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Democratic control is an alien concept at the Town Hall

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CROYDON COMMENTARY: What powers and influence do our elected councillors really have? ROD DAVIES, a local resident and a local authority official in the past, poses the questions

Water colour by artist Lis Watkins

Croydon Town Hall’s 70 elected councillors are all dependent on professional officers, the borough’s civil servants, providing best advice to them on situations and the range of available options, and helping them develop the strategy. This encompasses a vast and diverse range of complex services, unlike any private sector organisation, many of which the public is barely aware of. Many of these services are delivered on behalf of central government. As a consequence, councillors can only direct a small proportion of the total budgets.

The council’s Chief Executive Officer is charged to ensure that councillors create policies that deliver on these mandated services. So the CEO inherently appears to dominate elected members at times.

“Sorry Councillor X, I know that Children’s and Adult’s Services are uneconomic and that no private sector organisation would consider attempting to deliver them; but you can’t decide to stop delivering these services on that basis.” It is not unknown for elected members to lack any business, management or leadership skills whatsoever and to hold some extraordinarily eccentric views. The consequence is that CEOs and their management teams must be able and willing to stop members doing daft and illegal things.

However, there are questions to be asked about the culture prevalent in Croydon Council. Does a competent council get involved in a partnership deal with a private sector developer during a recession, where they manage to build new offices that end up costing more, per square metre, than one of the most prestigious buildings in the world?

There are also repeated questions about unspent funds following the riots in 2011 and the use – or non-use – of Section 106 funding from Altitude 25 by Park Hill and the law courts, with no credible answer appears forthcoming. The list goes on…

In the absence of the truth, it is rumour and speculation which becomes valid currency. We can only guess at the answers. You can conjure any number of quasi-conspiratorial options:

All of the above is, of course, entirely hypothetical. You can take your choice or imagine some your own scenarios. Perhaps Inside Croydon should run a quarterly Croydon Council Conspiracy Theory Competition with a special award for the most lurid explanation of council decisions and actions.

In the meantime, the residents and businesses of Croydon will have to continue to endure while the council does not appear to serve their interests.


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