the case studies there, I think,
give a good indication of the different approaches.
Just to cover the rest of it again, the support to SMEs,
this is just where they lie.
I think this graph is trying to show here
that we have been suffering in the last few years
from more business closures than creation.
The latest figures show that those lines are crossing back
again, so that's good.
but what it does mean is we have a stock of businesses which is smaller than it used to be.
These are the services that we are putting in to try and counter that,
and we've done some good work with UK shared prosperity funds,
although those finish at the end of next month.
And I won't go into it, but Supply Wandsworth is a particular service responding to the question
about how we're getting local businesses to benefit from both investment,
but also some of those big organisations in the borough that are purchasing local services.
So, excuse me, Chair, I will finish there and take any questions.
Thank you very much, Mr. Diamond, and sorry to have to hurry you, and I would just like
to say that thank you very much in the presentation for including those case studies, because
I think in particular those case studies have been illuminating to see the kind of real
world impact of the work.
So I've got a lot of hands, so Councillor Hedges.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr Moore and Mr Diamond.
Mine's a little bit more specific around businesses.
So how does the growth plan tackle local business confidence if we consider the latest unemployment
rate of 5 .2%, which is obviously going up, and it has a knock -on impact to small businesses
and independent businesses, which are obviously the lifeblood of Wandsworth in terms of our
the high streets and also considering the number of vacant shops that we have,
in particular in Putney and Wandsworth town and also that business survival rate.
I mean, I've seen a few in my own ward in Ballum close recently and over the past four years.
Thank you.
I'll have just one quick go at that, Councillors.
And it's by way of admission and maybe even an apology, the growth plan does not cover
every economic base in this borough.
It doesn't cover every ward.
If we had more time, I would have said that in the intro.
That's why I made the point about it being investor ready.
It's a hard thing to do, it's a hard thing to say in this room, members,
but it was not intended explicitly to provide a detailed economic plan across the whole borough.
In the time available and given the direction of travel that I outlined, this is about looking up and looking out.
So I do want to make that point really clear and explicit.
So it was not intended to cover all those bases.
A range of other programmes, obviously, that we're working on, investing in,
and we can say more about those.
The key point I wanted to make, though, is I think for small businesses,
for householders, for those facing economic challenges,
which are many in this borough,
I think it's important for those businesses households to know that there's a council
that is looking up and looking out and trying to maximise opportunities for inward investment.
And that's the real driver behind this document.
It's about bringing cash back into this borough and raising incomes.
Thank you.
Councillor Graham.
Two quick questions.
The first is that, because you talked about making this investor ready, in the preparation
of this GRACE plan or steps now to implement it, what discussions has the Council had with
the Office for Investment and the National Well Fund?
I haven't had those direct discussions but this is a platform for discussions with a
range of investor communities.
Whether that's London Real Estate Investment Forum, you can see from a number of the testimonials
that come forward from particular local strategic anchor investors, Councillor, that's where
we've started to have credibility and a document that we could then take into a number of those
spaces.
But I take the point there's a broad base that we can use this document for and will
do in the future.
Thank you.
Second question.
There's quite a bit of reference in the presentations to the transformational nature of the capacity
Power Station development both on the slides and elsewhere.
And in the pack, we've got Apple saying,
we are proud to call Battersea Power Station home
to our UK headquarters.
Could I ask either of the cabinet members,
given that they boycotted the opening of Battersea Power
Station, is this a change in policy
and you are now proud of the Battersea Power Station
development being part of the borough,
or do you still lack pride in the Battersea Power Station
development. Councillor Aquino do you want to come in? I know Mr Moore and his...
Yeah sorry I wasn't under the understanding that Battersea Power
Station had moved out of Wandsworth at any point so it... No.
Are you proud that it's in the borough? Sorry Councillor Aquino I thought perhaps you
are going to say that I think we've got the London Borough of Culture finale at the Battersea
Power Station in the coming weeks and no doubt all councillors will try and get tickets and
if residents want to go I think it's free to all those who want to attend and I think
it should be a great celebration to what's been a great year as the Borough of Culture.
What's a pity is that the chairs on OSCs on this council are far better at giving answers
and indeed having policy positions than any of the cabinet members.
I just didn't wish to get into another back and forth that Councillor Graham has really taken upon himself for the rest of, for most of this meeting.
Yes, I'm really happy that we are holding our finale 21st of March, 11 to 5 o 'clock.
You can book a ticket or you can turn up.
It's free to attend and it's going to be a great celebration and part of our renewed relationship
With Battersea Power Station and other partners
Mr. Moore, I can see you want to come in because now as you refer to in your introduction
We have we have got agreement to build 203 council homes in in Battersea Power Station
So I am conscious of time, but please come in surely just very briefly. I mean I have to say I've worked closely
with seniors at the power station in the last year,
probably more than that in terms of the recent
contractual commitment members are aware of.
