CROYDON IN CRISIS: Halfway through his term of office, and the executive Mayor has broken cross-party understandings to dodge scrutiny – appointing a climate crisis sceptic to chair the council’s environment scrutiny committee. WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, reports
Marking his own homework: Mayor Jason Perry has been compared to a dictator
It took Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor, less than half his term of office to break one of the most important pledges he made over future governance of the council, installing fellow Tories as chairs of the Town Hall’s scrutiny committees to dodge accountability, according to opposition councillors.
Perry has been accused of “marking his own homework” and being likened to a dictator.
“There was cross-party agreement after the council’s financial collapse in 2020 that scrutiny committees should in future be chaired by someone not from the same party as the council administration,” a Katharine Street source said today.
“So what has Perry done? He’s broken a four-way cross-party agreement and installed a Conservative climate change sceptic as his chair of the scrutiny committee that deals with the environment, and installed another Tory, someone who has been on the council for less than a month, as chair of the children and young people sub-committee.”
The row in the Town Hall corridors has been caused not only because of Perry’s attempt to cling on to more power to himself, but also because council staff and lawyers have failed to complete a new constitution reflecting the changed model of running the council, almost three years since it was decided to switch to an elected, executive Mayor.
The reshuffle of scrutiny roles for 2024-2025 was decided by Perry and his close advisers ahead of last week’s annual council meeting.
The bad old days: having an autocrat like Tony Newman running the council led to the borough going bankrupt
Behind-the-scenes horse-trading was going on right to the last minute, with the finalised paperwork, including details of all the jobs – and the juicy allowances that go with them – not released until less than two hours before the meeting.
It was a throwback to the bad old days, when “strong leaders” like Labour’s Tony Newman and Conservative Mike Fisher before him would carve up council jobs in return for absolute, unquestioning loyalty from councillors.
For this new, civic year, there have been no changes to the roles of Mayor Perry’s cabinet – a collection of eight councillors who get paid close to £40,000, for doing not very much…
But the “enthronement” of Richard Chatterjee (Who he? Ed) as deputy ceremonial mayor (20 grand a year for wearing fancy dress and cutting the occasional village fete ribbon) had left a vacancy for the vice-chair of scrutiny.
Two years in to his four-year term, and with Labour councillor Rowenna Davis generally impressing as the independently minded, questioning-everything chair of scrutiny, Perry and his little brains trust clearly thought that the Tories needed to toughen their positioning on scrutiny, to avoid being caught out too often.
Thus, Alasdair Stewart was moved sideways, from a deputy cabinet role (meaning no role at all in reality), to scrutiny vice-chair.
New move: Alasdair Stewart
Being vice-chair probably won’t see Stewart get to oversee the running of any of the over-arching scrutiny and overview committee meetings. The council papers last week explain as much: “In the absence of the chair, the deputy chair will be nominated to chair the meeting”, meaning that in Davis’s absence, another Labour councillor, Leila Ben-Hassel, will run the meetings.
But Stewart, first elected to the council in 2022, is generally acknowledged by Katharine Street insiders as a tougher prospect than his predecessor Chatterjee.
It was when it came to the various scrutiny sub-comittees that Perry and the Tories decided to rip up the short-lived agreement that opposition councillors should chair meetings, and instead putting right-wing “anti-woke” figure Stewart in charge of streets and environment scrutiny, and barrister Andrew Price, the Park Hill and Whitgift by-election winner earlier this month, overseeing the children’s sub-committee.
Twelve months ago, in an unusually progressive move by Croydon Council standards, the composition of the environment scrutiny sub-committee was expanded from six to seven, keeping three Conservative and three Labour members, but accommodating Green councillor Ria Patel, who came in as chair.
With the increasingly-puce Perry under increasing pressure for his pro-car policies, and caught in a series of porkie pies when negotiating with a private golf club over possible disposal of council-owned Green Belt land, the Mayor moved to depose Patel with little debate or discussion.
Marginalised: Croydon’s three minority party councillors are kept well away from any of the big-ticket committees, such as planning, appointments or general purposes
Croydon’s two Greens and LibDem councillors have repeated complained at the manner in which they have been marginalised and silenced over the past two years, mostly by the autocratic executive Mayor, but also sometimes with the collusion of Labour who, with 34 councillors, are the biggest single group on the council and clearly want to keep things that way.
With the environment scrutiny sub-committee this year, one of the back-room deals suggested was that Labour should give up one of their three places at the meetings to make way for a Green councillor. They refused.
Mayor Perry has used his position to block the Greens and LibDem from even being able to speak or ask questions at other Town Hall meetings.
A week earlier, Patel was refused any opportunity to ask questions of Mayor Perry at the latest cabinet meeting, something the councillor said “is deliberate silencing and an example of bad leadership”.
Patel says that she was denied an opportunity to ask just two questions, despite having emailed days in advance. She was only told of her exclusion less than three hours before the meeting.
The reason given for Perry not having to face Patel’s questions? “The interests of the efficient and effective management of cabinet business.” The meeting presided over by part-time Perry – which might usually run for three hours – was all done and dusted within an hour and 10 minutes.
‘Mayor Perry is trying to dodge scrutiny and accountability’
Patel tweeted that she wished “Croydon had a committee system rather than a dictator… sorry, I mean, Mayor”.
She added, “Mayor Perry claims he wants to collaborate and work cross-party. After two years of being consistently blocked, this is even more obviously a farce.
“Working collaboratively, imagine that?
Questions blocked: Green Party councillor Ria Patel
“Effective cabinet business involves proper questioning and scrutiny. A good leader, of any political group, should recognise this.”
Patel says that she realises that her Labour council colleagues are seriously compromised because of the failures of the 2014-2022 administration. “Most questions that Labour shadow cabinet members ask are met with a way in which ‘the previous administration’ screwed up.”
Then came last week’s annual meeting. “The Croydon Mayor seeks to hide from failure to deliver on climate action by removing me as chair of street and environment scrutiny and appointing someone from his own party,” said Patel, clearly furious at the power move.
“It is exactly this fear of effective challenge from opposition parties that has caused so many issues for Croydon in recent years.
“Opposition parties are best placed to chair scrutiny and this is when best value is achieved. Having someone from the Mayor’s own party is like them marking their own homework.
“This move is intended to allow the Mayor to dodge accountability and avoid scrutiny.”
Today, Patel, speaking exclusively to Inside Croydon, said, “Two years since Greens and a Lib Dem were elected to Croydon Council, there remains many outdated parts of Croydon’s constitution.
“The Tories will tell you that the constitution has been updated to fit the Mayoral model. But it has retained much of the old council’s system, ignoring the changes in Croydon’s political makeup in 2022. Both Conservatives and Labour have delayed discussions which would make the constitution more reflective of the current council’s makeup. Many changes are needed – and this isn’t helped by the last-minute cancelling of constitution working group meetings.
“There’s no appetite or urgency to change the constitution: they want the Greens silenced because we are effective and listen to residents. Included in this silencing is not letting us put forward motions to full council, and Mayor Perry constantly refusing to allow me to ask questions at cabinet – with a different excuse each time.
“I believe scrutiny should be chaired by opposition parties and replacing me with a Tory is marking your own homework.
“Perry is halfway through his term and it’s clear that the Tories feel threatened. Mayor Perry is trying to dodge scrutiny and accountability – a big reason for how Croydon ended up in a massive mess in the first place.”
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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