CROYDON IN CRISIS: Senior council official tells meeting held in George Street that he and his staff ‘had no knowledge about the closure of the centre or new service provider’.
PLUS: Protests planned for Wednesday night against more service cuts and the latest Council Tax hike
Confrontation on Katharine Street: Mayor Perry (right, in his Mitcham Belle drivers’ pack-a-mac) left the group of carers unconvinced with his answers
There’s growing frustration and fury among Croydon’s carers, who feel ignored and by-passed by their council over the sudden decision to switch the provider of a key part of the local authority’s services, forcing the closure of the Croydon Carers’ Centre on George Street.
The council’s latest cost-cutting measure has seen Mayor Jason Perry upbraided in the middle of Katharine Street by an angry group of carers who were seeking urgent answers to their questions over the lack of proper consultation and the council’s failure to conduct proper equality or health impact assessments, as the local authority is required to do by law.
And savvy carers who have learned not to accept anything that Perry’s council says at face value have begun to ask why the new contractors, Carers First, have not had their contracts renewed elsewhere in London.
Now, even senior council staff have admitted that they knew nothing about the changes to service provider or the closure of the Croydon Carers’ Centre.
Last week, a group of at least two dozen carers at a meeting held at the Carers’ Centre were told by Sean Olivier, the council’s head of service in adult social care, that he and other staff in his department had no knowledge about the closure of the centre or the new provision.
Kerswell’s cunning plan: the council’s Future Croydon document, compiled at a cost of several million pounds through fees to consultants
The changes in service provision appear to be the work of Newton, consultants hired in as part of the “Future Croydon” programme backed by the Mayor and his chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, in efforts to cut further costs from the cash-strapped council.
The Newton contract, according to a Freedom of Information response, cost Croydon Council £1million.
Inside Croydon broke the news two weeks ago that the Croydon Carers’ Centre is to close. February 12 was the day that staff were first told. The Whitgift Foundation, which manages the centre, had lost its contract with the council to provide services for carers, making opperating the centre no longer viable.
The centre has been helping hard-pressed families in the borough for more than a decade. It is due to close on March 14, after Croydon Council opted to break provision for carers into three parts, with adult carers’ assessments now to be provided by Carers First.
Croydon Council claims that its new contracts will somehow “deliver enhanced support for Croydon’s carers”.
In what has been described as a “cut-and-paste email” sent to carers across the borough, Yvette Hopley, Perry’s council cabinet member responsible for this latest omnishambles, wrote: “Carers First, who will be providing support from 1 April, will have a local base and will continue to provide services and support in local locations around the borough, in line with what carers told us they wanted as part of the work we did to refresh the Carers strategy last year.”
But those affected by the change point out that in other boroughs, Carers First’s “local base” is usually an office that their staff work from, and nothing like the community centre, with a café and activities, that the George Street premises has provided since 2013, regarded by its service users as a “lifeline”.
A group of carers who attended last week’s meeting at the Carers’ Centre decided to walk round from George Street to the Town Hall, to try to get a meeting with the Mayor.
Partnership over: the Croydon Carers Centre today, a joint partnership between the council and Whitgift Foundation since 2013
“As we approached the zebra crossing, Mr Perry was recognised crossing the road from the High Street,” one of the group told Inside Croydon.
“After addressing him twice, he was told, ‘We are carers from the Carers’ Centre. Could we have a word please?’ He then walked across to the group.”
The carer says that Perry was “bombarded with statements and questions”.
They said: “One carer told him she had been having sleepless nights worrying about the loss of our centre.”
Perry is said to have replied, “Don’t worry about the Centre. It’s just a change of provider.” Which, of course, is a gross simplification.
Another carer told the Mayor, “But they are closing the centre on March 14. Were we just going to turn up and find the doors locked on us because we weren’t supposed to be told?”
Perry then tried to pass the buck for his decision: “I don’t know why they are closing on that date, the lease is till the end of March. I know the Whitgift Foundation have a problem with the lease.
“It’s not a cost-cutting exercise, just a change of provider,” porkie-pie Perry lied. Why would Perry’s cash-strapped council go through all the disruption of a change of provider if it did not save them some money?
“At the strategy review carers asked for a hub and spoke model to serve the borough with more outreach,” Perry then claimed.
But here, Perry’s dissembling started to come undone. One carer told him: “I was at the strategy meetings and I don’t remember that being asked for.”
Another carer asked: “So where is this ‘central hub’ and the ‘spokes’ going to be?”
