Political Editor WALTER CRONXITE on the latest revelation about the spendthrift council under its Tory Mayor
Croydon Council, which came under fire after this website revealed that it had paid a “golden handshake” of £437,000 in a hush money settlement when Jo “Negreedy” Negrini left her job as chief executive in 2020, has now been revealed to have paid out
£439,000
Bigger slice: Mayor Jason Perry has overseen £439,000 paid in staff bonuses – more than was paid to Jo Negrini
in bonuses to new recruits between 2022 and 2024 under Conservative Mayor Jason Perry.
That’s according to a report in the Daily Torygraph, which clearly believes that piss-poor Perry has lot the plot completely.
Three times since 2020, Croydon has declared itself effectively bankrupt, most recently under Mayor Perry in 2022. Since then, Croydon’s £84,000 per year Mayor has hiked Council Tax to record levels, with typical Band D households from this month having to pay nearly £2,500 per year, up by 27% since Perry became Mayor.
But that has not stopped the cash-strapped council handing out hundreds of thousands of pounds in “golden hellos” to staff, thought to be mostly social workers joining the local authority’s workforce.
According to the Torygraph: “Croydon spent £439,000 on starting bonuses between 2022 and 2024. It gave a ‘welcome payment’ of £5,000 to 74 staff during that time, while 15 received payments of £4,000 and three were paid £3,000.”
Perry, elected Mayor in May 2022, has spent his entire period in office blaming “toxic historic mismanagement” for the council’s financial woes. But earlier this year, Croydon was handed a £136million government bailout – a “capitalisation direction” – with Mayor Perry’s council predicting a £98million overspend this financial year.
That £136million bailout brings the total of exceptional financial support provided to Croydon since 2020 to £308.4million – of which £224million has been claimed under Perry’s toxic mismanagement.
The newspaper report highlights failings in Croydon and at Birmingham City Council, which described its “golden hellos” (of a more modest £1,000 to 152 new hires) as being because of “one of the most acute national workforce challenges”.
A spokesperson for Croydon Council told the Torygraph: “Like many councils, we offer new starter payments for qualified social workers as part of our recruitment and retention strategy.
“Councils are operating in an extremely competitive labour market, where qualified social workers are in short supply and high demand.
“A stable workforce results in better outcomes for children and young people, and better value for residents. Our recent ‘Good’ Ofsted inspection noted that Croydon has successfully increased the permanent workforce to 80% – ‘a great achievement in the current employment market’ – helping to improve continuity of care for children and young people.”
Read more: The inside story of Negrini’s pay-off: no papers, no notes, no reasons
Read more: CEO Negrini’s long campaign to shut down Inside Croydon
Read more: Watchdog suggests Negrini’s pay-off may have been unlawful
Read more: Council paid £25,000 for legal threats against Inside Croydon
Read more: The bottom line on the failure of ex-CEO Negrini: £613,895
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Another nail in the coffin of Piss Poor Perry. Everyone needs to watch him like a hawk, as he has no hope of a second term as Croydon Mayor, and will be looking to line his own pockets as far as possible in his final year !
If it is difficult to recruit social workers, I accept that something needs to be done to “sweeten” the deal. I think we need to know more about how these “golden hellos” were calculated and paid. I think we also need to know what guarantees were in place to stop people pocketing the bonuses and then leaving the job. These details should be freely available to the rate payers.
I think they’re offering close to 10k now if you stay in the job for a set period of time. The info should be on any social work vacancies being advertised.
We should not begrudge any money spent on hiring staff to help the borough’s most vulnerable people, especially at the behest of the tax-dodging Torygraph
I hear that many social workers are being recruited directly from abroad by Employment Agencies at Croydon and so these recruitment fees will not be paid to the staff member and used to reimburse Agents to provide the illusion to OFSTED that human resources targets are being met. The information I hear is that the quality provided by Croydon Social Services is rather random and having a good OFSTED report is not an assured measure of a good public service. Rather that you are ticking the right boxes at a Quango.