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Kerswell’s 100-page tribunal defence against racism charges

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CROYDON IN CRISIS: A three-week hearing at the Employment Tribunal could cost the cash-strapped council at least £150,000 – with tax-payers picking up the legal tab again. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Money no object: Croydon CEO Katherine Kerswell is having all her legal costs paid for by… YOU

Cash-strapped Croydon Council, the local authority that says it has no money to pay for public services, has today embarked on an Employment Tribunal case which is expected to last for three weeks and where the hearing alone will cost tax-payers at least £150,000.

At the centre of the case is Katherine Kerswell, the council’s £192,000 per year chief executive who has been accused of acting in a racist manner by a former council director, Hazel Simmonds.

Simmonds has also brought a discrimination case against the council as well as a claim for unfair dismissal.

All Kerswell’s legal costs are being paid for by Croydon Council – and so therefore by the borough’s long-suffering Council Tax-payers. Croydon Council is using its regular external firm of solicitors, Browne Jacobson, and a King’s Counsel plus a junior lawyer to represent them at the case.

In her defence, Kerswell has submitted a statement that runs to more than 100 A4 pages. Legal sources estimate that compiling this statement alone may have cost Croydon Council at least £5,000.

Sources in Katharine Street suggest that the decision to go ahead with this case will have had the full knowledge and consent of the borough’s Tory Mayor, Jason Perry. Perry was elected 18 months ago on a promise to take action against those who caused the council’s financial collapse, yet the Mayor has yet to act on the majority of recommendations made by an independent investigator in a report delivered to Kerswell and the council nearly three years ago.

The hearing of case reference 2304609/2021 (the 2021 bit indicates how long this matter has taken to come to court) began at 10am today at the South London Employment Tribunal which is contained within an unprepossessing red-brick building called Montague Court on London Road, nestled close to a Lidl supermarket and an EasyGym.

Legal threats: the council’s most senior lawyer, Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense

The judge set aside the first two days for the parties to wade through the volumes of documents and statements that have been presented for the case. Some of the claims and evidence submitted dates back as far as 2014, years before Kerswell or Simmonds ever started working for the council.

Simmonds was appointed to her £150,000 per year role of “executive director of Gateway, strategy and engagement” in 2018 by the council’s then chief exec, Jo Negrini.

There is a suggestion that the council and its lawyers are employing deliberate delaying and filibustering tactics, in efforts to exhaust Simmonds and run up the costs of her bringing the case. “The council has deep pockets, thanks to tax-payers, and they know they can play for time to force anyone who challenges them to give up,” said a source.

In previous cases, lawyers for the council have issued threats of dire consequences against those involved in the dispute, as well as saying that it would seek punitive costs against them if successful. It is understood that this may have happened in the Simmonds case.

Because of the financial burden of mounting legal costs, Simmonds was representing herself at the Tribunal’s initial session today.

Simmonds’ legal advisors had made some efforts to settle the matter out of court, including writing to Tony McArdle, the chair of the improvement panel at the council, appointed by Michael Gove to oversee the bankrupt borough’s slow progress of recovery since the finances first crashed in 2020.

Such efforts for conciliation have come to nothing – despite Simmonds having won the first part of her case, when it was shown that the council had acted unlawfully in reducing her pay while she was suspended from duty.  The cash-strapped council was ordered to give Simmonds £15,000 in back-pay. Simmonds was unable to recover her legal costs for this part of her case.

Simmonds was one of four execs who were suspended in February 2021 by the then-new council CEO, Kerswell, while their part in the council’s multi-million-pound financial collapse was to be investigated. No disciplinary action has ever been taken against any of them: three quit their Croydon jobs that year (a fourth never returned from long-term sick leave).

Simmonds did not resign until September 2022, and she embarked on a grievance counter-action against the council for race discrimination, victimisation and unlawful reduction in wages. She also made a separate racism complaint against Kerswell individually.

Day in court: former council exec Hazel Simmonds

While Kerswell has continued with her work of making hundreds of council staff redundant, she and the council have refused to release any of the details of their defence of the case brought by Simmonds, nor the mounting costs incurred by the authority.

Reference to the long-running case has been kept top secret, appearing only in the exempt, Part B sections of council reports and referred to as “an ongoing confidential staffing matter”.

Ahead of one committee meeting held last month, Kerswell excused her actions by writing, “The report contains confidential personal data and confidential legal advice and therefore the entirety of the report is exempt.” Kerswell has been backed in her actions to keep her costly legal case a secret by her deputy CEO, Elaine Jackson, plus the hapless legal director, Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense.

The Simmonds complaint was filed more than 15 months ago, so Kerswell has been accumulating legal costs all that time.

The prolonged disciplinary process brought against Simmonds was used by Kerswell as an excuse for failing to action the findings of the Penn Report, which had investigated the conduct of several senior figures at the council.

Read more: Council exec Simmonds quits after 18 months ‘gardening leave’
Read more: ‘You seem to be trying to put the genie back in the bottle’
Read more: Bankrupt council paid firm of solicitors £2m over two years
Read more: How blind man took on the council – and won £66,000 in costs
Read more: Home owner’s victory after four-year battle with planners


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