Our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE, on the search to replace a £800per day corporate director at Fisher’s Folly, just in time for the next, key inspection
Long-stayer: Debbie Jones was only meant to be an ‘interim’ council boss
Debbie Jones, the council’s septuagenarian director of children’s services, is to stand down from her role, as the council has placed ads with a recruitment agency for a £175,000 per year replacement.
That could represent an important, if long overdue, saving for the cash-strapped council.
Jones joined in October 2020 to take one of the crisis-hit council’s top jobs, when despite the local authority being on the brink of bankruptcy, she was recruited on an “interim” pay rate of £800 per day.
It is suggested that Jones may have been allowed to continue to receive such generous day rates, helping to bolster her already gold-plated pension. On Jones’s personal profile on social media, she continues to describe herself as an “interim” director.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise that she stayed longer if she was,” according to one insider. “She’s been earning more a month than a set-for-life Lottery winner.”
Jones arrived at Fisher’s Folly with the council just days away from issuing its first Section 114 notice, undergoing an urgent financial review, a recruitment freeze and axing more than 400 posts – including nearly one-third of its agency social workers, many of whom worked in the very same children, families and education department that she was to head up.
Children’s services have been a long-standing, costly issue for Croydon Council, with demand for help from children in care, families with children with SEND and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children all out-stripping what the borough could properly afford. For many, it was Croydon children’s services adverse Ofsted report in 2017 which saw the council slipping into insolvency, with £30million of additional spending being thrown at the department over the next 18 months to fix the urgent issues – including suicides of children in council care – uncovered by the government inspectors.
It was not long after Jones’s arrival at Croydon Council that there followed an exodus of senior staff who had been widely credited with turning around the struggling children’s services department, with the director’s sometimes abrasive approach being blamed for the departures.
Jones had been the council official who was in charge of Tower Hamlet’s schools in 2015 when Shamima Begum and two other girls were radicalised and escaped to Syria to become “jihadi brides”.
Begum and her school mates fled the country without anyone at the local authority noticing that they weren’t turning up for school. Begum left Britain when just 15 alongside 15-year-old Amira Abase and 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana.
Begum was found in a Syrian refugee camp in February 2019, heavily pregnant with her third child and wanting to return to London. Lawyers for her family accused their local authority (and therefore Jones) of failing in their duties to safeguard the girls.
Extraordinarily, under Jones, Tower Hamlets failed to conduct any serious case reviews into the three girls who were radicalised at Bethnal Green Academy.
Now Jones, as she approaches her 75th birthday, is stepping back from the daily whirl of being one of seven senior “corporate directors” at Croydon Council under chief exec Katherine Kerswell.
Big budget: whoever replaces Jones at Fisher’s Folly will have an annual budget of almost £100m to manage
The Corporate Director of Children, Young People and Education, to give Jones’ role, and that of her successor, its full title, is a statutory position within the council, meaning that its functions and responsibilities are laid out by law, in this case the Children’s Act 2004.
The appointee will also be an office-holder under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006 and is designated as the “Caldicott Guardian”, as defined by the Department of Health, to ensure that “the personal information about those who use children’s social services is used legally, ethically and appropriately, and that confidentiality is maintained”.
According to the council’s recruitment ad, whoever lands in Croydon’s children’s department hot seat will be managing an annual budget of £98.2million.
In an email last week sent on behalf of the CEO, staff were told that the council is recruiting “on a permanent basis”.
The memo said: “As London’s youngest borough, the Director of Children’s Services is a critical statutory role for Croydon. It has been held for the past four years by Debbie Jones, who has led the directorate with real compassion and authenticity.” Which is nice.
“Debbie joined us initially for six months as an interim, but her commitment to Croydon’s people and the practice, saw her stay much longer. During that time, we have benefited greatly from her extensive experience as a senior leader in the sector.
Glossy ads: the council has hired a flashy recruitment agency to help find the right candidate
“As staff in our CYPE directorate will know, Debbie has made the decision move on from Croydon, but we will be working together to make the permanent appointment.
“She has also committed to lead us through the next Social Care Inspection, expected this autumn, with the intention of then passing the reins on to the new post-holder.
“We are thankful for Debbie’s time with us,” said the note from Katherine Kerswell, who was the council’s interim CEO when she made Jones’s appointment.
“The directorate has faced many challenges because of the huge demand we see as a borough – but has achieved so much. That’s all centred on changing peoples’ lives for the better, listening to and empowering children, young people and their families.”
The council is using the high-powered (and undoubtedly high-cost) recruitment agency Starfish to run the process, with applications closing on September 6, “technical interviews” set for the week of September 16, one-on-ones with the chief executive from September 23 and “final” panel interviews on October 17 and 18 – though Fisher’s Folly insiders reckon that Kerswell gets the final say in recruitment for these top-level posts.
Final say: CEO Katherine Kerswell
The application pack includes 11 Croydon Council documents for hopefuls to wade through before submitting their CVs, including the corporate parenting strategy, SEND strategy, a “Youth Justice Plan”, the “Partnership Early Years Startegy” and “Joint Children’s Social Care and Housing Protocol for Care Experienced Young People”.
Similar level jobs in the children’s sector at other local authorities, also being advertised by Starfish, are offering salaries of around £30,000 per year less than Croydon.
According to the Starfish blurb, Croydon now has “the financial stability to innovate” to ensure its children and young people “have all the opportunities they need to learn, develop and fulfil their potential”.
The ad makes full use of The Rotten Boroughs Big Book of Euphemisms when it says, “There are of course challenges ahead, we want to reduce the number of children in care and children in temporary accommodation and continue to deliver within the current financial context,
“We have a clear road map and a talented workforce together with strong support from the Mayor, the Chief Executive and the Corporate Management Team.
“We are looking for an exceptional leader to join Croydon, one of the most diverse boroughs in London. Your passion, tenacity and vision will take us from strength to strength and keep our children, young people and families at the heart of practice.”
Read more: Fears over children’s services as another director quits council
Read more: Henderson leaves Croydon and ‘legacy of love and hope’
Read more: Criticism mounting around council’s £800 per day director
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