CROYDON COMMENTARY: While the narrative from the Government-appointed improvement panel, the council and the levelling up department is upbeat about an ‘increased pace’ of change at the bankrupt borough, a more realistic picture, as NICHOLAS PANES points out, is of a council still failing to perform fundamental, legal duties – like publishing their accounts, which would allow the claims made to be properly scrutinised
Having carried on under the previous administration by making key decisions in secret, behind closed doors, and under criticism of its governance, Croydon Council has failed in its statutory obligation to produce accounts.
The council’s annual report for 2020-2021 is on the website but still in draft (unaudited) form.
The accounts for 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 are nowhere to be seen.
These were supposed to be produced by the Septembers after the end of the council’s financial year in the March.
Statutory notices, required to be issued if a local authority’s accounts are late, are only visible for 2020-2021, so Croydon appears to be in breach of the law regarding these notices, too, for the last two financial years.
While the winding up costs of Brick by Brick and the general financial position of Croydon Council are of acute interest to residents, there is no “puff of smoke” in the form of historical financial information.
There is evidence that Croydon are trying to deal with this, having commissioned (another) report on their year-end processes (available here).
Depressingly, this report has to go into minute detail, for example telling the council that they do not reconcile their bank balance often enough.
It does not place financial management in a good light if they cannot recognise this for themselves.
So we seem to be in for more of the same – super!
- Nicholas Panes is a former finance director of a large, public company, with experience of residential and commercial property development. It was Panes who in 2018 predicted the financial collapse of Croydon Council due to its £200million borrowing around failing housing developer Brick by Brick
Read Nicholas Panes’ previous Croydon Commentaries:
- Building towards the council’s financial ruin, Brick by Brick
- BxB’s collapse was predictable. Why did no one else notice?
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Jason Perry said when he became Mayor that he would be ‘opening the books’ so we could understand the Council’s finances. Nearly two years later and he hasn’t even published the books, never mind opening them.
This is yet another broken promise, yet another failure to deliver.
Great detective work Nicholas. If you hadn’t spotted this, you can be sure the Council would have let the matter remain hidden.
What is Jane West doing? She’s the Corporate Director of Resources, and is being paid a lot of money to manage our council’s money. Same goes for Jason Cummings, the Cabinet Member for Finance, and of course, our part-time Mayor, Jason Perry.
Last month Croydon’s answer to the Three Stooges presented a webcast on the council’s budget-setting process. How can that be done honestly and accurately when they don’t have (or don’t want us to see) the two most recent years’ accounts?
I think we should be told
It’s hardly been a secret. But it is easy to overlook.
We tried to do a People’s Audit in 2020, but that came to a grinding halt – as the external auditors lack the capacity to handle all of the detailed questions arising.
And Peter Underwood is right: you can hardly “open the books” when those books remain secret, unaudited and unpublished.
Whilst a backlog of unaudited accounts is a widespread serious problem across local authorities, there is a particular concern in Croydon that other material issues could be sitting there.