‘I don’t know’: Jason Perry, Croydon’s £84,000 per year Mayor, was on top of his brief as ever
Perry, on top of his brief as ever, said: “I don’t know. That is down to the provider.”
Then Perry was asked: “What about our café, the choir meetings, the book club, dementia meeting, writing club, training sessions and other activities…? What’s going to happen to all of that?”
Perry’s response was, as you might expect, as piss-poor as ever. “The council are legally required to supply an assessment service and information. The rest is down to the provider.”
According to one source who was on Katharine Street for this impromptu meeting, “That was our Mayor washing his hands of the Carers’ Centre. And of us.”
The carers have useful networks of friends and family across south London. The carers in Croydon already know that in Merton, where Carers First were awarded a contract for similar services just last year, their “hub and spoke” network there comprises telephone contact to the company’s national call centre in Swindon, and online access.
But this is what Perry told the caring carers: “You shouldn’t worry. It will just be a different provider. It’s not about cutting the service, we aren’t saving any money. What it’s about is a contract has gone out, a legal procurement and as part of that process, we have switched to a new provider.”
As one of the carers on Katharine Street said: “And with that, Mr Perry walked away.” The carer said that neither she nor her colleagues felt “confident or satisfied with the answers” Perry fobbed them off with.
Other carers have been in touch with Inside Croydon to emphasise that, “Last year the council met with carers groups around the borough to inform their carers’ strategy.
“These meetings were general in tone and at no point did the council ask carers how they would feel if the Carers’ Centre closed. It was never even suggested as an option.”
The petition set up by users and supporters of the Croydon Carers’ Centre is now closing on 2,000 signatures. twice as many as required to force Mayor Jason Perry to face a public debate in the Town Hall.
But he could be facing angry carers on Katharine Street again as soon as tomorrow evening, when a protest is planned – including an appearance by the Croydon Carers’ Centre Choir – on the steps of the Town Hall ahead of the council’s budget-setting meeting. The council meeting is expected to approve Perry’s latest Council Tax hike, which will bring increases in Croydon since he took office to 27%.
Jason Perry, the Mayor of Croydon, last month approved an increase in his pay to £84,000 per year (plus the £10,000 that does not appear in his declarations register, which he receives from London Councils), while the council’s most senior staff also got a wage hike, with Katherine Kerswell, 63, the council chief executive since 2020, now on £204,000 pa.
Read more: ‘Council is gas-lighting us over support services’ say carers
Read more: Council Tax hits £2,500 per year as debts continue to mount
Read more: Croydon In Crisis: budget overspend now close to £100m
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Perry heard what they said but he wasn’t really “listening” to what they had to say. Only 436 days to go before we can vote him out
Totally agree. He’s a disgrace.
Don’t vote him out, we need him! Surely you don’t think Labour should be allowed back in after the mess they are making of trying the run the country!!
We don’t want Labour or Conservative.
Croydon deserves better and that’s why everyone should vote Green at the next elections
How about telling us why we should vote Green, Peter? Tell us about how you’d fix our finances, potholes, theatres etc. Show us somewhere, anywhere in the UK, where Greens have done anything worthwhile.
Show us somewhere, anywhere in the UK, where Conservatives have done anything worthwhile
https://insidecroydon.com/2025/02/22/cut-mayors-special-allowances-by-50-say-croydons-greens/
Cutting the allowances doesn’t amount to a policy Peter! It won’t even touch the sides …
What time is the protest tomorrow at the Town Hall.
6pm, as per the poster from the choir
So a million pound was used to commission a change of provider who will not have a base within the Croydon area and rely on a call centre to deal with issues that previously could be done face to face. The interesting point is about who implemented this. It was Kerswell-Reid as Chief Executive and Perry the apparent political master is apparently completely detached from this process and as usual is demonstrating his utter irrelevance to important issues that means so much to so many vulnerable people. What is the point of the DEMOC? He is simply a ceremonial inconsequentiality who does nothing to protect those who really need help. The role is irrelevant and the person holding it is worse than irrelevant.
Croydon has long been an officer-led council, where elected representatives are by-passed, ignored and treated with utter contempt by the directors.
And then there’s the timorous types who get elected but fail to speak out.
Think Stockholm Syndrome.
Having a piss-poor Mayor has not altered that at all.
Show me? You keep trying to paint me as a Tory Arfur, but everyone knows you’re getting desperate. I might try and paint you as a Corbynista, but you beat me to it.