CROYDON IN CRISIS: There won’t be any further police investigation. The council’s pursuit of Jo ‘Negreedy’ Negrini for her pay-off cash appears to have collapsed. But chief exec Katherine Kerswell might now write a couple of sternly worded letters. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Letter of note: council CEO Katherine Kerswell says it is alright now to do what she was advised to do in 2021
Almost four years since a senior investigator concluded that Croydon Council should mark the cards of some of its former directors by reporting them to their professional bodies, and Katherine Kerswell, the current chief executive, might finally get round to doing just that.
In among the paperwork for next Monday’s appointments and disciplinary committee, in which Kerswell was forced to admit that the police had decided not to waste any more of their time on investigating suspected neglect or misconduct that led to the council’s 2020 financial collapse, there’s a single paragraph which states that one of the key recommendations of the Penn Report might now be acted upon.
And that could be uncomfortable news for Richard Simpson, the finance director at neighbouring Sutton Council, and Lisa Taylor, who holds a senior position on the finance staff of Kensington and Chelsea borough council.
Richard Penn, the Local Government Association investigator who was hired, at public expense, by Kerswell in late 2020, suggested that the council should submit complaints to the professional bodies of three identified executive directors at the time the council crashed and burned, as well as one former executive.
So much time has passed since Penn’s recommendations that Jacqueline Harris-Baker, the former Borough Solicitor, is long retired, and nothing’s been heard of Shifa Mustafa since she resigned after being suspended in 2021.
Kensington CEO: Barry Quirk, Kerswell’s husband
But Taylor, who was the council’s director of finance who issued Croydon’s first two Section 114 Notices at the end of 2020, and her former boss, Simpson, both hold jobs with significant responsibility for public money, and could be subject to scrutiny of their roles in Croydon’s collapse from CIPFA, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.
Kerswell’s report to the appointments and disciplinary committee meeting next Monday, December 9, says, “Following initial contact, referrals to professional bodies have been stayed pending the outcome of the review being conducted by the police.
“This was necessary to avoid the risk of prejudicing that review and any potential action the police may take.”
Kerswell has hidden behind this excuse, based on some questionable in-house legal advice, for four years.
“… To date, no complaints have been made. However, as the police have now concluded their review… it is now possible and appropriate to progress the referrals to the professional bodies.”
And while the sound of a stable door crashing closed long after the horses have galloped away over the horizon resonates around Fisher’s Folly, it appears that CIPFA might be receiving a sternly worded letter.
Taylor has been the director of financial management at Kensington and Chelsea since October 2022. She joined that council shortly before Barry Quirk retired after five years as its chief executive. Quirk is married to Katherine Kerswell.
Waiting for CIPFA: Richard Simpson
Taylor had succeeded to the top finance job at Croydon in early 2019, soon after Simpson flounced out.
It had been Simpson who was the first name on the directors’ list of Brick by Brick, and who had overseen much of the detail of the deal to refurbish the Fairfield Halls, while also overseeing the purchase of the Croydon Park Hotel, which was pushed through without proper scrutiny by councillors and saw the council pay more than the advertised asking price.
CIPFA is the professional body for people in public finance. People like Simpson and Taylor. “CIPFA leads the way in public finance globally, standing up for sound public financial management and good governance around the world as the leading commentator on managing and accounting for public money.”
Were CIPFA to uphold any complaints from Croydon Council, it is possible that those subject to the complaint could lose their CIPFA recognition, which would in turn make it difficult for them to continue to work.
With there being absolutely no possibility of any prosecutions being brought arising from the council’s financial collapse, and with Mayor Jason Perry being forced to accept that pursuing Jo “Negreedy” Negrini for repayment of her “golden handshake” money was a fool’s errand all along, the complaints to CIPFA remain the last, slight hope of any “consequences”, as the Tory Mayor promised.
Read more: Simpson and the Sutton similarities over £100m property loan
Read more: Police drop all investigations into council’s financial collapse
Read more: More bad news for Perry over the Negrini ‘golden handshake’
Read more: CEO Negrini’s long campaign to shut down Inside Croydon
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