The power station are a key growth partner in this borough.
It's been good to work with them
and they're clearly behind the growth potential,
significant growth potential remaining
on the power station site.
We want to work with them to enable that to happen.
Thank you.
Okay, Councillor Fraser and then
Councillor Richard -James, Critchard, Corner and APPS, but we are, I am going to have to
read out the guillotine, so please be really, really quick.
Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much for the presentation, and it's really interesting
to see, especially those areas of, you know, of work in comparison to London figures as
well. I guess my question was on page 145, and you showed it briefly on there, I think
It indicates around 90 % of people are in poverty
and ones are in work poverty.
And I remember when I was first elected in 2018, actually,
seeing that statistic.
And so it's always stuck with me.
It's quite a stark one.
And I think we're quite unique in that sense
that we have some residents who are very wealthy,
but then those who are working who are in work poverty.
So I guess it's like, it's a really tricky one, I understand.
but what do we understand what's particularly driving this and what are we doing to help address it?
So we can guess but we don't really know. The data doesn't really drill down to look at whether it's a
sector industry thing, whether it's something that's particularly characteristic. You'll see on the graph in the paper
there are lots of boroughs that sort of fall into that category and others that there is much lower and it doesn't seem to follow a
particular pattern and what we have done we've actually
Councillor Richards -Jones. Thanks, Chair. It's about transport and
specifically it's helpful just to hang on the conversation on page 169 that depicts
the Clapham Junction growth corridor.
And there's a quote there from Network Rail
that welcomes the dialogue that they're
having with Wandsworth Council.
I mean, both Clapham Junction and Wandsworth Town,
which are identified as areas for growth,
I think face considerable constraints
to sustainable growth, given the challenges that Clapham
Junction and Wandsworth Town stations
have to meet capacity.
Clapham Junction, for example, forecasts
that they will arrive at pre -COVID levels of usage of that station as soon as 2030.
So that's before the additional homes and other things envisioned the plan will come
about.
We know as well the additional financing for transport links are now being sent out of
London together with local government settlement funding.
So what what do officers think is the solution to making Clapton Junction and
Wands of Town fit to support the growth aspirations of the plan?
Just before you respond Mr Moore, just to say the guillotine has fallen, we've sat for three hours so the remainder of the agenda will be considered.
We'll have ten more minutes discussion on this and then we'll move to a vote.
Members, I can't do justice to those two sites and the complexity of that in 10 minutes.
I could give you a lot longer.
What I can assure you, and particularly by reference to Clapham Junction and hence why
the testimonial is in there, we have a strong partner with Network Rail.
I can say in all honesty, without fear or favour,
the collaboration that I have felt on your behalf
as members of the Council with Network Road
has been amongst the strongest I've seen on any transport project
in some number of years.
That's a powerful, tangible force.
There is, and this is part of the instigation of others, including Mike Jackson, who led work to consolidate the collaboration there with a range of partners,
TfL, Network Rail, critically landowners in the area, particularly the shopping centre owner, to advance an option appraisal.
That's a serious substantial piece of work that will serve commuters, the transport operators,
landowners and this council and I believe the communities on both sides of Clapham Junction
Station well in the future.
That's not an answer to what's going to happen.
It's not an answer to how it's going to be funded.
We're talking about heavy numbers of millions of members.
But that is work that is being positioned well, being well -led, collaboratively,
and you've got some good planners on that work as well.
So I think in the next council, you'll see the fruition of that work,
and there'll be some serious options there.
The key point that the council is trying to achieve is obviously better connectivity
between north and south of the stations and that being part of inclusivity.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moore.
I think if residents are interested in the Club and Junction Master Plan, I think there's
a community meeting tomorrow, I think, where residents can be updated and further consulted.
Councillor Critchup.
Thank you.
I wanted to ask two things.
The first one was the biggest difference that I noticed in the spider diagram between us
and London was around communications. IT and info and comms was an area most, if you compare
with London, and by the way, thank you Mr Diamond for producing that, where we seem
to be not doing as much. Okay, we probably can't do everything everywhere, but I just
wondered if that would be an area where we might positively be looking to try and attract
business and work given that we've got Apple. And the second question was around of the
people who are economically inactive. I think you said 9 ,000 economically inactive but 6 ,000
would like to work. I just wondered how we can more think, what can we be doing to get
them to work because clearly for almost everybody actually if you're in work earning money,
It's massive, it relieves pressure everywhere else on the services we need and it's a massive
benefit in terms of wellbeing because you've got purposes to your life and things to do.
Thanks.
So on the first point, I mean, yes, the borough doesn't have so many people working or need
jobs in ICT, you know, compared to London as a whole.
And yes, you might expect that Apple, there might be an Apple effect.
We haven't particularly seen it yet, but hopefully that's on its way.
There has been a new IT firm moved into one of the 9LMs offices just very recently.
