CROYDON IN CRISIS: No money for adult services, half the borough’s libraries facing closure or down-grading, and Council Tax hiked by 21% in just 12 months. But Mayor Perry has found the cash to buy 3,700 new computers. By KEN LEE, Town Hall reporter
Time for an upgrade: the council is buying 3,700 new laptops and tablets. It is keeping the name of the supplier a secret
Within days of hiking the borough’s Council Tax to record highs and approving another £30million-worth of cuts to the services delivered by his council, Croydon Mayor Jason Perry was presiding over proposals to spend £5million on shiny new laptops and tablet devices for himself and what remains of the council’s staff.
At last week’s council budget meeting, the £82,000 per year Tory Mayor dismissed any calls for him and his fellow Conservative councillors to take a pay cut to help the cash-strapped council’s financial crisis.
And with the strong support of Katherine Kerswell, the council’s £192,000 per year chief exec, part-time Perry also rejected proposals to reduce salaries paid to the council’s growing band of six-figure-salaried execs.
Now, Inside Croydon has uncovered an official council plan to spend almost £5million on brand new computer equipment.
The scheme is contained within an “officer-delegated report”, meaning that the matter has never been discussed at a meeting of elected councillors.
The “key decision” (complete with grocer’s apostrophes) is “to approve the award of a contract for the replacement of all End User Device’s [sic] (EUD’s [sic]) within the council as well as introducing a modern device build, device deployment, and device management technology for a period of 48 months from March 2024”.
This, remember, is brought to you by a council that can barely be bothered to answer its phone lines (probably because the high-paid execs have axed so many lower-paid call centre jobs) and the council which cannot even properly organise its systems to send out Penalty Charge Notices…
The report was drafted by Marie Snelling, who is an interim for an interim. The £149,000 per year assistant chief executive, Elaine Jackson, is on long-term sick leave after having broken her leg in five places…
Until 2020, when the council went bankrupt for the first time, it had never had the need for an assistant chief executive. But Kerswell seemed to think it was a good idea, and recruited Jackson.
Interim’s interim: Marie Snelling
Snelling joined Croydon last month. She had previously worked at Surrey County Council as “director of transformation”, “acting executive director of communities and transformation” and “executive director customer and communities”. Snelling appears to have left Surrey in November 2023 after she had “completely repositioned 52 libraries, transforming them into community anchors”.
Kerswell’s council made no formal announcement of Snelling starting work at Fisher’s Folly. Snelling self-describes as an “experienced and collaborative leader with a passion for customer-focused and community-led change. Optimistic and energetic individual with a track record of reimagining service delivery”. So she’s sure to fit in very well…
Helping Snelling to push through 5million quid’s worth of new computer kit at the otherwise cash-strapped council is Paul Golland, who has been working as “chief digital officer and director of resident access” on a contract since December 2021. So it will have been Golland’s department that has been responsible for the PCN notices fiasco and the failure to deliver the long-promised “smart” bus shelters.
It was Golland’s role, formalised and with a full-time appointee on up to £127,684 per year, that was supposed to have been discussed at an appointments committee in January. Since when, there’s been no puff of white smoke.
Certainly, Golland was still in post in Croydon as another “interim”, the “chief digital officer and director of resident access” on March 1, when he put his name alongside Snelling’s in recommending spending £5million on new IT kit.
According to Snelling and Golland’s bit of joint enterprise, spending all this money that Mayor Perry keeps saying he doesn’t have to provide essential services for adults or children, or to keep libraries open, will “enable the council to meet corporate priority OUTCOME 1…”, the shouty capitalisation is the report authors’ choice: “The council balances its books, listens to residents and delivers good, sustainable services”.
There must be a first time for everything, you’d hope.
And Snelling and Golland offer a shouty “OUTCOME 2”, too.
Top techie: Paul Golland
“The social value element of the contract will enable the council to meet corporate priority OUTCOME 2 by supporting the local economy and enabling residents to upskill and access job opportunities,” they say. Which is nice.
The computer purchase report carries the approval of Jason Cummings, the cabinet member for finance, the Shirley councillor who is responsible for closing or downgrading half the borough’s libraries (including Shirley’s) while increasing Council Tax in Croydon by 21% in the space of 12 months, and who is the Tory parliamentary candidate in Croydon East.
