CROYDON IN CRISIS: Despite a bit of grandstanding by Tory Mayor that he would ‘hold to account’ those responsible for bankrupting the borough, an official Freedom of Information response shows that the council is actually doing nothing. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Cashing in: ex-CEO Jo ‘Negreedy’ Negrini has good reason to believe the £437,000 golden handshake from Croydon won’t ever be challenged
Jason Perry’s council has all but abandoned efforts to recover even a penny of the £437,207 golden handshake payment made to Jo “Negreedy” Negrini when she quit as Croydon’s CEO in August 2020.
That’s the conclusion from a Freedom of Information response which shows that since March 2023, when Mayor Perry boasted that those responsible for bankrupting the borough “must be held to account”, the council has spent barely £10,000 on its promised legal recovery action.
And the council also admits that, almost four years since a report into Croydon’s financial collapse included in its recommendations that complaints should be filed to the professional bodies of some of the council’s most senior staff, nothing has been done.
The council’s case against Negrini had always been a weak one – the self-acclaimed “regeneration practitioner” had merely accepted the cash settlement offered to her, despite widespread reservations over her management of the council and her personal conduct towards staff.
The council even had very expensively acquired counsel’s advice to the effect that pursuing Negrini for the money was “throwing good money after bad”, since only a fraction of pay-out could ever be recovered – legal advice which Inside Croydon re-published after Perry’s council showed it can be just as incompetent as its predecessors, by posting it on its own website.
Desperate to grandstand to his Tory supporters, Mayor Perry nonetheless publicly claimed that he would take legal steps to recover the Negrini money.
That was in March 2023.
But according to a FoI response from the council, since then there has been slow, or no progress.
More porkies from Perry: after more than a year, there’s been virtually nothing done by Croydon’s Mayor to bring anyone ‘to account’
“Due to the protracted and difficult nature of the dispute between the parties and the sensitivities of public interest litigation, the council’s case preparations are on-going,” they say.
“Long timescales for contentious and complex legal matters are not unusual. The council will seek to recover as much of the settlement payment to the former chief executive as is legally possible.”
Which is plainly a load of old flannel, because after 15 months of “case preparations” involving what we are told are “contentious and complex legal matters”, the council has spent a grand total of just £8,550. Plus VAT.
Inside Croydon consulted with our esteemed legal expert, Ebeneezer Grabbit of the much-respected City firm of Sue, Grabbit and Runne, for their opinion.
Conscious that the meter was ticking with every second of our consultation, we were concerned that Grabbit seemed to be taking his time over the council statement.
“Hmmm,” he said. “£8,550 seems to be a very low cost when a party is pursuing ‘contentious and complex legal matters’ over the course of more than a year.
“This rather rather bears out the likelihood that the action is dead in the water.”
And with that, we stuffed one of those crisp, new King Charlie £50 notes in the old brief’s hand as full and final payment for the 10-minute consultation, and scarpered for the door before we racked up any more costs.
But if nothing is happening over the Negrini case, what progress has the council made in taking action against former council execs?
Page-turner: the Penn Report was handed to Croydon Council in Feb 2021. Little has ever been done over its recommendations
According to the council’s FoI response, nothing whatsoever.
“Following initial contact, referrals to professional bodies have been stayed pending initial enquiries being conducted by the Met Police.
“This is necessary to avoid the risk of prejudicing those enquiries and any potential action the Met Police may take. Therefore no complaints will be made until it is appropriate to do so.”
Richard Penn, in his report, recommended complaints to professional bodies in four specific cases. While he never named the individual directors in his report, he identified them all by their job descriptions.
Penn submitted his report in February 2021. Katherine Kerswell, Negrini’s successor as chief exec, managed to keep the report’s findings and recommendations secret for 18 months – until Inside Croydon published a version of it. The council eventually released the Penn Report, reluctantly, in early 2023.
In his report’s recommendations, Penn said that “formal consideration [should be] given to whether the concerns raised in this report warrant further formal proceedings to be commenced”.
And he identified “the (current) Executive Director of Resources and Monitoring Officer”, meaning Jacqueline Harris-Baker, the former Borough Solicitor (who is understood now to be retired); “the (current) Executive Director for Place”, meaning Shifa Mustafa, who after being suspended from duties in February 2021 resigned that July (without any pay-off); and “the (current) Director of Finance, Investment and Risk and S151 Officer”, meaning the council’s finance chief at the time of the financial collapse, Lisa Taylor.
Taylor, like Mustafa, was suspended before resigning, and now works as director of financial management at Kensington and Chelsea.
In para 14.22 of his report, Penn wrote that his investigation “has raised concerns about the actions and inactions of the former Executive Director of Resources and S151 Officer”. By this, he means Taylor’s former boss, the council finance chief who set-up Brick by Brick, Richard Simpson. Simpson had left Croydon Council in late 2018, as concerns about the wholly-owned housing company were beginning to mount.
