CROYDON IN CRISIS: The borough’s increasingly remote and unaccountable Mayor and chief executive won’t even answer Council Tax-payers’ correspondence that challenges their abuse of tens of thousands of pounds of public money. By KEN LEE, Town Hall reporter
A mug’s game: Mayor Perry is namechecked 21 times and has his photo in Our Croydon 11 times
Katherine Kerswell, the £204,000 per year chief executive, has failed to respond to formal complaints put to her last month over the abuse of public money on Tory Mayor Jason Perry’s Our Croydon political propaganda sheet.
Inside Croydon reported earlier this week how Perry’s cash-strapped council has spent at least £35,000 of your money on his Our Croydon, distributed to 170,000 households around the borough, while at the same time cutting services and axing jobs at the council.
It is one year until the next local elections – when Perry’s £84,000 elected position will be on the line. So after hiking Council Tax by 27% since 2023, Perry is resorting to using the council’s propaganda department, and your money, to paper over the cracks and make out he is somehow worth re-electing.
Opposition politicians have cried foul over the misuse of public money for what is a blatant piece of political electioneering.
And now members of the public have submitted formal complaints, too.
But chief executive Kerswell has ignored the correspondence from a Council Tax-paying resident.
Unaccountable: Katherine Kerswell (right), Mayor Perry’s doting CEO, is paid £204,000 a year, but can’t be arsed to respond to residents
It is almost a month since one reader emailed the CEO.
“I am writing to you as CEO to complain about the content of the Our Croydon newsletter which I’ve received today,” the resident said in their email.
“This newsletter amounts to an election communication from Jason Perry, the current Mayor, who has announced his intention to stand as Tory candidate in the next Croydon mayoral election in 12 months’ time.”
The resident highlighted the use of numerous photographs of Mayor Perry throughout the 32-page publication, as well as “numerous quotes from him on various issues, some of which are politically contentious”. “Politically contentious” is the polite way of saying “lies”.
“There are also references to the Croydon mayoral election and a full-page article about postal votes in that election,” they wrote.
“It is not right that Croydon Council Tax-payers should pay for this election propaganda on behalf of one candidate.”
The resident has not even had the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Kerswell or on her behalf from her very well-staffed office.
Pretty vacant: Mayor Perry’s borough-wide tour ran out of steam and now appears to have been abandoned
The drafting and editing, design, printing and distribution of Our Croydon represents a significant ramping up of public engagement – at huge public expense – by Mayor Perry going into election year, and comes as a Freedom of Information request to the council has confirmed that Perry has abandoned his stated policy of staging public meetings at which he was subject to questions from residents (albeit very carefully chosen questions and questioners).
The council has confirmed in its FoI response that Perry – who has claimed to listen to residents’ concerns – has no plans to stage any Mayor’s Question Time events in 2025.
The last Mayor’s Question Time was held in July last year (after the General Election) in South Croydon, the ward where Perry was a councillor for 28 years until his election as Croydon Mayor. Just 81 people bothered to register for the event, while Perry required the out-of-hours support services of four council staffers.
Despite having promised to tour the whole borough with the Question Time events, Perry in fact only visited eight of Croydon’s 28 wards between January 2023 and July 2024.
A grand total of just 702 of Croydon’s near 400,000 residents bothered to register for the events, which according to the council’s FoI response, cost the council £980.43 in hall hire, leaflet printing and associated costs (the council failed to put a value on the hours of work by council staff in organising and attending the events).
Which perhaps in part, at least, explains why Perry is now campaigning for re-election by having Our Croydon stuffed through people’s letterboxes – and all at your expense, and all without any public debate or discussion, and judging by Kerswell’s refusal to reply, no accountability, either.
Read more: Now Perry wants to axe school safety patrols to save £58,000
Read more: Mayor Perry accused of ‘cover-up’ over Sentamu case review
Read more: Silicon Alley: 800 Croydon firms have closed under Mayor Perry
Read more: Perry closes down entire floor of flagship Central Library
THE CROYDON INSIDER PODCAST: Hear Labour councillor Rowenna Davis answering readers’ questions in our latest round-table news panel podcast thingy by clicking here for our Spotify feed – subscriptions and episode payments apply
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- 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
As featured on Google News Showcase
- 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
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Both Croydon’s two traditional parties have long resorted to putting out magazines at council tax payers’ expense.
Yes, Andrew. But not ones designed to promote a particular candidate in an election.
The council won’t say (more lack of accountability) but it is around 10 years since the last ‘Your Croydon’.
And not when the Council was bankrupt and there was, in theory, a government ban on any discretionary spend.
“With resources stretched as tightly as they are there is no room for unnecessary spending” – Perry said that in his manifesto. He’s an unprincipled hypocrite
While you was a Councillor for both of those traditional parties too Andrew.
I do think that if abused such spending of public money is counter productive at the ballot box.
Spending on events has also been a previous abuse.
I doubt that the recent very wordy publication will be that much read. I leafed through it on a bus ride to the town centre.
The best political leaflets have few words and clear messages. The (A4) leaflet I most enjoyed putting out over the years had 49 words on it.
What’s all the fuss? It’s a great read.
https://youtube.com/shorts/JCqOvnI_d_k?feature=share
Perry is using Council resources for political purposes, which I believe is not lawful. The fact that Katherine Kerswell, Chief Executive of Croydon Council, is failing to respond to complaints about this is doubly worrying, as she is likely to be Returning Officer for the election in which Perry is a candidate.
Resigning matter for both of them?
What with that and their admission that they passed a budget that they knew to be unbalanced – both are in untenable positions.
But with no District Auditor, who acts?
I don’t understand. If Croydon Council is still in special measures, and subject to financial scrutiny by an independent improvement and assurance panel until such time as the Council can balance its budget and come out of special measures, why was the £35,000 spend of residents’ council tax money on “Our Croydon” approved and authorised by whomever is overseeing the Council? If it wasn’t approved, did the improvement and assurance panel instruct the Council not to spend the money? If it was approved, why did the panel approve this expenditure for a council £1.7 billion in debt?
Can someone please enlighten me.
Lord knows what Kerswell does all day in Fisher’s folly.
She may think she is working very hard on her projects but at the end of the day the massive council debt continues to climb. Government intervention is the only solution.
Unfortunately all politicians are nothing but cowards .
Once they are in power, they forget who put them there.
With the on tour meetings not drawing crowds it is good that they are being stopped thus saving cash.
The biggest attendances were early on in Purley and Sanderstead.
Attendance was higher at library closure consultation meetings.
Poor attendance could suggest all of or some of the following:
a) residents reasonably content
b) residents disillusioned
c) the Mayor not a big draw
d) poor publicity
Residents will only get bland robot answers
and have got other more pressing priorities.