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MP calls for misconduct charges against ex-councillor Hall

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CROYDON IN CRISIS: Home Office junior minister Chris Philp says that some of the council’s former leaders ‘committed such egregious breaches of public trust that they should be formally investigated by the police for the criminal offence of misconduct in public office’.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Cost centre: Simon Hall, from a council-made video filmed at Fisher’s Folly in 2020. He has dismissed the Penn Report as ‘hearsay’

Croydon’s “two steps forward one step back” council might actually take a big step forward later today in bringing charges and sanctions against some of those responsible for bankrupting the borough.

A local MP has urged officials to pursue a case of misconduct in public office against one former Labour councillor after he was alleged to have “invented” enough extra homes for a whole new town to help make his budget balance.

Chris Philp, the Conservative MP for Croydon South, has latched on to one of the revelations of the Penn Report, which was oh-so-reluctantly released by council officials in February – six months after Inside Croydon published the independent investigator’s findings and recommendations.

One of the more ludicrous episodes uncovered by Penn suggests that Simon Hall, the former cabinet member for finance, had instructed a council director to add 5,000 Band D properties to the Council Tax base, “as it would significantly increase the predicted income from Council Tax which would in turn assist with immediate budget balancing and setting decisions”.

Anyone convicted with misconduct in public office could face a maximum life sentence in prison.

All is revealed: Page 1 of the Penn Report

Hall, a chartered accountant by profession, has always refuted the allegations, dismissing them as hearsay. Hall resigned from his cabinet position in October 2020 and quit as a councilor a couple of months later.

Richard Penn, the senior investigator appointed by the Local Government Association to look at whether there had been wrong-doing leading up to Croydon issuing its first Section 114 notice in November 2020, interviewed more than 60 past and present council staffers, councillors and external individuals.

Penn’s report does not name his interviewees, although many can be readily identified.

In Para 7.32 of the Penn Report, he provides an account from “Interviewee 43”, who is described elsewhere as “external to the council”; they may have been one of the financial experts brought in as the crisis at the council mounted during 2020.

This has never been confirmed, but it is quite possible that No43 was Ian O’Donnell, the finance consultant who was brought in to Fisher’s Folly in May 2020 and quickly found 75 serious faults in the way in which the council is run.

Whoever Interviewee 43 is, they were not impressed with Simon Hall.

The Penn report, written in early 2021, states, “Interviewee 43 said that there are concerns about behind the scenes possible tampering by elected members with critical decisions, for example with Council Tax setting which is essentially a purely technical process that feeds into the budget-setting process and is crucial to the budget that is finally agreed by the Council.” Our italics.

“The (current) Interim Deputy Director of Finance had told Interviewee 43 that he had discovered that 5,000 additional properties seem to have been added to the Band D Council Tax base for Council Tax income calculation purposes with no clear explanation.

“Interviewee 43 said that, according to members of their team, the (former) Head of Corporate Finance was apparently instructed by the (former) Cabinet member for Finance and Resources [meaning Simon Hall] to place an extra 5,000 properties into Band D as it would significantly increase the predicted income from Council Tax which would in turn assist with immediate budget balancing and setting decisions.”

Penn also made note of this: “Interviewee 43… told me that the (current) S151 Officer’s [Lisa Taylor] relationship with the (former) Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources had been problematic because in Interviewee 43’s opinion the (former) Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources had behaved as if he was the S151 Officer. This included rewriting the S151 Officer’s reports to Cabinet.” Our italics.

“In Interviewee 43’s experience that was the approach of the (former) Cabinet member for Finance and Resources generally, and indeed he had wanted to see Interviewee 43’s report on financial management at the Council before it went to the Finance Review Panel. Interviewee 43 had refused.”

The council’s appointments and disciplinary committee meets, appropriately, in Room 1.01 of Fisher’s Folly from 2pm this afternoon.

Fraud focus: Kroll’s investigators have spent almost a year looking for evidence of fraud over the Fairfield Halls refurbishment

Much of the agenda will be discussed in secret. But we do know that they will discuss the long-delayed Kroll Report, the investigation into allegations of multi-million-pound fraud in Brick by Brick’s disastrous £67million refurb of the Fairfield Halls.

And they will also, finally, get round to discussing whether to action the recommendations made by Richard Penn in his report which he handed over to Katherine Kerswell, the council’s go-slow CEO, in February 2021.

There are some clues that the council will be seeking to take some action: the disciplinary committee’s papers helpfully including the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidance on the offence of misconduct in public office (summary: the determinedly cautious CPS doesn’t usually rate the chances of a successful prosecution).

And even before today’s committee meeting has taken place, the Conservative group at the Town Hall has placed a motion for debate on the agenda of next week’s full council meeting which says, “This council notes the decision of the appointments and disciplinaries [sic] committee on 23rd March 2023.” So they already know what is going to be agreed later today…

The motion says: “Those who caused Croydon Council’s financial downfall must be held to account. It is vital that all avenues are pursued to ensure that residents’ anger and desire for accountability are recognised.” So this is about revenge, rather than justice. Heyho…

No shame: Jo ‘Negreedy’ Negrini has been out and about talking about regeneration

The Tory council motion does seem to suggest there could be more than one individual about to have their collar felt. This might even include the former chief exec, Jo “Negreedy” Negrini, who last week was back schmoozing with property developers at MIPIM, the speculators’ “booze and hooker fest” held on the Cote d’Azur, this time representing her new bosses, Arup, as “London director”.

Penn had suggested that Negrini’s £437,000 golden handshake from the council in 2020 might be clawed back because of a “repudiatory breach of contract”.

Penn’s report also recommended reporting senior staff involved in the council’s financial collapse to their relevant professional bodies, which would severely curtail their future job prospects with other local authorities.

Croydon South’s MP Philp is a junior minister at the Home Office, so he just might have had the benefit of some high-grade legal advice from within that department on the available next steps.

Shocked: Croydon South MP Chris Philp

Today, Philp told Inside Croydon: “It seems to me that the actions of Croydon Council’s former leadership – both councillors and senior officers – have committed such egregious breaches of public trust that they should be formally investigated by the police for the criminal offence of misconduct in public office.

“We all know about the reckless way that they squandered hundreds of millions of pounds on loss-making hotels, shopping centres and failed property speculation – which had driven Croydon to bankruptcy and their toxic £1.6billion of debt still hangs over us all.

“But the thing that shocked me the most was that they apparently fabricated council income that didn’t exist in order to make it appear that their budgets added up.

“A careful analysis of the Crown Prosecution Service’s guidelines suggests to me that the threshold has been met for the common law criminal offence of misconduct in public office.”

Read more: All you ever need to know about ‘misconduct in public office’…


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