The report suggests that a tender process has already been undertaken, and a successful bidder for the juicy council contract has been identified (although their identity is to be withheld from the public, who are paying for the new kit).
Apparently, “The highest scoring bid meets the council value for money requirement. This large volume tender achieved best value for money with discounts for high volume compared to ad hoc replacement of devices.”
And they say, “The contract will support the council’s ICT priorities and will allow Croydon Council to deliver a more modern ICT service for users.” It is a similar argument put forward the last time that the council replaced all its IT kit, in 2015.
“We are adopting a model that improves the agility and efficiency of the council,” which will impress someone, we’re sure.
“Implementing modern device build, device distribution, and ongoing device management technologies will improve user experience and service,” they say. Like they said about the “smart” bus shelters…
And this is all “a key enabler to the delivery of the council’s Hybrid and Flexible working policy which aims to create a more responsive and efficient workforce whilst meeting residents’ needs”.
Snelling and Golland’s report goes on to explain that there are around 3,700 laptop, desktop and tablet devices currently in use by council staff, mostly Lenovo Thinkpad laptops, “many” of which are up to seven years old. “They are at their end of life and need replacing.”
The council’s own figures suggest it has 3,200 staff.
The budget for the whole exercise is revealed to be £4,835,000.
According to the report, in 2022-2023, the council spent £780,000 on replacing knackered laptops – more than four times its budget for this exercise. “Until the End User Device Refresh contract is in place there will continue to be significant pressure on the Tech Refresh budget as irreparable failures of the current ageing laptop estate will continue at the same rate.”
Apparently, there’s no budget at all for sending pompous six-figure execs on a plain-English course. More’s the pity.
Read more: Kerswell looks to hire £127k director of ‘customer experience’
Read more: Council’s digital bus shelters partner is late to file accounts
Read more: Chief digital officer quits council after splashing the cash
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Is the excuse for this proposed expenditure Microsoft withdrawing support from Windows 10 computers and making it difficult to upgrade these PCs to Windows 11?
Check the report. Software upgrades are unmentioned
It’s also not difficult to upgrade to Windows 11 on older machines. These older machines can have the hardware upgraded for much less cost.
I would say it’s extremely unwise to spend any money at the moment on machines which run windows. Even Microsoft hasn’t finished dictating what processors are supported for the latest version of windows 11 (or perhaps windows 12 if it appears at some point). The likelihood is that some under-informed generic council employee will go for the cheapest option and get it all wrong. Then a couple of years down the line they’ll be spending another 5 million of our money.
It isn’t unusual for organizations to replace computers every five years or so. It keeps down support costs if everything is kept the same and is less likely to break down, and means nobody is struggling with outdated machines because their department would rather waste the money on something else. It costs at most £200 per seat per year, maybe 0.5% of the salary of the bum on that seat. It probably costs more in energy to keep said bum’s seat warm.
Of course normal organizations have a planned rolling programme as part of their annual budget. But Croydon Council isn’t a normal organization.
Playing devil’s advocate, what if they didn’t renew them? Are computers are unreasonable expense in the 21st century?
Not at all.
But why smuggle it through as an officers’ delegated decision?
Appalling
Croydon council need to think about their residents before buying new computer equipment. Where is a 3rd time bankrupt council getting £5m from. ? This money would be better spent on improving services, not cutting them. And the higher paid execs should take a pay cut. Bet the worker bees arent getting a massive payrise !
How must the residents of croydon feel when they see how much Jason Perry gets for his part time job, when most of them are not even on half of that for full time work ! Let alone the £192k Katherine Kerswell gets !! Thought the mayor, when he took the job, said he was going to work for the people !
My grandsons school, has had no heating in his SEN classroom for a while now. They are sitting all day with their coats on !!
The only reason for Council Tax increases is for them to continue to line their pockets and waste monies on themselves, just like the government being Conservative or Labour Party!!!
Is there nobody who can say NO to the way the Mayor spends money? He is worse than the Last council it seems no one stops him.
I would like to know what the mayor has done for Croydon apart from having his photo taken at every opportunity, why is he not tackling Knife Crime, Theft, Homelessness? to name a few
What is the mayor doing… ahh yes spending money on laptops and increasing our council taxes