Have you ever wondered quite what Katherine Kerswell does for her £192,474 per year salary as the council chief executive?
Vapid, patronising tripe: council CEO Katherine Kerswell’s regular email is a low-light of staff’s week
It’s something that often perplexes what remains of the borough’s front-line staff… KK’s ‘duties’, such as they are, include signing off a little morale-booster of an email to all staff each Friday. What some working in Fisher’s Folly call ‘the weekly waffle’.
Here, we reproduce the weekly waffle that Kerswell put her name to this morning. We solemnly promise that it is not an attempt at parodying Craig Brown’s regular Diary column from Private Eye: this vapid, patronising tripe is all Kerswell’s own work. Enjoy!
Dear all,
I hope that you’re enjoying the warmer weather this week and had a good bank holiday weekend.
It might be a slightly shorter week for some, but I know that doesn’t take away from how busy things are. Please keep in mind the message behind our Make Time to Take Time campaign – it is so important to put your wellbeing first. Whether that’s making sure you take regular breaks, setting aside time in your day to focus without digital distractions or getting outside for some fresh air.
Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week and we’ll be sharing the details of employee support services, ways to manage your wellbeing and where to access help when you need it. If you have any tips or advice that you’d like to share, even little things like the hobbies you like to do, or pictures of the places you visit to help you manage your mental health, then please send them in.
To start us off, Rebecca from internal comms says nothing calms her more than some quiet time with her cat, which can help slow things down after a busy day. I look forward to seeing what other people share next week.
Weekly waffle: council’s long-suffering staff have to put up with this every week
One of the avenues for supporting your wellbeing we have here at Croydon is our staff networks, and this week we marked Staff Network Day, a national initiative to recognise the value these groups add to the workplace. I’d like to personally thank colleagues who make the time to run our networks – the chairs, secretaries, steering group members and sponsors, without whom our networks wouldn’t be here. But they also can’t work without members, so do read the article in the newsletter below about the work they do in Croydon and how to join them. It’s an opportunity to connect with people you might not normally meet from across the organisation, access support and push for positive change at the council.
Another way to make change happen in the organisation is to fill in the staff survey. 692 people have taken part so far. Please take 10 minutes to fill it in, it’s completely anonymous so be honest – your views really matter.
Our shout out this week goes to the carpark cleansing team, who do a fantastic job of maintaining the council-owned car parks. It is essential but not necessarily glamorous work, and yet I have been told that they approach it in good spirits, whatever the weather, and are happy to pitch in and help with jobs outside of their normal day-to-day work. This has included supporting our blitz clean-ups in different areas of the borough, part of Mayor Perry’s commitment to work with residents and businesses to making our borough cleaner, and making sure Croydon’s big belly bins are in order. Thank you team, we are lucky to have you.
Have a lovely weekend all and thank you for the work that you do.
Katherine Kerswell (she/her)
Chief Executive
Read more: Council chief Kerswell has doubled up on £140,000+ executives
Read more: Criticism of Kerswell’s election count ‘justified’ says report
Read more: £603,000: the soaring costs of Croydon’s ‘improvement’ panel
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
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
What a total waste of time – and our money!
Totally agree… absolute drivel. What is her/she plan for cleaning Croydon Council’s massive debts ?
Make Time to Take Time? She couldn’t be any less effective even if she didn’t turn up to work. Perhaps she’s getting some free fresh air and take a walk around the urine smelling, broken-glass covered council car parks. Council staff sharing tips and pictures of their cat – at our expense!
Parody is dead.
Exactly.
It’s an inept memo from the Local Government Strategic Staff Communication Moral Management Handbook of 1972. What is this ‘she/her’ sign-off ffs? Chris Myers he/it/him/etc
It’s a nice message. Its author’s reputation is another matter, but if you look back at CEOs like Jo Negrini or Nathan Elvery, a reasonable person would say Katherine Kerswell doesn’t deserve the stick she gets. For those who would like to see the back of her, be careful what you wish for, it might come true. Just think of what sort of successor our part-time Mayor might appoint as her replacement
Perry wouldn’t make the appointment. He’s impotent.
Any replacement would be imposed, just as Kerswell was.
Do me a favour guvnor Arfur, you can’t get any worse than Kerswell.
In what way has Croydon improved under her secretive leadership ?
Exactly Graham. Kerwell was the recipient of a Negreedy level payout after 16 months with a previous employer. I doubt that was for stellar performance. That represents a lifetime of council tax payments for so many families. And she’s sitting in Croydon on an insane salary and has achieved nothing – she’s had years! Same with Heather Cheesborough – exposed time and time again on these pages for incompetence and dishonesty and still sucking up taxpayers’ money. And what of the executives who bankrupted the Council? Did any of them face any kind of sanction? Paul Scott and Alison Butler? How many thousands did they take from taxpayers?
These people represent the top 2% of earners in the UK (Kerswell is in the 1% and earns more than the Prime Minister). Take a walk around Croydon – do they deserve it? Does she? They’ve made life harder for residents as we pay even more for their failures and they’ve made the borough poorer, dirtier (including the car parks), less safe, and uglier as a result of uncontrolled and exploitative developments.
Secretive leadership? Yes. Vapid, patronising, tripe? Absolutely.
I’m surprised the Unions aren’t doing more. Some of their members lost jobs and the rest are still at risk whilst this lot run the Council.
Imagine working in Planning, knowing that your reputation, credibility, relationship with residents and career prospects have been trashed and your boss is still sitting earning what she does. I’m sure staff in other departments must feel the same.
Pass the sick bucket please. I’d rather abseil naked on a windy day down Bernard Wetherall House than attend a Staff Network Day meeting.
I’m pleased for Rebecca from comms and her cat. If she only knew the sheer frustration Council Tax Payers experience trying to communicate with anyone from BWH she’d have to open a cattery twice the size of Battersea Dogs Home.
It’s Fisher’s Folly, Cliff
The dreaded weekly email is pretty standard fare in the civil service… that said this one is extremely light on content. Perhaps she pressed send too early? In the civil service you get more than one a week depending how many hierarchies there are above you… the waffle is really just an attempt to sound more human than despotic android, which may be more the reality of the situation!
I have just been told by council staff I need to pay £1500 inc vat for a Traffic Management Order to close the road in a cul-de-sac to have a community street party on June 8.
£1500 for a piece of paper to allow neighbours to celebrate a 100-year-old neighbour’s birthday and the 1944 Normandy Landings.
The council can only deal with free licences for June 1st and 2nd as they must be too busy looking after their well-being and getting more money from taxpayers.
Sorry Council staff for disturbing your wellbeing, but other people who pay your taxes have real jobs and are unavailable to meet your timescale demands. Other local councils allow communities to set their own celebratory dates, but NOT Croydon Council