Croydon pays a salary of £248,000 a year for its chief executive, according to the most recent figures (that notoriously left-wing rag the Daily Telegraph says that council chiefs’ salaries are “out of control”).

Jon Rouse: Yes, he made mistakes. And he's proud to admit it, too

Therefore, to ensure we all get our money’s worth, we feel it only right that as many people in Croydon as possible should get to see the musings of CEO Jon Rouse.

In the latest of our occasional series of Rouse’s postings on the Taberner House intraweb, we bring to you his truly inspiring rallying cry to the troops, posted a couple of weeks ago, following the riots.

And to help provide a bit of context here and there, we have inserted one or two comments and links [within the square brackets]. We just couldn’t resist…

It seems now that the time is right to express my deep, deep gratitude to all staff who have contributed to the recovery work since last Monday night. You have been magnificent. Never have I been so proud to be Chief Executive of Croydon Council.

Many of you have gone the extra mile in so many different ways. You have been compassionate, thoughtful, diligent, ingenious and committed. You have combined professionalism with creativity and passion. You have channelled your anger, your fear and your confusion into positive practical steps to get this town up and running again as soon as possible. 

We haven’t got everything right [so true… like telling a burned out trader to go to the Job Centre or a homeless family to rent another flat from an agency]. We’ve made some mistakes along the way [as reported here]. Some commentators see my admittance of our fallibility as a weakness [while some see it as an admittance that you made serious mistakes]. I see it as a strength, that we are confident enough in ourselves as a team to own up to our errors and to learn from them, and aim to get it right next time [the next time? Surely Rouse’s job is to ensure that there never is a “next time”?].

We are not out of the woods yet. There is still an immense amount of work to do, in terms of reassurance, rebuilding and support [as our reporting of the mishandling of London Road test cases demonstrate]. And there is the fundamental task of understanding why these events took place and how we tackle root causes to ensure that they do not happen again [so the Croydon CEO is in favour of a proper inquiry then?].

What we do know is we will not be alone in these tasks. The community solidarity and support in the last ten days has been amazing. We couldn’t have done what we’ve achieved without so many other agencies, charitable organisations and volunteers [what, like all those agencies, charitable organisations and volunteers that Croydon has cut its grant aid to?].

But for now on behalf of both myself and the Leader of the Council, it’s just a simple thank you. Thank you for a job well done to date. Let’s keep going on behalf of this wonderful community that we serve.

Related articles

• London Road stories: Homeless and helpless (insidecroydon.com)
• Croydon 8/8: Council chief admits mistakes were made (insidecroydon.com)
• Hilley’s hubby has council pay for conference “volunteers” (insidecroydon.com)
• MP Wicks renews demand for urgent inquiry into Croydon riots (insidecroydon.com)