EXCLUSIVE: It’s not just Chancellor Rachel Reeves who struggles to get her CV right, as SANDRA STEAD, our in-house number-cruncher, uncovers a fifth case of an elected representative in Croydon failing to keep proper records in their register of interest
Sidetracked: Waddon councillor Simon Fox continues to declare to the public that he is a shop assistant, and not working for a Tory MP
This website has uncovered a fifth instance of undeclared business interests or income by elected councillors or Mayor Jason Perry.
This latest case is potentially the most serious, since it involves a councillor who has submitted a false declaration.
Two years after he joined the staff of Croydon South MP Chris Philp, Waddon’s Tory councillor Simon Fox still lists his employer as the House of Fraser. Working for Philp might be embarrassing (every time the MP appears on television, for instance), but it can’t be that bad that Fox feels compelled to break the law and the council code of conduct, can it?
Perhaps worse, Fox is the Town Hall Conservative group’s deputy whip. It is actually his job to ensure that his Tory colleagues maintain proper and accurate records. Yet he appears incapable of filling in a pretty basic form properly, and honestly, himself.
Given that his boss (that’s Chris Philp, not the House of Fraser) is the Conservatives’ shadow Home Secretary, with responsibility for policies on law and order, having someone working in his office who has submitted an obviously false public declaration might be considered a sackable offence.
Fox was elected to the council in 2022, the only Conservative councillor in the three-seat Waddon ward. Last year, he was the Tories’ sacrificial candidate for Croydon West in the General Election, where he put up a pretty feeble effort, winning just 16% of the vote as Labour’s Sarah Jones enjoyed a 14,000 majority.
Throughout that entire election campaign, Fox’s public declaration as a councillor on his Croydon Council register of interest was false, and therefore potentially misleading to voters.
Staff register: the House of Commons records show that Fox has been a staffer for Croydon South MP Chris Philp since November 2022
From official House of Commons records, it appears that Fox joined Chris Philp’s parliamentary staff in November 2022.
According to official Croydon Council records, Fox last updated his declaration of interests on November 13, 2024 – two years since he began working for Philp.
Whatever it was he was updating last November, it certainly wasn’t the first entry on the published declarations: “Name of Employer or Body”. Because that reads “House of Fraser”.
The leap from shop assistant to MP’s assistant might seem a huge one, but it ought not to have taken Councillor Fox more than two years to update his register.
Silent: shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has a law-breaker working in his office
And unlike previous instances where Inside Croydon has highlighted councillors who have failed to keep their register up-to-date, Fox’s entry is blatantly a false one – a potentially serious offence under local authority rules.
Not that anyone is likely to do anything about it. Inside Croydon asked the council official who is supposed to ensure councillors obey the law, the ever-useless Non-Monitoring Officer Stephen Lawrence-Orumwense (£115,000 per year salary), what action he intended to take. There’s been no reply.
We also asked Councillor Fox to explain the error. Nuffink.
We asked the shadow Home Secretary whether he was going to do a full broadcast media round condemning this outbreak of administrative incompetence by his staff (or worse). No response.
So we can only assume that the rules are there for the public, and Council Tax-payers, to abide by, while those in power give themselves a free pass whenever they need to.
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.
Slow to register: Cllr Fox updated his register of interests in November, but kept his employer listed as House of Fraser
Previously, we have exposed how 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, to supplement his £84,000 Town Hall salary.
And before that, Inside Croydon investigations 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.
No disciplinary action appears to have been taken by Croydon Council in any of the previous cases.
Unlike his Town Hall colleagues, Fox hasn’t bothered to update his LinkedIn profile.
Workplace issues: Simon Fox works at the House of Commons, not the House of Fraser
On the business social network, Fox, a former pupil at London Oratory – where he may have shared a classroom with Euan or Nicky Blair, the sons of Prime Minister Tony Blair – still describes himself as an assistant store manager.
He started working for House of Fraser in 2018, having previously worked for Marks and Sparks for four years as “Retail Manager Menswear, Lingerie, Beauty”.
Fox’s own description of his career makes no mention of his election as a Croydon councillor, but does say this: “Experienced retail manager with a demonstrated history of working in the retail industry. Skilled in KPI implementation, business planning, retail, store management and stock control. Strong operations professional with a BA(Hons) focused in Fashion History and Theory from Central St Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London.”
Which sounds like the perfect fit for working in a constituency MP’s office in Westminster.
