CROYDON IN CRISIS: In 2018, Daniel Cox blew the whistle when he discovered that a contractor was charging the council almost double what he was being paid for his work. Cox was dismissed, and the council has spent the past eight years working with the same contractor to gag him.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Croydon Council has spent almost £150,000 on external legal advisors and counsel since 2018 in pursuing a case against a single whistleblower who claims that a staffing agency was billing £350 per day for the services of an unqualified social worker to co-ordinate SEND support.
Another day in court: Daniel Cox will be making his case before a tribunal judge again tomorrow
The whistleblower was the under-qualified SEND support worker. So they knew that they were being paid at a rate of £22.70 per hour – around half of what the council was paying to the Adecco staffing agency via a shell company.
But instead of investigating the over-charging and potentially taking action against the staff agency, the whistleblower was sacked and Croydon Council has spent the past eight years using tax-payers’ money to pay for lawyers, internal as well as external, to contest claims made through the Employment Tribunal.
Daniel Cox is back at the Employment Tribunal at Fetter Lane tomorrow for the latest in a series of hearings in his case, as he has sought to expose the cosy relationship between Croydon Council and one of its biggest service suppliers. Continue reading
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