Mayor Jason Perry’s Croydon, the London council that fined hundreds of drivers without sending them the proper Penalty Charge Notice in the first instance, is sending out PCNs and other legal notifications carrying the signature of a senior official who hasn’t worked at Fisher’s Folly for nine months.
Fiasco: Mayor Jason Perry is piling up public cash, but failing to conduct basic admin tasks – like replacing out-of-date official signatures
It could prove another expensive error for the council under £192,000 per year chief exec Katherine Kerswell.
They have already lost at least £150,000 in fines that had to be waived when a “compooter error” last autumn failed to issue motorists with the initial notification of their driving error. Thousands of demands for £195 fines were issued to unsuspecting residents, which had to be scrapped as invalid.
Perry’s cash-strapped council depends on around £1million per month income from fining motorists for driving up the wrong street at the wrong time of day, and other CCTV-generated infractions. The practice is all entirely legitimate, and used to deter motorists from using residential streets as rat runs or driving down school streets when children are in the area.
Dodgy signature: one of the official letters, demanding money, issued by Croydon Council. Steve Iles left his job at Fisher’s Folly in August 2023
But official correspondence in connection with the fines is being issued with the authority of a signature of someone who does not actually work at the council.
The dodgy sign-off on the bottom of some of Croydon’s letters regarding Penalty Charge Notices appeals is that of Steve Iles, as “director of sustainable communities on behalf of Croydon Council”.
But Iles now works for Swindon council in Wiltshire, and has done since February this year, after he quit Croydon with a generous severance package in August 2023.
The use of a false or misleading signature, or that of someone who does not hold the proper authority, is reckoned to contravene any one of a handful of local authority legal requirements, including the Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (Representations and Appeals) Regulations 2007, Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) General Regulations 2007 and the Traffic Management Acts of 2004 and 2003.
Complaints have been lodged with the Local Government Ombudsman.
Croydon Council has acknowledged the error, saying in correspondence to one angry motorist, “Corrective action is currently being taken to remedy this matter.”
Yet, as so often under Kerswell and Perry, Croydon Council is claiming no fault. “The Council does not accept that the correspondence received by you is invalid, lacks accountability nor seeks to misrepresent.” Even though it appears to achieve at least two out of those three things.
No explanation or apology has been offered over why a pretty routine piece of admin – to change the signature on form letters of one, departed, over-paid council official with that of his successor, Karen Agbabiaka – has managed to be done in nine months.
According to correspondence from the council, seen by Inside Croydon, and dated April 2024, “A request to change delegatory powers to the new director, Karen Agbabiaka, is in train.” Which sort of means it has not been done yet.
Not signed up yet: Karen Agbabiaka
“Ms Agbabiaka has full approval to sign correspondence for penalty charge notices issued under RTRA 1984 sections 99-103,” the council states, without saying why her name is not on the official notices.
“This sheds light on the failures of the Croydon Council parking services team in carrying out their responsibilities towards the citizens they are supposed to serve,” a loyal reader said.
“The public needs to know when this request was submitted to change delegatory powers and why wasn’t it done when she assumed her position. It’s been nine months since she came into office, surely it does not take that long for approval?”
The reader says that they received another letter, also signed by Iles, dated April 4, 2024. This arrived after they had complained about what they describe as “malpractice”.
Thing is, if the complaint of maladministration to the Ombudsman or other legal challenges are upheld, and the council has been issuing all its PCNs for the past nine months with an invalid authorisation, then the ultimate cost to the cash-strapped council could be getting measured in millions of pounds.
And yet again, it will be Croydon residents who end up picking up the tab.
Read more: Council admits error and promises refunds over its PCN Fiasco
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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
Makes me think about why the staff sent these out in error. Didn’t care? Didn’t know Piles had left? Too scared to say anything?
At risk of repeating myself, but Croydon’s council is a failing council not just due to financial problems, but also due to years of crass and incompetent administration.
Sack Katherine Kerswell.
Everything she does falls flat on its face.
She is unimaginative, uninspiring and a poor leader.
She has embarrassed Croydon Council as returning officer at local and national elections.
She has cost the Council huge sums of money as a result of her being sued by former council employees as a result of her messing up what she is supposed to do. She then takes huge amount of time away from her job fighting these cases. Her own reputation is more important to her than the reputation of Croydon Council.
She denied a legal process that would have seen former council leaders being held responsible for the council’s financial collapse.
She does absolutely nothing to advance Croydon Council’s reputation locally, nationally or internationally.
Nothing.
She employees highly paid, but unsuitable, candidates to assist her in her job.
She has no presence – nobody knows who she is in London or nationally.
She is lazy. She is seeing the job out until she retires or gets a golden handshake.
She got the job through the back door. She was only ever going to be a temporary stand-in. Why is she still here?
She is taking the people of Croydon as fools.