CROYDON IN CRISIS: Last night’s council-run webinar about the Town Hall’s ‘promises’ to its ‘customers’ saw several residents successfully book tickets, only later to get a rejection email. KEN LEE, Town Hall reporter, on the latest omnishambles at Fisher’s Folly
Broken promises: the council’s little-publicised EventBrite sign-up page
Croydon Council today refused to answer questions about its latest shambles of a public engagement exercise, after several residents had their bookings for a “Croydon Council’s Customer Promise online event” accepted, only to receive an email from Fisher’s Folly later to cancel their booking.
The online meeting was supposed to take place yesterday evening.
The under-publicised event – there was never any council press release or posting to the council’s own website – was supposed to allow residents to “have your say in helping us shape our Council’s Customer Promise”, according to some flunkey at Fisher’s Folly.
“They are our commitments to you, to serve you better.”
Except it all turned out to be yet another example of the people that the council is supposed to serve – the residents – being messed about and let down. “Bonkers!” said one. “A farce,” said another. One described it as, “Hysterically strange.”
The Inside Croydon email inbox was full to busting today, as Council Tax-payers expressed their frustration at being shut out of an event they had been allocated a ticket for just hours earlier.
They had applied on EventBrite in the early hours of Thursday morning. “I get the email saying ‘You have tickets’. Now, at 4.10pm, I get an email from croydon.gov.uk.” The event was due to start at 5pm.
Signed off: CEO Katherine Kerswell is taking a three-week holiday
“Is someone at Croydon pruning people out of the invite?” they asked, not unreasonably.
The reject email, sent to several who applied for tickets and were originally accepted, came from a council email address – CustomerExperience@croydon.gov.uk – and not from online booking service EventBrite.
It said: “Thank you very much for your interest in attending our engagement session on the customer promise.
“We are really sorry but tonight’s event is already at capacity, so we are unable to have you join us on this occasion. There will be further opportunities for you to input into our customer promise at a future date, and we will publicise these through the council’s communication channels.
“Best wishes, Customer Experience team.”
Yep, Croydon has a Customer Experience team. Who knew?
The disappointed resident delved further. “Even stranger – my ticket is still there in EventBrite. So their third-party platform says I have a ticket, but the council is sending emails out saying that they’re oversubscribed and I can’t attend.
“Such wonderful event mismanagement. Everything we’ve come to expect from our wonderful council.”
Another resident told us: “I signed up too and got a confirmation email at 7pm last night [Wednesday]. But I got another one at 3.48pm this afternoon [Thursday], saying that it is already fully booked and I can’t go.
“It looks like Croydon Council are running scared.”
Another Council Tax-payer who found they had been wasting their time told us: “I’m another one who signed up, got a confirmation email, then this afternoon received an email from the Customer Experience Team to say the event is already at capacity.
“Bonkers!”
Another disappointed “customer” wrote: “They’ve ruined my entire evening.”
We wanted to find out what was going on from Katherine Kerswell, the council’s £192,000 per year chief executive, but she’s been on holiday all week and won’t be back at her desk until September 2 – yep, a three-week holiday… how the other half lives, eh?
We sent a set of questions to the propaganda department, and some hours later we got an evasive and not entirely transparent response that was careful to avoid answering most of our questions: “Yesterday’s event was a small focus group session, designed for a maximum of 20 people.
In and out: despite having their application accepted by EventBrite, residents were later told not to bother attending by a council flunkey
“There will be more opportunities for residents to get involved in the development of our customer promise and these will be publicised through the council’s communication channels.”
The propaganda department’s response also managed to break at least two of the council’s supposed promises, too.
“Our commitment sets out the standards of service you can expect from us, whichever service you use,” the council says.
These self-imposed standards include, “We are professional and know what we are talking about”, and “We are open honest and transparent”.
Under the heading of “We are open, honest and transparent”, Croydon Council says, “We will tell you who is dealing with your enquiry…”.
The press office’s email response today was unsigned, anonymous.
It was also almost certainly weapons-grade bullshit, too.
Anyone who has ever used EventBrite knows that it is a reliable online tool, and the client is able to set a limit to the number of attendees from the very beginning. Once that limit is reached, EventBrite doesn’t take any further bookings.
Yet Inside Croydon has heard from multiple residents who booked, were accepted, and only later received an email directly from the council. Not unreasonably, many are suspicious.
This isn’t the first Eventbrite webinar the council has put on, so it’s not as if they can blame inexperience or teething troubles.
And although the council failed to publicise the event as broadly as they might have done, the official @YourCroydon Twitter account still put out a reminder at 11.13am on Wednesday, the day before the event. Why do that if the event was already full, or even close to capacity?
Of course, it would be reasonable and sensible to limit numbers to this kind of event. “But if that were the case here, then they should have made that clear from the start, not surreptitiously part way through,” according to one disappointed resident…. sorry, customer.
“Maybe they were deliberately hand-picking participants to try to exclude critics, although perhaps a more plausible explanation for this farce is that it’s yet another Croydon council cock-up.
“They clearly have a lot to learn about providing a satisfactory customer experience.”
Read more: Council chief Kerswell has doubled up on £140,000+ executives
Read more: Mayor sneaks in night-time parking charges across borough
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
Thanks for spilling the beans. Nothing surprises me with the council. They are incompetent.
‘Focus group’? No it wasn’t – it was a webinar. No mention of ‘focus groups’ which are small, intimate etc. Out-of-focus, I’d say. What did I miss? Who was on it? Can we see a video?
Malcolm Tucker, star of In The Thick of It” has some of the most accurate descriptions ever of Croydon Council and here are some (Thank you Armando Iannucci too).
About the Webinar booking process: “Look, half an hour ago you were in with a shot. This is half an hour hence! We’ve f*****g time travelled, yes? We’re in a weird and wonderful world where everything is different! Maybe outside the polar ice caps have melted, maybe there’s f*****g robots knocking about and Davina McCall’s the new pope. Maybe you can download rice!”
About a functionary /Councillor/Elected Mayor (you choose!)“You’re not a grandee, you’re a f***ing bland-ee. No one knew what the f*** you stood for, political f***ing mist, no substance, no weight. You have all the charm of a rotting teddy bear by a graveside.”
About the Council in general: “You are a f***ing omni-shambles, that’s what you are. You’re like that coffee machine, you know, ‘From bean to cup, you f*** up.’”
Even I, in high invective mode, could not do better
Katherine Kerswell should be dismissed for the reason of lack of achievement and performance. She is cruising up to her retirement with a fat pension in the offing. Get rid of her now.
Be careful what you wish for. If Kerswell were to leave, Perry would pick someone in his own image, and that would not be a pretty sight
A Tweedle-Dee to go with Tweedle-Dumber
A Jason Perry in skirts! Be still, my trembling heart!
I’ve been asking around – and checking on the ‘inferior’ NextDoor community site – no one will admit to be admitted to this fandango. Did it even happen?