Croydon Council’s Godfather has found himself a new job.
The godfather: Graham Cadle
Graham Cadle, the sometime assistant chief exec at Fisher’s Folly, left Croydon Council at the start of the year apparently tired of being reminded that the crap app (© Inside Croydon) which he’d commissioned from Harwinder “Harry” Singh still failed to work properly, despite his throwing millions of public money at it.
Cadle had even hired Singh on £787 per day to work on the council’s IT projects, but forgot to volunteer the information to the council management that he was godfather to the child Singh and Karen Sullivan, the council’s head of revenues and benefits, had had together.
Cadle, Singh and Sullivan have ended their work at Croydon Council, following a second formal investigation into their conduct, arising from an Inside Croydon investigation last year. Though Jo Negrini, the council chief executive, has refused to answer any questions about the value of the pay-offs which may have been made to senior staffers Cadle and Sullivan.
Cadle was one of the council’s top-paid executives before his departure.
Now, Inside Croydon understands that he has been appointed to a “highly paid post” by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council in Hampshire, where he is to take up the position of interim head of finance and resources.
Cadle’s predecessor there was Kevin Jaquest, who was paid around £115,000 a year, according to official figures.
Jaquest was at the centre of a data breach row earlier this year, when Basingstoke was reported to the Information Commissioner over complaints about its handling of personal information.
Basingstoke council’s press office refused to outline the circumstances of long-serving Jaquest’s departure from the authority, though they did say it was not connected “in any way” to the data breach.
Which might come as something of a relief to residents and councillors there as they await Cadle’s arrival. It was Cadle, after all, who when at Croydon managed the “digital enabling” project which burned through a £8.2million annual budget in just five months.
And it was Cadle who authorised Singh to off-shore elements of Croydon Council’s data management project to India, potentially “opening the back door” to the council computer system and putting tens of thousands of confidential records at risk – and going against ICO recommendations.
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You have to ask what due diligence has been done here. Looking at Basingstoke Council’s track record it looks like very little.
It’s only public money. One council is much like another – cock up in one – move on.