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Council sells Addington Palace but fails to say for how much

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The Labour Council was elected in May on a platform that promised greater transparency and accountability from our Town Hall.

Addington Palace Golf Club: Croydon Council has sold this handsome piece of real estate. The matter was never debated, and the council isn’t saying what the sale price was

Those good intentions didn’t last long. A report to tonight’s council cabinet of 10 leading councillors shows what just one of them, Simon Hall, the cabinet member for finance, is entitled to do on his own on behalf of Croydon’s 340,000 residents.

In what is a very brief report, accompanied by a terse background document, it is announced that Hall has disposed of Addington Palace Golf Club. But the key detail, at what price, is withheld, although we are informed that this prestigious piece of real estate has been leased for 999 years. So Ronnie Corbett and his fellow club members can continue to play golf there at least until the year 3013.

The cabinet papers can be seen in pdf format here Finance report to cabinet, and the detail-lite “background” report here Addington Palace sale – background

In the other paperwork ahead of tonight’s meeting, we learn that for clerking, public relations and communications for Labour’s controversial Fairness Commission, Hall’s dishing out £130,700. That’s a nice little earner…

We also learn that Hall has authorised the spending of almost £1 million on extending the coach and minibus contracts for children with special educational needs. Given the controversies and mishandled procurements of these contracts over the last five years, requiring investigations by the district auditor and Private Eye magazine, this matter is dashed off in the report with an amazing lack of transparency.

And then there is £26,700,000 spent just on a strategy to procure transport services.

Yes, £26.7 million.

This is being done with all the transparency of a Mike “#WadGate” Fisher allowances claim. This type of council governance stinks.

It places a huge amount of pressure on a single cabinet member, involving massive public spending but through what has developed into an inadequate process for reporting. Labour has abolished the previous committee of councillors which considered more detailed information on contracts, and so has concentrated power in the hands of Hall and just a few senior council staff, headed by Nathan Elvery.

Of course, the entrepreneurial Elvery was installed by Labour in the position of council chief executive despite the £180,000 per year job never being advertised, and without even a minute’s debate of the appointment at the council.

Given his pivotal part in previous procurement controversies over the borough’s bungled SEN transport contracts, it is emerging that spending public money with only lip-service paid to accountability must be the way the increasingly powerful Elvery prefers things.

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