CROYDON IN CRISIS: Keir Starmer’s new government seems in no rush to deal with the deep-seated problems caused by 14 years of austerity inflicted on local councils, as Jason Perry’s plea for an urgent meeting is given a cold shoulder by a junior minister. By WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
No rush: government officials will meet the ‘improvement’ panel before they talk to Mayor Jason Perry
Labour junior minister Jim McMahon has put Croydon’s Tory Mayor, powerless Jason Perry, firmly in his place telling him that he will meet to discuss the borough’s continuing financial struggles when he is good and ready – and not until after he has had a proper briefing from the quasi-commissioners on the government-appointed “improvement” and assurance panel.
The calculated snub from McMahon, the Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution in Keir Starmer’s new government, reinforces the reality of piss-poor Perry’s enfeebled position since March 2021, when his own Conservative party colleague, Michael Gove, gave increased powers to his improvement panel, and rendered Croydon’s first executive mayor impotent.
Gove authorised the government to take control out of the hands of Perry and the council’s chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, by announcing an “intervention” and assigning greater powers to its improvement and assurance panel. This followed Perry issuing a Section 114 notice of his own – admitting he was unable to balance the council budgets – in November 2022, and then hiking the borough’s Council Tax by 21% in the space of 12 months.
Begging letter: Angela Rayner didn’t bother replying to Mayor Perry’s lengthy letter
Croydon Council budgets since then have only been “balanced”, in an Alice-In-Wonderland kinda way, by the inclusion of £38million in capitalisation directions, government bail-outs.
With no solution in sight, and the borough’s £1.3billion debt mountain needing £62million a year to service, Mayor Perry (quite rightly, it should be said), sent what amounted to a begging letter to Angela Rayner last month, straight after Labour’s General Election victory. Rayner, as well as being Deputy Prime Minister, has been appointed to Gove’s old job, though now it is as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
“I am pleased that someone who understands local government has been appointed to this role,” Perry wrote to Rayner, suggesting that he did not think that Gove did understand local government. Or housing. Or communities.
Perry laid it on a bit thick, claiming that he had somehow “fixed” the finances in Croydon, albeit with £417million of additional borrowing.
The pressing state of local government finances was “paramount”, Perry patronised the Deputy Prime Minister. Croydon’s problems, the £82,000 per year powerless Mayor told Rayner, are “insurmountable”
Don’t call us…: Jim McMahon won’t be rushing to meet Jason Perry
“I would welcome a meeting with you, at your earliest opportunity, to discuss these
matters further,” Perry simpered in his letter to Rayner.
That was July 8.
Rayner has not replied to Perry.
She delegated that to McMahon, and last week, Perry released the letter.
It might be wrong to describe McMahon’s response to Perry as condescending. But it is a close-run thing.
Parroting Rayner’s message to council leaders in July about “mutual respect, genuine collaboration and meaningful engagement”, McMahon waited to the fourth of his five business-like paragraphs to turn the knife.
McMahon wrote, bluntly: “I intend to meet with the Improvement and Assurance Panel following the summer recess.” So that’s them first, and in no real hurry, either.
McMahon added, “I would be happy to meet with you to discuss progress at the London Borough of Croydon… My office will be in touch to arrange a suitable opportunity in September.”
In other words: Don’t call us, Jase, we’ll call you.
Misleading: how the council website portrayed the minister’s reply. McMahon’s letter to Mayor Perry said nothing of the sort
Perry and his council advisers waited until late on the Friday of a Bank Holiday weekend before releasing any details of McMahon’s response. This was Croydon Council’s attempt to “bury bad news”.
And they spun the contents of McMahon’s letter, presenting it as some kind of triumph: “Mayor to work with new government on fixing Croydon’s finances”, they claimed, in a wholly misleading way.
“This is a positive development in my campaign to find a longer-term solution for Croydon that will enable us to get back on track,” was the slant Perry chose to put on matters.
The long hoped-for write-off of a chunk of Croydon’s debts – most of its loans are from the government – remains a distant prospect. “Croydon will need a new solution, with a support package from government, if the council is to become financially sustainable for the future,” Perry said. Tory Perry had more than two years under a Conservative government to deliver such a solution, and failed.
And it could be weeks yet before he gets to sit down with McMahon for some tea and cake and a natter about how best to handle £1.3billion of toxic debt while still delivering the local services that Croydon residents need.
Read more: Perry admits he has failed in begging letter to Labour’s Rayner
Read more: Perry pleads poverty when he has more Council Tax than ever
Read more: Croydon put in special measures: ‘Worst of all possible worlds’
Read more: The solution to Perry’s finance problem: Fund Croydon Fairly
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