CROYDON IN CRISIS: Inside Croydon has obtained a leaked video from an internal council webinar earlier this month, where the Mayor fails to mention the £83m overspend predicted in a recent report to government, and council CEO seems to blame everyone else for the dysfunction at the council. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Given him the nod: in the video, Katherine Kerswell signals her approval as Mayor Jason Perry reads from a script someone has written for him
Think of it as a Christmas gift to Croydon… an hour-long video of a council webinar, fronted by a festive double act that some reckon get more laffs than Morecambe and Wise.
The webinar was recorded on December 12, and takes the form of part-lecture, part evasion of questions put up by council staff.
During the webinar, the council chief executive Katherine Kerswell (on £200,000 per year) reprises her “nodding dog act”, acting as if rapt in delight while part-time and impotent Mayor Jason Perry (£82,000 per year) reads from the carefully crafted script that someone else has prepared for him.
And Perry performs his well-known impersonation of Young Mr Grace from the hit BBC sit-com of the 1970s, Are You Being Served, where no matter how much of a shitshow his department store has become, he tells the staff: “You’re all doing very well.”
This special, straight-to-DVD Christmas show, includes a couple of other “guest stars”.
Unusually frank: Debbie Jones, who is leaving the council
Debbie Jones is the soon-to-be retired director of children’s services.
Jones let the cat out the bag over this self-congratulatory love-in when she said of the recent “Good” Ofsted report, “What I want to leave you with is a very important point, which is that whilst leaders, and whether they’re political leaders or corporate leaders are very, very important people, sorry folks, the people who delivered that inspection were the staff on the ground.”
Was that noise we could hear in the background the sound of a furious Kerswell grinding her teeth?
Perhaps key to this entire charade was the cameo appearance from Jane West, the council’s finance chief, who proclaims, “I’m already feeling uncomfortable that everything else so far has been really ‘great’.”
For West was the bearer of bad tidings. The council’s budgets are fucked, yet again.
Despite having just delivered a report to the council cabinet that the 2024-2025 predicted overspend was down from £23million to a still enormous £17.6million, West told the watching audience: “I don’t want to overplay that because I’m sensing that when we do the Period 7 monitor in a few weeks time, I can see those pressures beginning to nudge back up again.”
There was more than a touch of desperation about West’s comments. She sounded defeated by the enormity of the task in hand, with no prospect of it ever being resolved. So much for Jason Perry’s election promise to “Fix the Finances”.
Every penny counts: Jane West, council finance director
West said: “So we’ve been doing a good job of, you know, sort of restricting spend and bringing in as much income as we possibly can only to see it beginning now, I think… I fear… this is particularly nudging back up in the demand-driven areas.
“We have brought it down… But you know, I fear that it’s beginning to go the wrong way.
“So just that extra push to try and make sure we’re restricting spend, getting in every penny that we’re owed from anywhere, back into the council.
“Anything people can do across the council will be sort of really, really welcome as we try and keep that overspend heading in the right direction.” Inside Croydon was considering having a bit of a whip-round. But then thought better of it. The people of Croydon have suffered enough already.
West finished by getting back on cheery corporate message. “I just wanted to give a quick message to say to everybody, yeah, you’re doing really good so far.” The spirit of Young Mr Grace lives on…
Jase and Kathy had all the “best” lines, though.
Like when they selectively picked bits out of that recent Ofsted review of Croydon’s children’s services, and then very selectively picked out the bits from the government-appointed “improvement” panel’s latest report, all the time failing to mention that the commissioners are severely concerned for a local authority that is already predicting a £83million overspend in 2025-2026.
Kerswell did, though, manage to remind the council staff of a damning survey of residents conducted in late 2023.
- Only 45% of Croydon residents are satisfied with the way Croydon Council runs things. The national satisfaction rate average is 56%.
- Only 34% of Croydon people feel they’re getting value for money from Croydon Council (where Mayor Perry has hiked Council Tax by 21% in his first two years in office). The national average is 40%.
- Only 45% of local people said they trust Croydon Council. The national average is 55%.
Kerswell thinks that it is all somebody else’s fault. “The financial and governance failures of the past are cited as the main reasons why residents don’t trust us and they believe we don’t give them value for money,” said the £200,000 per year CEO who was out of the office for most of November, without a flicker of embarrassment.
“And in every single survey we do, the issue of accountability finds its way in there and gets raised by local people.”
Katherine Kerswell has been chief executive of Croydon Council for more than four years, since October 2020.
Everyone else’s fault: Kerswell has been council CEO for more than four years
The council has three times issued a Section 114 notice – an admission it is unable to balance its budgets – while Kerswell has been CEO, and is currently running a budget overspend of around £20million.
Hundreds of council staff have been made redundant. Public libraries have been closed. Children’s nurseries are under threat of closure. Services have been axed.
There are more executive director staff employed at Croydon Council today than there was in October 2020.
Not a single person has been charged by the police, or subject to civil action brought by Croydon Council, for their part in the £200million Brick by Brick scandal, the £73million Fairfield Hall fiasco or the council’s financial collapse.
But under Kerswell and piss-poor Perry, Croydon Council has spent more money on court action against Inside Croydon – and lost – than on any legal action brought against any of the people thought to be responsible for the borough’s parlous state.
Merry Christmas, Croydon!
Read more: ‘You seem to be trying to put the genie back in the bottle’
Read more: #PennReport: No referrals sent to staff’s professional bodies
Read more: #PennReport wanted police probe into possible misconduct
Read more: #PennReport: Cover-ups and denial over Brick by Brick failure
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West says “I don’t want to overplay that because I’m sensing that when we do the Period 7 monitor in a few weeks time…..”
As the council’s financial year begins in April, Period 7 monitoring (to the end of October) will only be started in January. I would have expected Period 9 monitoring (to the end of December) to be carried out in January or they will be constantly 2 months behind. Hardly instills confidence that by the time the figures are reported things will probably have changed, so expect a sudden unexpected bigger year end overspend announced sometime over the summer.
That’s always been the case. It takes time to consolidate spending and income on an organisation the size of Croydon Council.
Perry looks like stoned pub landlord. And Kerswell – 200k! She’s a f*#king embarrassment. ‘We did a survey and used that to do more research and found that people are pissed off that wasted so I’m continuing to waste their money with more surveys and consultants. Until I get another 420k payout’
It’s time they look at Executive managements salaries as they seem to be forever increasing and let’s face it they clearly aren’t very good at their jobs. Bring in younger tech savvy managers as that seems to be the way the Council will be heading. They need a management clear out.
Anyone suggest the type of cost control they have at Wandsworth and Westminster councils?
Thought not …