He just might need to brush up on his personal admin a tad…
Read more: Perry’s ‘nice little earner’ – Tory Mayor’s undeclared £10,000
Read more: Very interesting: councillors often slow to update their registers
Read more: Planning councillor failed to declare his new job for 8 months
Read more: #PennReport wanted police probe into possible misconduct
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“So we can only assume that the rules are there for the public, and Council Tax-payers, to abide by, while those in power give themselves a free pass whenever they need to.” Exactly…..and it was the same during the Covid lockdowns, when Blundering Boris et al, said “Stay home. Save lives” to the public while politicians, civil servants and “special advisers” partied in Whitehall !
In real life if someone is five minutes late for an appointment or provide the slightest piece of false information they are sanctioned for benefits. When you become a politician it appears a job requirement is a self entitlement that rules are only for other people to follow and it is for politicians to complain about others not keeping to.
I think you can see with the standards displayed by this grim bunch in Croydon that most of the records they produce such as expenses claims and funding for their Parties are really works of fiction that they can think they can get away with.
Yet working for someone like Philp whose breach of trust at Oxford University made national newspapers it seems such behaviour is de rigeur.
Come on!
If disiplinary was taken in these cases it would be setting a precedent that all members that are guilty of anything must face same.
Sureley that would include the majority of the Council, taking up valuable time that is normally used for not doing much.
Chris Philp “forgot” to declare six grand’s worth of FA hospitality https://insidecroydon.com/2023/11/30/tory-minister-philp-forgot-to-declare-6000-football-freebies/
And he was recently forced to admit that “mistakes were made by the previous government,” after Kemi Badenoch criticised Priti Patel over immigration figures.
He even had the nerve to say that “we need a work ethic. We need everybody to be making a contribution … we need to lift our game and to up our game”.
Quite. Start with yourself Chris, your own staff and your party, and set them a all good example. That’s because being forgetful and making mistakes are Tory traits.
When Simon updates his Register of Interests with his “new job”, he can also get someone to change his bio on the Croydon Tories website, which still describes him as “a retailer by profession”.
After all, if we can’t trust the Conservatives on what they do or don’t declare in writing, we can’t we trust them on anything else
Is making a false declaration a criminal offence? If so, why are the police not investigating?
West Berkshire Council’s “Guidance Note on Disclosable Pecuniary Interests” says to its councillors that “within 28 days of becoming a member or co-opted member, you must notify the Monitoring Officer of any ‘disclosable pecuniary interests’ …… Employment, office, trade, profession or
vacation … Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain…”
It then explains that
“It is a criminal offence to
• Fail to notify the Monitoring Officer of any disclosable pecuniary interest within 28 days of election
• Fail to disclose a disclosable pecuniary interest at a meeting if it is not on the register
• Fail to notify the Monitoring Officer within 28 days of a disclosable pecuniary interest that is not on the register that you have disclosed to a meeting
• Participate in any discussion or vote on a matter in which you have a
disclosable pecuniary interest
• As an executive member discharging a function acting alone, and having a
disclosable pecuniary interest in such a matter, failing to notify the Monitoring Officer within 28 days of the interest.
• Knowingly or recklessly providing information that is false or misleading in
notifying the Monitoring Officer of a disclosable pecuniary interest or in
disclosing such interest to a meeting
The criminal penalties available to a court are to impose a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (£5000) and disqualification from being a councillor for up to 5 years. If a complaint is received in respect of non-disclosure the matter may be referred to the Police to investigate because of the criminal nature of the breach. It is not a matter which the Standards Committee or Monitoring Officer have statutory authority to investigate under the Act.”
Ah, Liberal Democract West Berkshire who have just asked for a government bail-out. Sounds familiar?
The political control of West Berkshire council is irrelevant to the issue here, namely the laws that apply to Croydon councillors under a Conservative Mayor (and his very well paid Monitoring Officer) not keeping their Registers of Interests up-to-date and truthful
So is failing to act in the knowledge that a criminal act is being conducted, say if you are a Monitoring Officer who doesn’t do any monitoring, is that, too, a breach of the law?
There is something called ‘malfeasance’ which one web source describes as ‘Misconduct or wrongdoing, especially by a public official’ and another says this may be a civil or criminal offence.
This is, straightforwardly, a breach of Section 30 of the Localism Act 2011.
It is another demonstration of the incompetence of Croydon Council’s Monitoring Officer.
Waddon councillor Fox, a resident in Purley, has now changed his register of interests (after a delay of more than two years), as a result of Inside Croydon’s coverage, and nothing to do with the council’s six-figure salaried director whose job it is to oversee these matters.