What you can see is a lot of the spidergram that showed where the enterprises are based,
so more the private sector economy, small business economy, quite a large proportion
of them are in ICT.
So I think there's a business growth potential there.
When it comes to inactivity, yes, I mean this is a big national drive on this as well.
There were comments earlier particularly about mental health and
how that has affected large number of adults and
impacted them in terms of dropping out of the workforce.
So connect to work is directly working with that cohort as well as people with disabilities
I think there's much greater integration between health services social care services and employment support
Which I've never seen before which I think is a really interesting
Push and of course that will help us as a council as well as well as the residents that are in that are in the borough
But certainly inactivity has gone up and that seems to be one of the drivers behind it.
The other thing as well is the, we're looking at is the impact on households and particularly
having to have a carer for example if you're someone with a disability or a health condition,
quite often you have someone that has to care for you, that's somebody else who's dropped
out of the labour market.
So the more we can get turn the corner on that the better in terms of the
Impact on society, but obviously it's got a positive economic benefit as well
Thank you, and if counsellors don't mind could I take counsellor corner and council lapses question together?
Yeah, thanks. I'll be brief chat
There's lots of mentions about life sciences in this paper which obviously great to see really important growth
sector for the country.
I think this is mostly referencing,
referring to the area around St. George's,
but also looking at the partner case studies,
perhaps the University of Roehampton
contributes to that as well.
But it's not really clearly set out
what that life sciences growth area really looks like.
On the spider diagram, it referred to health as well,
which is what you would more kind of associate
with a hospital.
Could the offices kind of just paint a brief picture for us on what the life sciences opportunity looks like in the borough,
and why it's worthy of such status within this paper?
I'm just going to get Councillor Apps if you don't mind to ask her a question.
And then I will ask her to ask a few questions.
Yeah, apologies, mine's not more similar.
First of all, I just want to say as well, I think that the focus on growth and
place as a council is a really welcome step, and I'm really glad we've made that move.
Just in terms of the in -work poverty, which our Councillor Fraser touched on,
I imagine it's quite associated with high rents, etc.
So it's obviously going to be important that we help residents to develop their careers.
And I'm really glad to see that's one of the things we're looking to do.
How can we learn from others who've tried some of these approaches
in helping to support residents progress their careers?
whether that be as new start -ups or whether that be working their way up the corporate ladder.
It would be good to know how our work is progressing in that area. Thank you.
Thank you. So just on the life sciences point, I think St George's as a university has developed
its research capability quite a bit in recent years and for example they are collaborating
with a lot of businesses around that as well.
It's fair to say it is pretty much limited to the hospital campus, so we haven't seen
it sort of grow out, we haven't seen these huge life science laboratory developments
that you see elsewhere, so we are not at that stage yet, and I think it's much more of a
potential life sciences link, but nonetheless, I think it is part of that huge health, as
you say, there are a range of jobs there, and it is a hugely important economic focus,
which perhaps we don't really think of it so much around there.
And hopefully that will spin out into the surrounding areas as well.
I think the other point is trying to link up with other parts of the South London network.
As you said, you mentioned University of Roehampton,
you've got the London cancer hub in Sutton, which is also a really important driver.
So we're perhaps looking at something a little bit more networked around South London
in terms of what the life sciences opportunity looks like.
Just coming back to how we're learning elsewhere in terms of,
it's only about in -work poverty.
This is quite underexplored, so we're trying to collaborate with other boroughs,
but this is where hopefully the CLS research will provide us something.
I think the other interesting learning point is in other boroughs that also have quite big,
high -growth drivers
places like Camden and Risling certain
Hamsmith and Fulham where they're trying to say we've got these great jobs these great
Opportunities how do we make sure that that links up with career developments and entry -level opportunities for our residents?
So there's some interesting work going on there which we can look to collaborate with
But I think we've got some good examples as well already within the borough through work match. So I think it's probably
and trying to look at these new sectors that are going to drive the London economy and
making sure that they benefit everyone, not just those who have got the skills to access.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr Moore and Mr Diamond and Councillor Acunola for that report.
I'm sorry we didn't have more time.
So this report is for information.
I'm asking the committee to note the report.
And just kind of then that brings us to the end of the meeting and I suppose just we have now had a year together under these new governance arrangements.
So I did just want to thank members for how we've adapted to this new way of working and for your contribution to making sure that scrutiny adds value.
That's incredibly important to effective decision making in the Council.
I also wanted to thank officers, cabinet members, residents and the witnesses who've taken
the time to come and share their insights over the past year.
I think that's really been helpful.
And looking ahead, I think it is really important that we continue to make sure that in Wandsworth
decisions are made transparently, they're evidence -based, and that we're accountable
so that we can always deliver the best possible results and services for residents.
So that's the commitment, that's my commitment, that's why I'm here and I know others around
the table, share that as well.
So thank you very much everybody.
Have a nice evening. See you soon.