CROYDON IN CRISIS: ‘Troubleshooter’ hired to fix scandalous conditions in flats in South Norwood has left cash-strapped local authority after less than six months. EXCLUSIVE By STEVEN DOWNES
Alison Knight: £800 per day housing director failed to meet Regina Road residents
Alison Knight, the £800 per day director who was hired in May in the wake of the housing scandal surrounding tower blocks in South Norwood, has left Croydon Council.
Knight did not see out the full six-month term of her £104,000 appointment at the cash-strapped council, where she had been hand-picked as a troubleshooter by chief exec Katherine Kerswell.
When she was hired by Croydon, the council issued a statement saying that Knight would “co-ordinate widespread improvements to how council residents are listened to and looked after”.
In its self-congratulatory press release, the council quoted Knight as saying, “I am passionate about delivering excellent services to local people, and this role is a great opportunity to help make sure everyone in council homes feels cared for and receives a really good, responsive experience across our teams.”
Yet in her less-than-six months working at Croydon, Knight never bothered to meet with the Regina Road Residents Support Group, whose members include many of those caught at the centre of the scandal which saw one expert describe the squalid conditions in their flats as “the worst in Britain”.
Snubbed: Regina Road residents have been demanding meetings with council chiefs, such as Knight, since March
One meeting with the residents was eventually arranged for August, but Knight failed to show. She was taking annual leave. A second meeting was arranged for September, but was cancelled by the council on the somewhat spurious grounds that it was during the purdah period before the mayoral referendum. Knight never bothered arranging any other meeting date.
Fisher’s Folly sources who worked with Knight during her brief stay suggested she was ill-suited for the role and the urgent demands facing the council. “She was nothing but a local council bureaucrat,” said one.
“Dr” Knight as she liked to be known (she has a qualification in education) is understood to have left her job with Croydon on Friday.
According to her online profile, she is now “director of place” at Broxbourne Council, a small rural borough in Hertfordshire. This appointment suggests that Knight will have spent some of her very well-paid time while at Croydon job hunting and going through the recruitment process with her new employers.
David Padfield: ‘interim’
Knight’s replacement is David Padfield, who has previously worked in senior positions at Lewisham and, most recently, in Hackney.
The council has failed to issue any press release to publicise this important change among key personnel.
Padfield’s job title carries the prefix of “interim”, something which has caused concerns among housing experts who have been monitoring the situation in Croydon.
“However good an ‘interim’ appointee might be, not having a permanent appointment for such a significant position means that the person doing it lacks real authority within the organisation to implement long-term changes and really impact the culture,” they told Inside Croydon.
“I question why Kathrine Kerswell has failed to find someone to fill the role permanently; she’s had six months in which to conduct the recruitment.
“When the independent consultants from ARK delivered their report on the Regina Road scandal, they included a series of recommendations for change and improvement, including some that required immediate action.
“Did Alison Knight deliver on any of these recommendations at all? Will her interim replacement be able to do any better?”
Read more: ‘None of the tenants in Croydon trust anybody in the council’
Read more: Residents’ group pledges to keep up the fight for decent homes
Read more: Croydon shamed over ‘dangerous squalor’ in council flats
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