CROYDON IN CRISIS: No one will face legal action for their part in the council’s financial collapse, despite Town Hall bosses spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on special reports and advice from high-powered barristers. Yet one of Mayor Perry’s most senior aides seems surprised at the predictable outcome
Jason Cummings, the Conservative-run council’s most senior cabinet member, maintains that misconduct did take place in Croydon in the years leading up to the authority’s financial collapse in 2020 – despite the Metropolitan Police saying that they will not investigate the senior staff and councillors who were behind the Brick by Brick scandal and the Fairfield Halls fiasco.
Cummings was speaking after the belated release of the Kroll Report, in which independent investigators – who were paid a generous £310,000 by Croydon Council – failed even to manage to interview some of the key figures at the centre of the council mismanagement between 2014 and 2020 – including Jo Negrini, Colm Lacey, Richard Simpson and Paul Scott.
The failure of the council and the police to hold anyone to account for the council’s tailspin into failure could yet have repercussions. Cummings’ colleague, Mayor Jason Perry, made an election promise to bring those at fault to account for their actions.
The Met decision ruled out any criminal proceedings being brought, but Inside Croydon can reveal that in a secret session of the appointment and disciplinary committee last week, one of the decisions reached was to not take civil action against any of those involved in the council’s collapse – with a case being brought in court on behalf of the council.
This is despite auditors Grant Thornton finding at least four areas of potential fraudulent activity, according to their 2021 Report In The Public Interest into the Fairfield Halls refurbishment, and the Kroll Report confirming that Negrini, the former council CEO, withheld financial details and even doctored reports from independent, third-party contractors.
Mayor Perry and Councillor Cummings are both members of the appointments and disciplinary committee which reached that decision.
‘Hand on heart’: Cllr Jason Cummings
The council’s lengthy delays in acting on recommendations – the Penn Report was delivered to the council as long ago as February 2021, but none of its recommendations acted upon until last year – and its failure to act on legal advice has all compounded the costs incurred by Council Tax-payers, while ultimately achieving nothing.
Yet Cummings, at the centre of most important decisions in this area since 2022, has aired his frustrations at the outcome, which many predicted as inevitable.
“I think we find ourselves in a position where the offence of misconduct in public office has not been proven, but I would still put my hand on my heart and say was there misconduct in public office taking place in Croydon, and I would say absolutely it did,” Cummings said.
“It can’t be right that hundreds of millions of pounds of consequence sits on the people of Croydon and people can simply resign from the position, take up another one and that’s the end of it. It just feels morally wrong,” said the Shirley South councillor who is the cabinet member in charge of the council’s finances.
“We’re not saying no one did anything wrong. We are saying the offence of conduct in public office has not been reached and the problem lies there.”
It was agreed at the appointments committee that Mayor Perry will “lobby” for better regulation of those working in or elected to local government. And there, ladies and gentlemen, who can see Tony Newman and Jo Negrini galloping away on a couple of fine horses as Mayor Perry gently closes the stable door…
Read more: Negrini doctored specialist reports and withheld finance details
Read more: Pressure mounts on Sutton finance chief over Fairfield fiasco
Read more: After four-year delay, council to submit complaint reports
Read more: Police drop all investigations into council’s financial collapse
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Perry should lobby for a return of the Audit Commission. Every politician in Croydon (and across the UK) should back him.
Established in 1983 to protect the public purse, between 1996 and 2013 it traced £1.17 billion in fraud and in all likelihood prevented a whole lot more. The Conservative government abolished the Commission in revenge for it exposing Dame Shirley Porter’s homes for votes scandal in Tory-run Westminster City Council. They claimed this would save money and that private companies like PwC would fill the gap.
The rampant corruption and misuse of taxpayers’ money that has followed shows how pig-headed that decision was. Eric Pickles is 93 (stone).