Fisher’s Folly: the council is shutting the public out of the public access area of what is sometimes known as ‘Bernard Weatherill House’, from Monday, March 10
CROYDON IN CRISIS: At short notice, the council has announced that there will be no public access to the its offices without an appointment, in the latest cut in services under Mayor Jason Perry.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
The council’s latest money-saving scam is to close off Fisher’s Folly – the local authority’s office building – from the people that the council is supposed to serve – Croydon Council Tax-payers.
Access no more: Fisher’s Folly was designed to have a large area for the public to meet officials. Kerswell and Perry are having it closed down
Katherine Kerswell, 63, the council’s £204,000 per year chief executive, issued a missive to staff this morning, announcing that from Monday, Access Croydon, the ground-floor level area where the public have been able to seek assistance with a range of council services, will become No Access Croydon.
Actual face-to-face access to council staff will no longer be possible without a prior appointment.
Councillors, the people elected to represent the public in the management of the council, were only informed of this latest cut-back last night.
The move is likely to have a massive impact on people who have been rendered homeless, including families with small children, and who are in urgent need of emergency accommodation. Unless they manage to foresee their unfortunate plight and get internet access to arrange a Kerswell-ordained appointment, there is a very real possibility that they will be shut out of the council’s offices, unable to access the urgent assistance that they so desperately need.
“The changes to Access Croydon are part of the council’s action to protect local services for residents,” Kerswell wrote, using councilspeak code for “cuts”.
“The appointment system will enable the council to triage and prioritise demand appropriately.” “Triage”! She thinks she is in an episode of Holby City!
Appopintments only: CEO Katherine Kerswell would prefer not to encounter the public who pay her £204,000 salary
The changes take place from Monday, March 10. Reading between the lines of Kerswell’s note, this move has all the appearance of being a rush job, with plenty of opportunity for a Croydon Council bodge job, too.
“Colleagues in our facilities management team,” Kerswell wrote, with the Pomposity Meter turned up to 11, “are looking at how we can set up the new area (which will be accessed via the doors near corporate reception) to make this change as smooth as possible.”
This, remember, was distributed just one working day before the change is supposed to be implemented.
As well as councillors, most council staff have been kept in the dark by managers about the No Access Croydon move.
“All we’ve been told is in the email,” one increasingly frustrated staff member told iC.
“I assume it will lead to staff reductions at some point. It is all about delivering the new target operating model: a self-service, virtual council, where you get to talk to a half-baked AI.”
In her round-robin to staff, Kerswell wrote that from Monday, “Access Croydon will close to walk-ins and our appointment service will move to the Fell Road side of BWH (previously used as Children’s Services reception).” BWH is councilspeak for Bernard Weatherill House, a name hardly anyone actually ever uses.
Fisher’s Folly on Fell Road was completed in 2013, built under the disastrous joint venture with John Laing that was commissioned by a previous Conservative administration under Mike Fisher, and in which Jason Perry was the cabinet member for regeneration.
Fisher’s Folly cost Croydon Council tax-payers £140million, around three times the typical cost of similar office buildings at the time, and a significant contributor to the “toxic debt” loaded on to the council over the past 15 years or more.
It was designed to replace 1960s office block Taberner House, with what council officials at the time referred to as a PSDH – not a nasty rash, but a Public Services Delivery Hub, a place to deliver services to the public.
£140m folly: the 2014 Labour administration abandoned any investigation into the excessive cost of building Fisher’s Folly
Under Kerswell and Perry, that public-facing function of the building has been rendered obsolete.
“As part of the change… all our appointments must be booked in advance,” Kerswell advised staff in her email today.
As some kind of mitigation, she said that this appointments-only system is “in line with local authorities across London”. On the council’s website, this is phrased slightly differently, saying that it “is in line with many London councils”.
Inside Croydon asked Croydon Council to name these “many London councils” that operate appointments-only systems and deny access to council offices to the people who pay for them.
The council’s propaganda department had not responded to our request by the time of publication.
In her notice to staff, Kerswell wrote: “Lots of our services are already appointment only, but for some teams – for example in our housing directorate – this will be a change in how we support people and deal with demand at the front door.
“A number of same-day slots will be on offer to help residents who need urgent housing support. These will also be allocated in advance. This means that customers arriving at BWH will be checked in at an agreed time, rather than having to face what has sometimes been a long wait in a very busy space.”
And Kerswell goes on: “Our Future Croydon transformation plan explains that we want to make better use of our digital channels and improve customer experience, all while making sure we offer the right level of service provision.” Which is another way of saying that, after a decade of “digital first”, Kerswell and Perry’s council wants to go further, making it evermore remote from the people they are supposed to serve.
There’s a touch of gaslighting the public, too: “Residents have told us that for many issues, they want to self-serve and do things online…”.
Really? Who?
And when were these wishes ever intended to be used as an excuse for reducing the public’s access to their council? Is it like the Carers’ Centre “consultation”, where the council findings completely misrepresented what they were told by carers?
No sign: the front page of the council website this morning offered no clue about the change coming to Access Croydon
“Knowing exactly who is coming into our buildings and when also means that we can plan ahead, prioritise, and keep staff and residents as safe as possible,” Kerswell wrote.
“To support these changes, our corporate reception will be closed to visitors from 4pm, Monday – Friday. Please note, the reception remains open for staff and tenant access and support.
“A cross-council working group has been set up to make sure we can prepare and agree any changes to processes in time for Monday 10 March.” They better get their skates on!
“The team has been meeting every day this week to work through an implementation plan and will continue to meet next week to review the change to the service.
“During the transition period we will have extra officers on hand to point people in the right direction.
“We are talking to partners, arranging external signage and issuing more communications to make sure people know what’s happening and why.”
Kerswell’s email to staff was sent at 10am today, March 7. No press release was issued. And for the public who dare to visit the council’s website, there’s no signage on the site’s front page to direct them to this significant change.
Only if they delve deep into the council website’s news area – that is, know where to look for this unheralded and significant change in service – might they be lucky to stumble over a page headlined “Quicker, safer and more efficient service at Access Croydon”. Which is a vast misrepresentation of what is actually happening.
In Kerswell’s note, she says, “As we head towards ‘go-live’, we have published an intranet page which will house the latest updates and messaging. Please do visit the page and let us know if you have any questions. Questions will be answered and added to the page as needed. It also includes an overview of opening times, as well as reminders on how we can all do our bit during the transition.”
Perry, who as cabinet member 15 years ago helped to commission the building – and loans deal – for Fisher’s Folly, is now the piss-poor Mayor of Croydon.
Today he said: “The current walk-in service means that, at this time of extreme demand, too often residents are waiting too long to get the help that they need.” It may not have been an option, at the cash-strapped council, to hire more staff to reduce these waiting times.
From April, Council Tax will have gone up by 27% since Jason Perry became Mayor. The council’s debts remain at £1.4billion. Croydon, under Perry, has recently sought, and been granted, special financial support from the government for the next financial year of £136million – a record amount.
Pay more. Get less.
Read more: They voted to raise your Council Tax, then to increase their pay
Read more: Government grants Perry’s record £136m council bail-out plea
Read more: Council Tax hits £2,500 per year as debts continue to mount
Read more: Top Tory admits Fairfield Halls could be sold for the right deal
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
- Inside Croydon has moved to Bluesky. Click here to join us there for latest updates and insights
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