“This individual is no longer employed by the council,” Penn wrote. “It is recommended that members consider whether the concerns raised in this initial investigation report warrant a referral to the Conduct and Ethics Committee of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountability.”
No complaints: Richard Simpson, identified specifically in the Penn Report, today works as neighbouring Sutton Council’s finance chief
According to the council’s FoI response, no such referral has ever been made. Today, Simpson holds the senior-most finance job at Sutton Council.
In its FoI response this month, Croydon Council said: “We acknowledge that there is some legitimacy in disclosing the requested information to hold former senior individuals to account for alleged misconduct, wrongdoing and failures in governance that contributed to the council’s financial crisis.
“However, it is not necessary in response to your request to disclose personal data because of the timing: no referrals have been made yet for the reasons given and because of the need to follow due process ie. the need to allow relevant regulatory/disciplinary processes to run their course in accordance with their own fair and established procedures.”
This all confirms that despite the song and dance that Mayor Perry made when seeking election, he really has done sweet FA to pursue any of those implicated in the council’s financial clusterfuck, to the point where a couple of them have continued to work in senior financial positions, on six-figure salaries, at other London councils.
Others also point out that, by running the clock down, the senior civic servants working at Croydon Council under Kerswell have effectively made it impossible to take any action against their predecessors.
“The reality may be that after such a long delay, professional bodies will see that there has been no police response, and turn to more immediate issues,” according to one Katharine Street source.
“It is more than disappointing that S151 officers…”, the finance chiefs, “…did not draw public attention much earlier to risk-taking decisions of the kind which were being made.”
In Thurrock, another council to crash and burn its finances, there’s been less hesitation about taking action. Sean Clark was the finance director at the Conservative-controlled council in Essex for more than a decade, until his departure in April 2023. In January this year, a complaint for investigation of misconduct was submitted to the Financial Reporting Council, the regulatory body for Britain’s biggest professional accountancy bodies.
Thurrock went bust two years after Croydon.
Mission accomplished?: was it always Katherine Kerswell’s task to ensure that there were no recriminations for her predecessors?
Meanwhile, Croydon Council continues to hide its inaction behind the excuse that Scotland Yard is somehow delving deep into the events leading to Croydon’s Section 114 notice, effective bankruptcy, being issued in November 2020.
In its FoI response, the council says: “A team of specialist detectives…”, a team, no less! of specialists, too! “… are continuing to pursue a number of highly complex and time-consuming lines of initial enquiry.”
But Katharine Street sources find that hard to believe. “This is an inquiry which is likely to be only gathering dust.” said one source.
“The issue is not a complex fraud. It is about bad decision-making with very serious financial consequences. Bad decision-making (irrespective of consequences) is unlikely to be misconduct in public office, however many specialist detectives are allegedly pursuing time-consuming lines of initial enquiry.
“It all looks more like grandiose legal blather to me.”
Which could be more than a bit embarrassing for Croydon Mayor Jason Perry, who appears to have deliberately misled the public when he announced the legal non-action over Negrini’s pay-off, and when he must have known that no complaints about former council directors were ever going to materialise.
“It is completely unacceptable that individuals who held positions of trust should escape the consequences of their misconduct,” Perry said little more than a year ago.
“Nor should they be rewarded for their failures while our residents, businesses and partners continue to pay the price.”
Looks like Perry is allowing the “unacceptable” to happen.
Read more: Council withdraws High Court case against Inside Croydon
Read more: ‘Better than evens’ chance of winning Negrini legal case
Read more: #PennReport: No referrals sent to staff’s professional bodies
Read more: £400,000 ‘golden handshake’ is Negrini’s reward for failure
Read more: CEO Negrini’s long campaign to shut down Inside Croydon
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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
Hmmm, complex fraud or bad decision making? Looking at the figures involved, if it was a complex fraud, they sure did a good job. And no come back, wow, they must be partying every night.
Never really seemed likely to me that Perry had a great deal of motivation to go after the person who he appointed to regenerate Croydon development. As everything with this part time Mayorship all his words just blow in the wind of the polluted Croydon air. Can we get our money back for employing him?
Don’t forget Katherine Kerswell promising staff in her multiple webin-nah’s to pursue those responsible and hold them accountable after her appointment. Another one who has done “sweet FA to pursue any of those implicated in the council’s financial clusterfuck” for double the time of the pantomime mayor.
Charlatans and dissemblers, the lot of them; walking from one overpaid job to the next.
Very simple. This is fraud dressed to look like incompetence. All of these greedy miserable fucks know exactly what they’re doing. Sadly. What goes around, comes around. And it will come quicker than they think…
Fraud? That’s very specific and actionable. What’s described in the very well-written and well-informed article above is what’s technically knowen as a cock-up. If you can tell us something that points to fraud – then say so and the plod will have an easier time taking action
Evidence is currently being collected. Will take time, but when ready, plod will be handed all they need. It’s a ‘watch this space’ chapter. It’ll be worth the wait believe me.
Well, whatever it is you’re doling – more power to your elbow