CROYDON IN CRISIS: The fourth rescue plan issued by our cash-strapped council in as many years ‘cannot deliver a balanced budget’.
By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
Unsustainable: Croydon Mayor Jason Perry.
“Desperate” and “deluded” are a couple of the kinder things that have been said about the “Stabilisation Plan”, which Croydon Mayor Jason Perry and his chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, have been working on most of this year, and which was released to the public today.
Yet even if everything in their plan is to work, Perry and Kerswell have been forced to admit that, “The plan cannot deliver a balanced budget.”
It is an admission of abject failure so total that it is astonishing that Perry and Kerswell, and some of their acolytes, still remain in their posts.
It was just 12 short weeks ago that Perry’s Tory councillors voted for what they claimed to be a “balanced budget”, apparently in the full knowledge that it was nothing of the sort. Such action may break some legal requirements on elected officials and council staff.
The Stabilisation Plan is the fourth such rescue attempt in as many years. None of the others appear to have worked, so a dollop of scepticism about this one is probably well-placed.
It is Perry and Kerswell’s effort to clear a path for the council to be allowed to take charge of its own affairs once more, after nearly five years of being under the supposed supervision of government-appointed commissioners. But it comes soon after the latest annual government bail-out – this time more than ever before, at £136million – and without any real prospect of an end to Croydon’s debt death-spiral.
The plan has been released ahead of a scrutiny meeting on May 27 and a meeting of Perry’s cabinet next month. Perry, Croydon’s £84,000 per year Mayor, and Kerswell are keen not to allow anyone to rock the boat over their Stabilisation Plan: there’s no chance of it being debated openly at the Town Hall before mid-July. By that time, Croydon’s latest financial crisis may have reached new depths.
The failing council’s latest plan comes with yet more cuts to services, with a total of £48.3million of cuts in this financial year alone. That’s up more than £27million from what had been planned in Perry’s latest unbalanced budget was passed in February. “Pay More, Get Less” is clearly piss-poor Perry’s true mantra.
Some of the claims made in the Stabilisation Plan would be laughable, if the situation in Fisher’s Folly was not so truly dire.
The 30-page document is another exercise in navel-gazing by Kerswell and her six-figure-salaried directors, with little apparent consideration given to the 400,000 residents in the borough that they are supposed to serve.
Among some of the low-lights of the report, try these…
- “Croydon Council has an established track record in successfully delivering complex programmes.” Seriously.
- In his foreword, piss-poor Perry claims to have delivered “strengthened governance, more effective financial management and disciplines and improved service delivery”. Yes, that’s the same Croydon Council which has just had the begging bowl out for £136million because of its inability to balance its budget.
- “The top priority for my administration has always been ‘fixing the finances’.” See above. Perry has hiked Council Tax by 27% since 2023, raking in record levels of residents’ cash.
- “As a proud Croydonian, I am fully committed to tackling our financial challenges and leaving no stone unturned, but we must do so in a way that is sustainable, responsible and does not decimate our borough.” Too bad, too late…
- Further on in the document, it is stated: “The Stabilisation Plan will be governed through Croydon’s robust assurance frameworks, ensuring transparency, accountability, and effective oversight”. Which, as already explained, is simply not true.
- “To ensure the Stabilisation Plan is aligned with sector-leading practice, the council will engage the Local Government Association as a critical friend to provide external assurance on the Stabilisation Plan”. So Kerswell and her team don’t even trust themselves to be placed in sole charge of the council’s management. It is worthy of note that Katherine Kerswell’s husband, Barry Quirk was until recently a “strategic advisor” to the LGA. That’s the same body that originally identified Kerswell to be Croydon’s CEO and for Elaine Jackson to be her assistant chief executive. So hardly an impressive track record of success, then…
- “The Local Government Association’s Corporate Peer Challenge highlighted the council’s effective leadership and commitment to improvement.” Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? See above.
And while it is all written in the usual brain-dead councilspeak prose, you would think that, having been honing it for at least a month, they would have at least checked that it sort of makes sense. But no: “The Executive Mayor and his cabinet are committed to delivering this plan, listening to the perspective the [sic] Croydon residents’ [sic] before judging the necessary decisions for our residents.”
