CROYDON IN CRISIS: Elected figures across the capital are pocketing generous ‘bonuses’ – all paid for by Council Tax-payers, just for attending a few committee meetings for the London Councils organisation.
EXCLUSIVE by WALTER CRONXITE, political editor
Oi! Oi!: Jason Perry has topped up his £84,000 Croydon salary with a nice little earner
Croydon’s Tory Mayor Jason Perry has never included in his official register of interests a payment of more than £10,000 he received last year from the local government organisation London Councils.
All councillors, and Croydon’s elected Mayor, are required under Section 30 of the Localism Act 2011 to keep their register of interests up to date.
The council’s Code of Conduct also requires openness, transparency and honesty of all Croydon staff and its elected members.
Yet while Mayor Perry’s declarations appear to be fastidious, seemingly logging every Surrey Street coconut, charity T-shirt, slap-up meal or Crystal Palace football ticket he has received since being elected in May 2022, there’s no trace to be found on the council website of this particular nice little earner – a significant top-up to the £84,000 salary Perry is paid by the council.
London Councils describes itself as “the collective of London local government, the 32 boroughs and the City of London Corporation”, where they “work in collaboration to deliver their shared ambitions for London and Londoners”, and “ensure the voice of the London Boroughs are united, and heard at a local, regional and national level”.
Perry is one of just three Tories on London Councils’ executive, a “12-member cross-party group that focuses on high-level decision-making, policy formulation, financial oversight, and overall organisational management”. It’s hard to know what it is Perry might have to contribute to all that, but hey ho…
Riding on Perry’s voluminous coat tails and on to London Council’s sub-committees are three Croydon council cabinet members – councillors Scott Roche, Ola Kolade and Jeet Bains. But none of them appear to be paid any extra wonga for these minor roles.
London Councils is funded by grants from the 32 London boroughs and City of London. So any payments it makes to Perry, Council Tax-payers from across the capital are footing the bill.
“We pay councillors an allowance who assume certain roles within London Councils,” London Councils says.
Executive member: Lambeth’s Claire Holland was paid £16,565 by London Councils last year
And their extensive records show “Actual pay members received for their London Councils work in 2023-24”, with Perry on a list of other generously rewards public servants as being paid £10,113.
Others on this list include Sutton councillor Bobby Dean, who we learn was paid £2,174 last year from London Councils. This, of course, is in addition to his Sutton Council “allowances” and his salary, since July, as Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington.
Others to have jumped aboard the London Councils gravy train include Lewisham Mayor Damien Egan, who pocketed £9,932 before he pissed off to Bristol to pursue his ambition to become a Labour MP (and leave Lewisham with the expense of holding an election to replace him, barely two years into his four-year term), Hackney Mayor Phil Glanville (£4,982; whatever happened to him?), Lambeth council leader Claire Holland (who gets a chunky £16,565) and Jas Athwal (£12,373), another new MP and now possibly the most notorious slum landlord in the East End.
London Council helpfully notes: “These figures include a 3.88% uplift which was backdated to April 2023.” Trebles all-round!
Slum landlord: Jas Athwal, now an MP, got paid £12,373 by London Councils last year
But beyond a straightforward statement on his register of interests on the council website stating that he is “Executive Member for London Councils”, there is not a trace of Perry’s extra 10 grand anywhere to be found.
Inside Croydon investigations have recently exposed three Croydon councillors who have broken the Town Hall’s Code of Conduct by failing to update their register of interests promptly.
Last month, we reported how Labour councillor Louis Carserides had managed to change jobs twice without ever getting round to updating his legally-required register of interests.
In December, we reported how Conservative council cabinet member Scott Roche had not updated his record for two years, leaving it providing false and misleading information.
Carserides and Roche both managed to update their personal LinkedIn profiles long before they got around to amending their official council register of interest. But unlike the council record, LinkedIn is not a legal requirement.
Missing detail: Jason Perry makes no secret of his membership of the London Councils’ executive. He just doesn’t mention the £10,000 payment he got from them
No disciplinary action appears to have been taken by Croydon Council in any of the three previous cases. But these other transgressions must be considered relatively minor compared to the absence of a declaration of an additional £10,000 income in a year from an outside body.
Last week, through the council propaganda department, we submitted a formal request to the official who is supposed to oversee all declarations, Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense. We asked Croydon’s Monitoring Officer (who is paid a salary by the cash-strapped council of more than £115,000) why Mayor Perry’s extra bunce does not appear on his register. Despite a reminder, Lawrence-Orumwense has not bothered to reply.
We also asked Mayor Perry directly for a comment to explain why he has made no declaration of these earnings. We had no response before publication.
Now it just might be that all of this is entirely legit and proper. Checks on other London Councils exec members show no obvious declaration of their fees on their own councils’ websites either.
But why bother going to all the trouble of logging the two-bob gift that a councillor or mayor receives, and not a five-figure payment?
And how do we know that there are not payments from other generous benefactors or earnings that are not being declared?
These are public servants, being paid with public money.
It might be instructive to hear them attempt to justify why they think it is right that they are not making a full and open declaration of these payments.
Though at least we now know that Jason Perry is pocketing close to £100,000 per year in his role as Mayor of Croydon. Plus, of course, the occasional coconut.
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