Your questions

Answer from Aydin Dikerdem, Cabinet Member for Housing:

It is the Council’s priority to maximise the delivery of genuinely affordable homes for social rent. As part of our Local Plan changes, all major residential developments of 10 or more homes will be required to deliver 50% affordable housing at a minimum of 70% social rent (and a maximum of 30% intermediate tenure). For schemes of less than 10 homes, a financial contribution is also required to support the delivery of affordable housing more widely in the borough. 

This compares with the previous administration’s Local Plan which was only 35% affordable housing, with a 50% social rent and 50% intermediate tenure split, which does not maximise delivery nor prioritise those who are in the 8 Official most need. The Tories’ policy also did not require affordable housing on sites with less than 10 homes, unlike many other London boroughs who successfully apply a small site contribution. 

The Council has rigorously tested the emerging affordable housing policy across a range of common site types within the borough to make sure that they are viable, through the Whole Plan Viability Assessment (2024) which will be submitted alongside the emerging Local Plan for examination in Spring 2025. 

To incentivise the quick delivery of affordable housing, the emerging policy also sets out a localised fast track route of 45%, to ensure that developments that can deliver more than 35% required by the London Plan do so. 

In addition to these new Local Plan policy requirements and to hold developers to account, the Council now has in-house planning viability expertise to ensure the provision of affordable housing is fully-scrutinised and maximised on every development that comes forward, in accordance with the emerging policy and to meet the pressing needs of local residents.

Please can you tell us how the Council has been supporting older people in the borough, especially with regard to financial assistance and Adult Social Care enabling elders to be discharged from hospital in an appropriate and timely way?

Answer from Angela Ireland, Cabinet Member for Finance:

At the start of winter, we announced the Wandsworth Winter Support Payment which provides low-income pensioners with help managing increased costs over the winter. As always, we reviewed the needs of our residents and implemented the support they need. Those eligible for the scheme were those not receiving Pension Credit but receiving Council Tax Reduction. For those aged 80 and over, the payment was £300. For those under 80 the payment was £200. 

For residents we already held bank details for, payments were made directly into their accounts, with a letter notifying them this would take place, but no action at all required on their part. Payment was made immediately, ensuring these residents had their Wandsworth Winter Support Payment well before Christmas. Those whose details we did not hold have been sent an easy-to use way of receiving their payment online. 

The Winter Support Payment is part of a wider package of support for pensioners in Wandsworth – all part of the largest Cost of Living support package in London. We are using LIFT (the Low Income Family Tracker) to promote benefits take-up including Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance. We have already signed up over 200 additional residents to Pension Credit who have received over £1m in benefits that they would not have otherwise received, at no cost to the Council. We have also increased awareness and uptake of social tariffs for water, broadband and other utilities; warm packs; increased capacity in our information and advice services; and opened warm Community Spaces. 

Our Adult Social Care service recently scored very highly on the Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework, which measures how well care and support services achieve the outcomes that matter most to people. 

The Department of Health and Social Care publishes this national benchmarking annually. It is composed of three parts: a service users survey; a carers survey; and a set of performance indicators. Performance in 2023/24 is very good when compared to London, with 17 of the 22 indicators (77%) in the top two quartiles and no indicators in the fourth/bottom quartile. 

Performance has improved since 2021 across multiple measures. Notably, the overall satisfaction of people who use services with their care and support indicator was in the bottom quartile in 2020/21 and performance is in the top quartile in 2023/24. The Directorate is investing in care and support services and through our transformation programme (Transforming Social Care) continues 24 Official to prioritise care and support services with the aim of furthering the improvement journey.