CROYDON IN CRISIS: Spend, spend, spend… the bad old habits of the dark days of the Negreedy era don’t seem to have been eradicated altogether, as CEO Kerswell looks to hire a new director to do her dirty work for her.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Redundant: just what does £192,000 CEO Katherine Kerswell do at the council?
For some of those inhabiting the ivory tower that is the council offices at Fisher’s Folly, spending other people’s money remains an easy answer to all sorts of issues.
Take, for example, the executive job advertisement that appeared this week, offering a salary of a cool £123,000 for a “transformation director”.
The ad’s author continues by sneering down their nose at the people of the borough: “No ordinary challenge – but this is Croydon.”
It is not even a week since the Government intervened, ordering its improvement panel to oversee all significant financial decisions in Croydon. It is four months since the cash-strapped council issued its third Section 114 notice in just two years, effectively admitting it could not balance its 2023-2024 budget.
Transformative: the new director role, on £123,000. Though someone at the council appears to think Croydon is in Surrey
Section 114 notices usually come with an absolute block on any non-essential spending.
Yet here is cash-strapped Croydon Council creating yet another six-figure salaried job, whose main function it is to put other people out of work.
The transformation director post is a new role, a job that has never existed before at Croydon Council.
The notification of the vacancy appeared in the same week that residents across the bankrupt borough have been receiving their Council Tax bills including Tory Mayor Jason Perry’s inflation-busting 15per cent hike.
And the vacancy was announced on the interweb just as many of Croydon’s staff were being invited to re-apply for their jobs at lower rates of pay at the crisis-hit council.
The job ad was signed as if coming directly from Perry (£82,000 per year in allowances) and the council chief exec, Katherine Kerswell (£192,000 per year).
“Thank you for thinking about joining us at Croydon Council,” they wrote. “This is truly an opportunity not to be missed.” Oh, how the people reading this must have laughed!
Referring to the council facing “significant challenges over the past two years” (just two years?), Kerswell and Perry say that they “need an outstanding individual to join us to help lead the transformation of the whole council”.
Now this might strike Inside Croydon’s loyal reader as odd, because they might have thought that “the transformation of the whole council”, especially in these financially straitened times, would be a task for the very well-paid council CEO.
Especially if, as has been the case with Kerswell, the CEO has already managed to create another six-figure salaried role, that of assistant chief executive, to… well… assist the CEO.
But no: after overseeing the axing of at least 500 frontline jobs in Croydon since she arrived in late 2020, Kerswell has decided that she needs to bring in someone else to do the dirty work for her. And all along, she has the enthusiastic backing of her lap-dog mayor, Perry.
“Turning the council round will be hard but fulfilling work; you will face challenges and Croydon will test every part of your experience and knowledge to date, but if you are the person we are looking for, this is exactly the opportunity you will relish,” Kerswell and Perry’s sales pitch goes.
Croydon “is a fantastic place” they say, as they offer “a once-in-a-career moment”.
Pay more, get less: Tory Mayor Jason Perry
They claim that they are “building an organisation in which talented, clear-sighted, and committed individuals with a strong public service ethos thrive”.
Which might come as news to anyone who has had the misfortune to deal with Kerswell and some of her more bureaucratic Fisher’s Folly colleagues.
“This is a values-led organisation where people care passionately about fairness, inclusion, tackling inequality, and about making Croydon better for the people who live here.” By hiking their Council Tax by 15per cent and cutting another £36million-worth of services, oh yeah.
Elsewhere in the 13-page “candidate briefing pack” (how much was spent on producing that?), they outline what the purpose of the transformation director will be: “You will lead the design, development and delivery of all the whole organisation transformation programme, incorporating the service level transformation programmes in each directorate.
“Your experience, analytical skills and delivery focus will be pivotal in driving innovation [sic] we need and improving outcomes.
“Your work will achieve significant cost savings, fundamentally reshape services and build a new inclusive relationship with the diverse communities of Croydon and council staff.”
Got all that?
Just to drive the message home: “This is your chance to help write the next chapter in Croydon’s story to create a council that as the mayor’s business plan says – costs less, does less and delivers better.”
The council has even hired professional headhunters, Starfish, to manage the recruitment process.
Some who saw the ad were clearly impressed by all of its councilspeak bollocks.
Until recently, Neil Williams was a typical Croydon Council empire-builder, appointed as head of digital by Jo Negrini, and given licence to spend public cash like a drunken sailor. Williams left his six-figure job once it was plain that the money for all his pet projects would soon run out.
Empire building: former Croydon exec Neil Williams got all excited when he saw the job ad
When he latched upon the Croydon transformation director job ad, Williams tweeted: “Not for the faint-hearted, but would love to see someone awesome take this on.
“The salary expectations are 123k and the essential criteria are qwertyuiop.” Sic.
The paperwork says that the closing date for applications is April 14, and that the long list will be agreed on April 17, when some lucky so-and-sos will even get to have a one-to-one with Kerswell herself.
But no sooner had Williams posted his “awesome” gush on Twitter about the job than the online notices were subtly, but tellingly, altered.
“Unfortunately this position has been closed,” they now said. The functionary at the council’s “executive search agent partner” wasn’t answering their phone to explain why.
Could it be that the S114 notice issued in November renders this role as less than essential spending?
Given that very senior sources at Fisher’s Folly have said that McArdle has openly been expressing impatience with the two-steps-forward-one-step-back rate of progress at Croydon, might Kerswell advertising for a new director to do her work for her be seen as just the latest backward step by the under-whelming chief executive?
Read more about the council being placed into special measures:
Read more: Croydon put in special measures: ‘Worst of all possible worlds’
Read more: Call for Tory Mayor to resign after Government’s takeover
Read more: ‘Precautionary measure given the historic issues uncovered’
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