Wandsworth Council is pressing ahead with a plan to pay for 25 additional police officers out of its own pocket — but two big questions hang over the deal: where the money comes from after the first few months, and who actually gets to tell the officers what to do.
The council’s cabinet will be asked on Monday 12 October to approve an agreement with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime for a team of 22 constables and three sergeants dedicated to the borough. That is one sergeant more than the 24 officers the Conservative administration first promised back in July.
The officers alone would cost about £3.1 million a year, with the bill rising annually. Because the first officers are not expected to start until January, this year’s cost is put at £300,000. From April, the full package — the officers plus a new council enforcement team — could cost up to £4.9 million a year from the council’s main budget.
How the council plans to pay for it
The council says the scheme will be funded through “developer levy funding” — money charged to property developers building in the borough. In practice, that means the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy, or NCIL: the slice of a charge on new development that is supposed to be spent in the neighbourhoods where the building happened.
But the commitment goes only so far. Council papers say the levy money is secured for just the first few months of the arrangement. Beyond that, the council says developer money will be used “where possible” — with no firm guarantee of what covers the rest.
There is also a question over whether the levy can legally pay for police officers at all. The main infrastructure levy can only fund things like roads, schools, medical facilities and parks — and police officers are not on that list. The neighbourhood share has looser rules and can cover running costs, but government guidance says councils should agree with local communities how it is spent in their area. The officers, meanwhile, would be “deployed flexibly across the borough”, which sits uneasily with money raised in specific neighbourhoods.
The council’s own budget plan puts extra police and street cleaning among the costs that must be covered by cuts elsewhere and next year’s council tax rise. To make room, the council has dropped other plans for the money, including youth funding, grants to community groups and a scheme to buy an empty pub for community use. The council is already proposing a record council tax rise, which has drawn a legal challenge threat.
Who gives the orders?
The second unresolved question is command. In one part of the council’s papers, the new officers will work “under Council tactical direction”. In another, they “remain under Metropolitan Police command”.
The council’s version of events leans its way. The officers would be based at the town hall, close to its CCTV control room, and daily council briefings would tell them where to go, when, and what to enforce. A new council head of service would manage the contract. In July, deputy leader Cllr Peter Graham, who is also cabinet member for finance, told councillors the team would be “at the disposal of the council”.
Elsewhere, the council puts the Met first. Its equalities assessment says the officers “would remain under Metropolitan Police command”, with their work “informed by locally agreed priorities”. Its budget plan says they will “sit under the Met’s command”.
What would settle it is the formal agreement with the Met — and that has not been published. So far only a “statement of intent” has been signed, and performance targets have not been agreed. Nor has the council said whether the Met could move the officers to other duties, something that has been a sore point in Putney before: last year the only officer covering the Thames was repeatedly pulled away.
Under Section 92 of the Police Act 1996, councils can pay the Met for additional officers. Whoever foots the bill, they remain police officers with full powers — the funding arrangement does not change that. What it can change is where they spend their time, and that is exactly what the unpublished agreement will decide. Once signed, the deal would run for at least 12 months, with an option to extend for another two years.
Why the council says it is needed
The council points to the Met’s “Tough Choices” programme of cuts, which it says has reduced the force by around 3,300 officers and staff in two years. It also cites falling confidence in local policing: trust in the Met in Wandsworth fell from 80% to 75% in a year, and the share of residents who think the police do a good job locally dropped from 49% to 45%. Among under-35s, only 12% know how to contact their ward police officer.
Two of the council’s three examples of joined-up enforcement working are in Putney. At St Mary’s Slipway, CCTV identified 16 vehicles linked to antisocial behaviour, including nitrous oxide use and illegal parking. On Putney High Street, one operation seized five mopeds and eight e-bikes. The council nevertheless describes Wandsworth as “the safest inner London borough”.
Alongside the police officers, the council plans a £1.64 million-a-year integrated enforcement team of 22 council enforcement officers, plus a review of all its enforcement services, including the Parks and Events Police.
The scrutiny test — and why Monday matters
Before the cabinet decides, the plan goes to a new committee: the Enforcement Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee, created in July as an offshoot of the finance scrutiny committee. Its first job is the council’s work with the Met, “including negotiating and overseeing arrangements for additional dedicated officers”. It meets at 7.30pm on Monday 5 October in Room 123 at the Town Hall on Wandsworth High Street, and the meeting is open to the public and will be webcast.
The committee is chaired by Conservative Cllr Claire Davies, with three Conservative members and two Labour. It can comment on the plan but cannot decide anything — and under the council’s own rules, once it has discussed the plan, councillors lose the right to “call in” the cabinet’s decision afterwards. That makes Monday’s meeting effectively the only formal chance to challenge the deal before the cabinet votes.
The setup follows the confidence and supply agreement that independent councillor Malcolm Grimston signed with the Conservatives in May, which keeps the administration in office. Under it, major decisions go to a scrutiny committee before cabinet takes them, and councillors’ right to call in a cabinet decision afterwards was restored — but a decision “may not be called in” if a scrutiny committee has already considered it.
Residents who want a say can email the committee members before the meeting or contact the council’s democratic services team about how to take part. The cabinet makes the final decision at 7.30pm on Monday 12 October.
For context on the money side, the council’s record council tax rise proposal is already facing a legal challenge, while other boroughs are testing the limits of new council enforcement powers.
