Our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE, on Mayor Perry and the council directors’ latest lame efforts to make a (empty) silk purse out of a debt-laden sow’s ear
Could there ever have been a more misleading headline to a council press release, from a council that routinely misleads with its press releases, than what was issued last night: “Have your say in our 2025/26 budget”.
Croydon’s residents had no say in Mayor Jason Perry’s 2024-2025 unbalanced budget, and they were certainly ignored a year earlier when the Tory Mayor hiked Council Tax by 15%.
So the public is hardly likely to be listened to with the latest set of proposals, when Mayor Perry and council chief executive Katherine Kerswell were predicting a £42million budget overspend after just a couple of months of this financial year.
But hey… the six-figure salaried executives and £82,000 per year part-time Mayor like to pretend they are in any way accountable, and so it is that we begin the pantomime season a few weeks early at Croydon Town Hall.
“Croydon Council is encouraging all residents, staff, businesses and partners to participate in the council’s annual budget survey,” they begin.
“Every council is required by law to submit a balanced budget each year, that sets out where it will invest and where it plans to save money.” Since November 2020, Croydon Council has issued three Section 114 notices, effectively an admission that they could not balance their budget. They probably ought to issue a fourth one this year, too, but for the time being, they are trying to pretend they won’t have to.
“As London’s largest borough, Croydon Council provides hundreds of services to 390,800 residents. These range from keeping the streets clean and safe, to protecting vulnerable children and adults, preventing homelessness and more. Over half of the council’s annual budget goes towards caring for the most vulnerable residents in Croydon – older people, and children and young people.
“The Executive Mayor of Croydon has made fixing the council’s finances a top priority…”. Piss-poor Perry has at least six “top priorities”, and like most of them, with “fixing the finances”, he has comprehensively failed.
“Through robust financial management, Croydon has saved £137million in the past three years. The council has stayed within its annual budgets for the past two years.” They omit to explain that the only reason they have “stayed within it annual budgets” has been government bail-outs of £38million… And as for the 2024-2025 overspend, well, let’s just not mention that, shall we?
Where does the money come from: note that 7% is from ‘capitalisation directions’
“There are a further £30million of savings planned for this financial year, and £22million included in the budget proposals for 2025-2026.
“Despite this, like councils across the country and particularly in London, Croydon is facing extreme funding pressures. This is owing to spiralling demand for some essential services, such as homeless prevention and social care, together with the increased cost of living.
“Councils have raised these issues with the government and await their response.” Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in her Budget statement this week, all but ignored the plight of England’s indebted boroughs. Does she think it will go away?
And then there’s this: “Croydon also has a £1.4billion general fund debt burden, much of which is not backed by assets. This is costing the council in excess of £60million to service per year and is the council’s third largest expenditure after services for children and adults.
“In the 2025-2026 budget proposals, the council sets out how it is proposing to help meet these challenges, including investing in transforming to become more cost effective and efficient.” Like the cash-strapped council spending £1million on consultants for six months’ work that concluded… well, the council’s website is a bit crap.
In the red: Mayor Jason Perry
“There is funding uncertainty for all councils until the government reveals its spending plans in its autumn Budget. Croydon budget proposals include an assumed 4.99% Council Tax rise, which is what the council estimates the government referendum cap will be.” Another hefty hint that Mayor Perry will raise Council Tax by as much as the government cap will allow.
“Croydon’s debt means that it will continue to need extra financial support from the government in 2025-2026. The council will not be making a formal request until after the finer details of the government’s autumn Budget are understood.” That could take some time…
Mayor Perry describes the cost of servicing the borough’s debts as “neither sustainable nor fair on our taxpayers”. He appears to have forgotten that his administration, when last in power, had laid the foundations of the long-term toxic debt, with the borough owing more than £700million.
Croydon’s financial crisis is as much due to the borough’s poor governance as the 14 years of Tory austerity. So the idea that one of the guys who set us on this downward spiral, costing hundreds of council workers their jobs and lumbering residents with one of the highest levels of Council Tax in the country, is capable of sorting out the mess is laughable.
But if you have nothing better to do over the weekend, and want to provide some data for Kerswell, Perry and the rest of them to ignore, the council’s 2025-2026 budget consultation can be found by clicking here.
The deadline to take part in the survey is December 9.
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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
I’m all for public involvement in decision making but, after two years of not listening to the public and voting against any amendments to his budget, this looks like Perry finally admitting that he doesn’t know what he is doing and he has no clue how to ‘fix the finances’.
I’ve said plenty of times that there is no easy solutions and at the debates during the Mayoral election I said it was wrong for Perry and some of the other candidates to keep making promises that they knew they probably wouldn’t be able to keep.
The Mayor has made some awful decisions and I’m sure that people of Croydon could come up with some far better ideas. The question remains whether Perry is going to really listen this time or is he just looking for someone else to blame when it all goes wrong again?
Surely one of the first ways of saving money and helping the real people of croydon is to get rid of our chief exec and all of the overpaid heads of depts especially that in the planning department and our mouthpiece mayor .
yes we do need proper funding from gov’t look at the inbalance between the sum per head for Lambeth and Croydon BUT we need /require staff who can actually use the money wisely not charge after phantom shopping malls and con artist bus shelter providers
Exactly this. Every month that Kerswell is paid her ridiculous salary for failure is a month of taxpayers’ money down the drain. Why would the government give her more money to waste on consultants and a bloated executive team? Heather Cheesbrough should have gone a long time ago. We’re paying for her ego while she continues to destroy any trust in the planning department. For the sake of her team she should resign (along with a few others) and let someone else rebuild trust in planning and give the borough a chance of investment regeneration. Her presence prevents that.
Why do people always think that the workers can run the show without a boss? We hear this all the time from the forces, but it’s nonsense. Triumph Motorcycles turned themselves into a co op a few years ago with a Labour government’s support but it went bust pretty rapidly – the unions just couldn’t run the show
No one is suggesting Unions run the Council. No boss is better than an incompetent boss. The salaries that Kerswell and Cheesbrough earn could easily attract decent talent. Kerswell earns more than the PM. They are both abject failures. The Council would be better off without both of them until decent hires are made. Croydon residents have suffered enough and deserve better.
Chris, its just the same as when traffic lights fail. Stick a police person there to direct traffic and it is bedlam with tailbacks running miles from the junction in every direction. Let people navigate the junction themselves with common sense and courtesy and it all runs smoothly with far less congestion.
What is the saying; too many chiefs…? before you know it, government will need an advisor for best value at £950 per day; to tell you your procurement departments know shit; which we all know and see year after year, decade after decade.
how about a list of EVERYTHING the Council spends our money on and letting US decide what can go…..