Our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE, on the latest piece of self-serving nonsense from the borough’s under-achieving Mayor
Rewards for failure: Mayor Jason Perry and CEO Katherine Kerswell both want to give themselves a pay rise
Jason Perry, Croydon’s part-time Mayor, wants to increase his annual salary to almost £84,000. And he expects Croydon residents to pay for his pay rise.
The proposed £83,942 is up £2,000 on the council wages that Tory Perry has been paid since his election in 2022.
And it is a case of “doubles all-round” for Perry and his mates at the Town Hall, as they are looking to increase all allowances to elected councillors by 2.5%.
In Perry’s usual choice of words, that has the look of “rewards for failure”.
Since he was elected in 2022, Jason Perry has…
- Issued a Section 114 Notice when he could not balance the council budget
- Closed four public libraries and cutting other services
- Made wide-ranging cuts to Croydon’s Council Tax relief benefits, hitting many of the borough’s poorest and most vulnerable families
- Run a £20million-plus budget overspend this financial year while predicting an £83million overspend in 2025-2026
- No real progress on Westfield apart from the promise of a couple of fried chicken “kiosks” in the old Allders
- Failed to re-open Purley Pool
- Pushed through a dodgy-looking property deal on Brick by Brick’s last flats
- Failed to recover a penny of her pay-off from Jo Negrini or bring legal action against any of those responsible for bankrupting the borough
- And all the while hiking your Council Tax by 21%.
By the time 2025 bills hit people’s doormats in March, flammable plastic cladding salesman Perry will have increased Council Tax in Croydon to record highs, 27% more than when he took office.
It means that a Band D Croydon household that in 2022 was paying £1,384.36 for their council services (that is, not including the social care or Mayor of London precepts) will from April be expected to cough up around £1,724 for much reduced services from the council.
And for that, Perry reckons he and his councillors deserve a pay rise.
In the red, in black and white: the proposed new pay scales for Mayor Perry, cabinet members and all Croydon councillors
Croydon councillors have not increased their allowances since 2019. Well, they wouldn’t dare, would they?
In 2020, after a decade of Tory-imposed austerity, the then Labour-run council nose-dived into effective bankruptcy. It now finds itself shackled to £1.5billion of toxic debt, built up through overspending, the failure of Brick by Brick and, before that, CCURV, the Tories’ Croydon Urban Renewal Vehicle, and the fiasco of the bungled Fairfield Halls refurbishment.
Since then, none of the borough’s politicians have dared raise the subject of how much they get paid.
Until now, that is, when Perry has decided he can’t manage on 82 grand a year.
Ultimate power was taken out of the council’s control in early 2023 by the then Conservative government, after Perry issued his own S114, the borough’s third.
Handing effective control to the Michael Gove appointees on the improvement and assurance panel has meant that piss-poor Perry and his cabinet of yes-men and yes-women have not had the final say on major decisions for two years.
But the improvement panel (the name is not meant ironically, we are assured), who have themselves all done very nicely out of the tax-payers of Croydon, paid at a rate of £900 to £1,000 per day, are due to end their involvement in the borough later this year, and probably couldn’t give a toss any longer.
Report in the public interest: Perry and Kerswell have kept their names off the report going to the general purposes committee
The recommendations are contained in a report going to the general purposes committee next Tuesday.
Unusually for an official council paper, there’s no “lead member” identified on the report, presumably because not even Perry is stupid enough to want to have his name associated in black and white with such a self-serving move.
But this is Perry’s work, and that of chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, who is also about to see her already generous pay boosted to £200,000 per year. Her name doesn’t appear on this “Members’ allowances scheme 2024-25 and 2025-26” report either, conveniently. Carrying the can for officials and elected councillors is the Borough Solicitor (who happens to be a barrister), Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense.
The report states that the council is taking its lead from a national independent panel, with the general purposes committee sending a recommendation on to the Council Tax and budget-setting meeting.
“Council for several years, including at Budget Council March 2024, has not agreed any recommended uplift,” states the report, written in a somewhat constipated style.
And they reckon that because National Joint Council for Local Government Services Staff agreed a national pay settlement for council staff in November of a 2.5% increase (and back-dated to April 2024), “This report recommends that [general purposes committee] recommends to council this 2.5% increase for member’s allowances (basic and special allowances).”
Answers on a postcard: Lynne Hale, well worth £43,096 of your money, apparently
Under the proposals, a couple of councillors who have not before been paid SRAs – special responsibility allowances – will now receive additional money to reflect their additional work. Payments will be made to the chairs of scrutiny sub-committees for the first time.
But meanwhile, political appointees, such as group whips and group secretaries, who serve no benefit to the people of Croydon will also get bunged thousands of pounds extra for not very much… Only Conservatives and Labour though. There’s no extra cash for other parties on the council.
Under Perry’s pay scheme, his deputy mayor, Lynne Hale, will go from being paid £42,044.76 a year to £43,096. Answers, on postcards only, please, if anyone knows what Councillor Hale does to earn all that extra dosh.
Perry’s cabinet members (seven of them) will go from being paid £39,195.12 to £40,175. Answers on a postcard, too, please, if you can name more than four of ’em and explain what it is that they are supposed to do…
It gets worse: there are five deputy cabinet members, jobs all in Perry’s gift, just like under the previous, corrupted system of “strong leader”. And these will now get £17,613 per year for doing, well… not a great deal.
Perry’s stooge: planning committee chair Michael Neal is to get £25,539
It’s not just Tory placemen and women who cash in, though. Somehow, the cash-strapped council has found extra cash for Mayor Perry and all 70 councillors.
The basic allowance, paid to all councillors before SRA, goes up from £11,691.96 to £11,984.
The chair of the scrutiny and overview committee, currently Labour councillor Leila Ben-Hassel, will be paid £33,450, and the chair of the planning committee, Perry’s old mucker Michael “Two Votes” Neal, will be on £25,539.
Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group, will see his allowances and SRA go from £29,648.04 to £30,389. There’s extra bunce, too, for Labour’s shadow cabinet.
But here’s the rub: the council has to set a “balanced budget” in March. Forecasts for council spending are grim. So who will argue in favour of a council with no money increasing its payments to councillors?
And more to the point, who will vote against it?
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