EXCLUSIVE: The borough’s elected representatives, our councillors, have this week been ordered not to have direct contact with Katherine Kerswell’s council staff over such mundane issues as bin collections that have been missed by rubbish contractor Veolia. By our Town Hall reporter, KEN LEE

Here we go again: Veolia have just started a £40m, eight-year contract, two years after being sacked for being useless

Less than a week into a new, £40million council contract to handle residential bin collections and street sweeping, as well as other refuse services, and Veolia’s “return” has been met with widespread criticism and confusion among long-suffering residents over bungled changes to collection days.

“Veolia can’t even manage a smooth transition when handing over to themselves,” one Katharine Street source said.

Another described the past week’s performance by Veolia and the council as, “A shambles.”

From April 1 – stop laughing at the back! – Mayor Jason Perry’s council has begun an eight-year contract with Veolia, the same rubbish company that in 2023 was binned for its poor service.

“Our streets will be tidier and residents will notice a better service,” piss-poor Perry said, convincing no one. Veolia has had a succession of contracts to empty Croydon households’ bins, sweep the borough’s streets and clear away fly-tips since 2003.

Perry’s promises of an improved service were quickly laid bare this week.

On Thursday, councillors were written to by council officials asking them to stop filing complaints about Veolia’s service with “member enquiries”, the Town Hall’s internal system for handling formal questions from elected officials.

The email has been leaked to Inside Croydon: “We have seen an increase in missed bin collections, fly-tipping and street cleansing reports being submitted as member enquiries,” read the email which seems likely to have been sent to all 70 of the borough’s councillors.

Laying down their law: council officials working in Fisher’s Folly don’t want to be bothered by complaints from councillors, according to a memo leaked to iC

The official wanted “to clarify the correct reporting process”.

In effect, they were seeking to remove the councillors’ special privilege for flagging problems, and divert them into the public complaints stream. “It’s like they don’t want to recognise that there must be a problem,” one councillor told Inside Croydon.

The council official’s email said: “Routine service requests including missed bin collections, fly-tipping, replacement bin requests and street cleansing should not be submitted as member enquiries. These must be reported via the council website or the Love Clean Streets app.”

Only if an issue “remains unresolved beyond the expected timeframe” are councillors allowed to use the councillors’ reporting system, the official ordered.

“Enquiries that do not follow this process may be rejected and will need to be resubmitted through the appropriate channels,” the jobsworth’s warning continued.

There’s more than a hint from the email from what’s left of the council’s staff, that after a decade of job cuts, they are creaking under the strain of the volume of work their reduced workforce is expected to handle.

“The Waste Services team is small and dedicated,” the official’s email continued. “Processing service requests as member enquiries places unnecessary strain on resources.” In other words, they are struggling to cope.

Out of touch: council CEO Katherine Kerswell has closed Access Croydon, and now she is ordering councillors not to speak to her staff

There is also sense that the waste services department is seeking to organise the flow of incoming complaints in order to better keep tabs on rubbish contractor Veolia’s performance, which of itself is some kind of an improvement. Under the previous contract, Veolia were allowed to self-monitor.

So councillors reporting using the council’s Crap App, “is essential for monitoring the contractor’s performance – without these reports, we cannot hold them accountable”, the email said, almost pleadingly.

Last year, the Metro newspaper dubbed Croydon “The filthiest borough in London”, after they discovered that in 2023 contractors Veolia had been subject to 31,895 reports of bin collections being missed. “That’s the equivalent of 88 bins being missed every single day, or more than 2,600 missed each month,” the newspaper reported.

But now the council’s staff are telling public representatives – councillors – to avoid having direct contact with officials (“officers” in somewhat pompous councilspeak).

“Avoid Direct Contact with Officers,” the jobsworth’s email orders councillors. Clearly, our paid civic servants don’t want to be bothered with anything so boring as providing services to the public…

“… [O]ver time, some councillors have obtained officers’ work mobile numbers and have been contacting them directly by phone.” Imagine that: elected representatives speaking to council employees on their work telephones about the standard of service being delivered for their residents. Whatever next??!!

“To maintain a structured and effective response, please do not email officers directly, including contract monitoring officers responsible for street cleansing inspections,” our councillors were ordered this week.

“These officers receive a high volume of direct emails that are not officially logged, making it harder to track and resolve issues efficiently.”

The email came from an official working in the “Chief Executive Directorate Digital and Resident Access Division” at Fisher’s Folly – the same “resident access division” which last month shut off resident access to the council’s offices, claiming that this, too, was in some way more efficient and would provide a better service.

But £204,000 per year Kerswell and £84,000 per year Perry’s council is very much open to the public paying their wages and allowances. This month, residents in Croydon will see their Council Tax increase yet again, having gone up by 27% since 2023 under Mayor Perry, and bringing a Band D property to £2480.48 per year, the second-highest in London.

And whatever you do, don’t dare contact council staff asking why your bins haven’t been emptied.

Read more: April Fools! £40m Veolia contract comes into force tomorrow
Read more: Two-year search to replace Veolia hands £40m deal to… Veolia
Read more: Croydon and three other boroughs to bin Veolia rubbish deal
Read more: No Access Croydon: 30 voluntary groups demand reopening

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