‘Unsustainable’: could council CEO Katherine Kerswell be heading for a fourth S114 notice?
The cold, dead hand of Kerswell, the £204,000 per year CEO, is all over this Stabilisation Plan. In her message to staff this morning, leaked to Inside Croydon, she claimed: “The plan explains how we will further manage demand, reduce costs and increase income. It supports the work we are doing with the improvement and assurance panel to deliver the final objectives of the Exit Strategy, which focus on Croydon’s finances and how we can continue our work to make them more stable.”
The clock has been counting down on Tony McArdle’s improvement panel, which last year thought they would end their work in Croydon this July. Some council insiders believe that the £136million exceptional financial support doled out by government three months ago kiboshed those plans.
“The Stabilisation Plan actions aren’t new,” Kerswell told staff. “Many of you will have seen them already as part of Future Croydon and the TOM.” TOM, for those who prefer to speak English than acronym, is something called the Target Operating Model.
“Things have been brought forward, so we can feel the financial benefits sooner,” said Kerswell, the only council chief in history to preside over three Section 114 notices.
“This includes areas like being more efficient in how we collect revenue.”
And now, after pissing away £6.4million on consultants last year, Kerswell is betting the house (not her’s, you understand, but the one which Croydon residents pay for) that that advice will come good. “Future Croydon is the only way forward for us,” she said, not reassuring anyone much.
Figures in the Stabilisation Plan show the real reason Kerswell has cut off Fisher’s Folly from the public, by removing access to Access Croydon: a saving of £111,000. She could double that saving if she handed in her notice on Monday.
Looking for a way out: Tony McArdle’s ‘exit plan’ could be in jeopardy
There’s to be another cut to staff, or what the Plan refers to as a “11% headcount reduction”. That’s even more than Kerswell warned staff about as recently as February.
The Stabilisation Plan also express the aim of reducing the number of agency staff by 25%.
Oh, and of course, there’s this: the Target Operating Model “will also bring different roles and different ways of delivering some services that will mean new opportunities for upskilling and really embracing what digital transformation can offer the public sector”.
Kerswell’s council is claiming to have met 96% of the objectives in the improvement panel’s exit strategy. But they have been marking their own homework once again.
They even claim, “Croydon was recently shortlisted for a national local government award for Most Improved Council”, without bothering to mention that Croydon Council nominated themselves…
And buried deep in the council’s waffle, they admit, “The council cannot meet its exit strategy objective relating to financial sustainability without government action on increased demand and costs for councils, and a resolution on its debt burden.” That’s the £1.5billion debt that has been hanging around ever since piss-poor Perry was elected in 2022.
Croydon’s fourth Section 114 notice could be here sooner than you might have expected. “The plan cannot deliver a balanced budget in [2025-2026].”
Warnings: Jane West
The reality is that Tory Mayor Perry has overseen Croydon’s worst financial performance, and required greater borrowing, than ever before – worse, even, than when Tony Newman and his Numpties were in charge in 2020.
That Croydon’s financial situation, according to finance director Jane West earlier this month, “remains serious”, despite the latest £136million bail-out from central government, ought to be a matter of grave public concern.
Not that Mayor Perry and Kerswell and her bloated team of six-figure-salaried directors, appear that bothered. They certainly don’t appear keen for anyone to debate their “plan” (such as it is). Public meetings of Perry’s cabinet have been postponed, then cancelled, with no explanation. The next Town Hall meeting of full council won’t be until July 16, a full three months since the last substantive meeting.
The avoidance of all accountability by the increasingly remote Mayor Perry and the council bosses is looking suspiciously deliberate.
Read more: Council Tax hits £2,500 per year as debts continue to mount
Read more: Cash-strapped council has spent £6.4m… to make more cuts
Read more: Government grants Perry’s record £136m council bail-out plea
Read more: ‘Mayor and CEO are respected and provide strong leadership’
Read more: Mayor Perry busts his unbalanced budget with £42m overspend
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