Westminster City Council Is Cutting One in Seven Jobs. Its Own Press Office Got the Budget Figures Behind That Wrong.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. Westminster City Council's chief executive Stuart Love told an all-staff meeting on 20 October 2026 that 520 of the authority's 3,720 posts, mostly management roles, are to be made redundant [2]. The council's press release said the job cuts were part of closing a funding gap it put at 160 million pounds "predicted by 2029" [2]. The council's own Cabinet report on its medium-term finances, agreed three months earlier and signed by the same chief executive, puts the gap at 161 million pounds by 2030/31, with 71 million pounds of it due in the first year alone [1]. Westminster is one of six councils a government minister named in December 2025 as losing the most from the funding formula change behind both figures [3].
Stuart Love has run Westminster City Council's day-to-day administration as chief executive since 2017. On 13 July 2026 it was his signature at the foot of the council's Medium Term Financial Planning report, the document Cabinet uses to set its four-year financial course [1]. On 20 October 2026 it was Love who stood in front of the council's 3,720 staff at City Hall and told them 520 of their posts, one in seven across the organisation, are being made redundant [4].
The council's own account of why those two moments are connected does not quite match itself.
What the Cabinet report says
The July report revises Westminster's financial forecast out to 2030/31 for the first time, extending a planning horizon that previously stopped two years earlier [1]. It is blunt about what changed: a loss of 100 million pounds of annual grant funding under the government's Fair Funding Review, the assumed withdrawal of transitional protection grant after 2028/29, and higher forecast inflation and pay costs [1].
What the report says. "The updated position, over the four years of the new administration, provides an indicative budget gap of £71m in 2027/28, rising to £161m by 2030/31... The budget gap is estimated to be £161m up to 2030/31 which is an £73.4m increase on March 2026 and represents 6.2% of the Council's adjusted gross expenditure budget for 2026/27" [1].
A table in the report breaks the 161 million pound figure down year by year: 71.354 million in 2027/28, a further 26.589 million the following year, 44.288 million in 2029/30, and 19.024 million in 2030/31, summing to 161.255 million pounds across the four years [1]. None of the four years in that table is 2029.
What the council told staff and the public
Three months after Cabinet agreed that report, the council's press office described the same gap differently. Its 20 October news release said job cuts of 520 posts would save 29 million pounds in 2026/27, with a further 16 million pounds from changes to how the council leases buildings and manages contracts, and that this was "just one part of plugging the Council's £160m funding gap predicted by 2029" [2]. Cabinet member for value for money and finance Paul Fisher was quoted in the same release: "The focus for these reductions is on management roles and not front-line posts. Westminster needs to protect taxpayer money, become leaner and look to more commercial opportunities" [2].
Local Democracy Reporting Service coverage the same day and a follow-up in Westminster Extra three days later both repeated the council's "£160m... by 2029" framing without noting that it differs from the Cabinet report it is drawn from [4] [5].
Nothing here suggests the underlying financial pressure on Westminster is invented, nor that the job losses are not real. What the two documents disagree on is more specific: how large the gap is and by when, a detail that matters because it is the figure the council is using in public to explain redundancies affecting hundreds of livelihoods.
A wider funding change, not a one-off
Westminster's gap traces back to the government's Fair Funding Review, which redistributes grant funding toward councils "deemed to be the most in need", with some, including Enfield and Croydon, due significant uplifts while several wealthier inner London boroughs lose out [4]. Westminster is named directly in that reallocation: a written ministerial statement on the provisional 2026/27 local government finance settlement, delivered by then-minister Alison McGovern on 17 December 2025, lists Westminster alongside the City of London, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth, and Windsor and Maidenhead as the six authorities that will not get standard council tax referendum protections for 2027/28 and 2028/29, on the government's stated reasoning that they have "the lowest council tax levels of any upper tier authority in the country" [3].
This site has already reported on two of the other five. Hammersmith and Fulham's cabinet set out scenarios in October for a rise of up to 150 percent in its own share of council tax [6], and Wandsworth's cabinet agreed a planned rise of 94 percent the same month [7]. Westminster, Wandsworth and Kensington and Chelsea are separately reported to be preparing a formal challenge to the funding reforms under the Sustainable Communities Act, a route the City of London Corporation says it is considering and Hammersmith and Fulham has ruled out on legal advice [4]. Westminster has not yet put a council tax figure on its own response the way Hammersmith and Fulham and Wandsworth have; its first move has been against its own workforce.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson, quoted in the same Fitzrovia News report, defended the reform: "We're fixing an outdated funding system so funding goes where need is greatest, while protecting councils through the transition and ensuring no area faces a cliff edge" [4].
Reaction
Westminster's Labour opposition group said it recognised "the significant financial pressures facing local government after years of underfunding", but raised a specific concern about one of the departments affected: "We are particularly concerned that the communities department has been dismantled and is now in scope for redundancies. This team has played a vital role in bringing council services closer to residents through local engagement, building relationships, and connecting people with support" [5].
UNISON's head of local government, Mike Short, said: "These proposed council cuts are deeply concerning. Job losses will threaten vital public services and increase the burden on staff who are already overstretched. The council must explore every possible alternative to compulsory redundancies and engage with unions to protect jobs, services, and livelihoods" [5].
What is not established here
Local reporting has carried two different figures for how steeply council tax might need to rise to avoid further cuts: one account has the council saying a 200 percent increase would be needed to avoid cuts to spending, another describes the authority as expecting to "double" the charge to residents [4] [5]. No council tax rate for 2027/28 has been set, no Cabinet or Council paper setting out a specific percentage was found on Westminster's committee pages in the course of this piece, and the two figures in circulation are not consistent with each other. Neither is repeated as established fact here. Equally unresolved is any department-by-department breakdown of where the 520 posts fall, beyond the council's own statement that most are management and senior roles and the opposition's specific concern about the communities department; the council says further detail on departmental savings is due next month.
Sources
- City of Westminster, Cabinet, "Medium Term Financial Planning (2027/28 to 2030/31)", report to Cabinet, 13 July 2026, signed by Stuart Love, Chief Executive. https://committees.westminster.gov.uk/documents/g7116/Public%20reports%20pack%2013th-Jul-2026%2018.30%20Cabinet.pdf?T=10
- Westminster City Council, "More than 500 council posts to be cut", news release, 20 October 2026. https://www.westminster.gov.uk/news/more-500-council-posts-be-cut
- Alison McGovern, then Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, "Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement 2026-27", Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1202, 17 December 2025, Hansard, via TheyWorkForYou. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2025-12-17.hcws1202.h
- Ben Lynch, Local Democracy Reporter, "Westminster Council to cut over 500 jobs to address government funding reduction", The Fitzrovia News, 20 October 2026. https://fitzrovianews.com/2026/10/20/westminster-council-to-cut-over-500-jobs-to-address-government-funding-reduction/
- Tom Foot, "City council to axe more than 500 jobs", Westminster Extra, 23 October 2026. https://www.westminsterextra.co.uk/article/city-council-to-axe-more-than-500-jobs
- Civic Scrutiny, "Hammersmith and Fulham Could Raise Its Council Tax by 150 Percent. A Government Formula, Not the Council, Opened That Gap.", 6 October 2026. https://www.civic-scrutiny.co.uk/2026-updates/hammersmith-fulham-council-tax-150-percent-rise.html
- Civic Scrutiny, Wandsworth council tax rise piece, 13 October 2026. https://www.civic-scrutiny.co.uk/2026-updates/wandsworth-council-tax-94-percent-rise.html