Croydon Council managers have been accused of carrying out a “botched” restructure of its housing and homelessness team, where at least 26 jobs are to be axed. Not for the first time, the council is said to have failed to conduct an adequate equalities impact assessment, as is required by law, and also of losing minutes of meetings with staff representatives.
The GMB trades union is balloting its members within the department for strike action.
The dispute centres around a departmental restructure which the union says will see the cash-strapped council lose income-generating services as well as affecting the provision of services to council tenants.
The union has accused the council leadership, including Mayor Jason Perry and chief executive Katherine Kerswell, of ignoring a collective grievance signed by 80 staff and submitted in April.
The GMB says that meeting minutes have been “lost” – shades of how the council was run when Newman and Negrini were in charge – and that formal questions put to human resources and heads of service have been unanswered or ignored.
The strike ballot is due to end tomorrow, June 1. If the union members support strike action, it could take place later in June.
“Croydon Council are totally failing our members and all service users in this botched restructure,” according to the GMB’s Rachael Baylis.
“The proposals are an absolute dog’s dinner, with little thought to the practical application. The GMB has major concerns about the equalities impacts of these proposals which have been completely ignored.
“Short-term savings will cost the council in the long run and only further damage the services.
“Our members know their jobs better than any of the management who drew this up and it is to the council’s detriment that they do not listen.
“The council has been going through a series of restructures in their attempts to balance the books.
“But it was not our members who bankrupted the council and they should not be the ones paying for it with their jobs, their workloads and their health.
“Croydon has failed to meet their legal requirements to consult throughout this process and it has left our members feeling that they have no option but to take strike action.”
A council spokesperson, echoing the scripted lines of Perry, the borough’s £82,000 per year Tory Mayor, said the borough needs to become “smaller, more efficient and offer residents better value for money”.
The council claims that the housing restructure has been “open to a full, considered staff consultation process”.
A council spokesperson described the union’s decision to ballot staff over possible industrial action as “disappointing”.
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
I do not support job loss in any industry but let’s be clear regarding Croydon Housing services. Historically and currently it is Tenant & Leaseholders that suffer part of that suffering was caused by staff attitude and processes. The Tenants and Leaseholders submitted a report on Staff Culture in 2021 to the Independent Housing Board this must be included in the dialogue between Union & Management
May I also offer some advice to the GMB, you are fighting via industrial action to save 26 jobs that the council propose to cease. Don’t play into their hands and lose the jobs they perceive they do not need! As a result of this action, Come to an agreement to benefit and give security to those staff
This Council ignores laws, regulations rules process and anything it finds inconvenient including pesky residents.
This Council Executive have a long history of ignoring everything it finds difficult to deal with and that is most things.
They are so bad that one has to wonder now who is bringing whom into disrepute? Gove has a poor reputation but to not even investigate what is going on at Fishers folly has taken disrepute into the realms of farce.
They may say that direction needs to be given and performances managed. But they are not at present and most things have ground to a halt or are not fit for purpose to a greater or lesser degree
Frankly the environment that every Council person has to work in is abysmal especially those that are customer facing. Would anyone reading this like to swap places with a member of staff working for Croydon Council and face the disgust of the Borough? I strongly doubt it.
Owning up to wrongdoing? Not a chance. They appear to have a culture of cover up obfuscation and deceit by obfuscation, mis-interpretation and rampant corporate alzheimers.
There is no way those books would ever balance – even a mafia trick accountant with mutli books and more corporate shells than the biggest beach in the world would struggle to get close to a trial balance.
Good luck GMB but factor that not one court, police officer, Minister or regulator has done anything about the massive amount of money gone missing and all those pesky laws broken and you have your answer as to what kind of rule of law exists in Croydon.