CROYDON IN CRISIS: The council still has debts of £1.4bn, or more, but that won’t stop a select few execs attending a gala event at a Mayfair hotel next week, where tables cost up to £5,000 and our bureaucrats are up for an award – based on their own nomination. WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, reports
You scratch my back…: Jason Perry and council CEO Katherine Kerswell have a big night out planned
Katherine Kerswell has been getting her glad rags ready. And Jason Perry has been having his dinner suit let out.
Because this time next week they, or some of their colleagues from the Town Hall and Fisher’s Folly, are off to Mayfair for a glitzy night out at an event where booking a table for 10 can cost up to £5,000.
Croydon’s cash-strapped council has been short-listed at the 2025 Local Government Chronicle Awards in the “Most Improved Council” category.
Please try not to laugh.
After three Section 114 notices – admissions of effective bankruptcy – as well as being subject to two Reports In The Public Interest, and after needing more than £300million in government bail-outs in the past five years, all of the council’s hard work could be about to be recognised.
And who nominated Croydon Council for this “Most Improved” gong?
None other than Croydon Council itself, of course.
Please, stop laughing.
Kerswell and Perry are becoming increasingly desperate for some kind of validation of their work, despite their litany of failure and non-delivery. The latest example is being forced to accept another £136million capitalisation direction from the government as recently as February this year, as the borough finances get ever worse.
In the recently published Stabilisation Plan, the council’s finance experts admitted that this year’s council budget is not sustainable. But they flagged up the LGC award nomination as some kind of evidence that they are making modest progress. They just forgot to mention that they had put themselves up for the award in the first place.
According to Croydon, the award nomination took a council staffer four hours to draft. A Katharine Street source expressed surprise. “You could knock out an LGC entry in less than four minutes,” they said.
Big night out: the Grosvenor House Hotel can host 2,000 guests in ‘a one-night festival of onanism’
“All the LGC organisers are interested in is flogging tickets and tables for their glitzy piss-up.”
Staging these kind of awards events, at a time when publishing appears to be in the terminal doldrums, can be a lucrative side hustle.
The annual Local Government Chronicle Awards are being held next Wednesday at the swanky Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane. In the past, tables for 10 people at the event have cost more than £4,000. Or a more modest £2,000, in the unlikely circumstances of the table being booked without drinks. Hotel rooms at the Grosvenor House Hotel for the night start from £618.
According to the hotel, it “has welcomed royalty, presidents, actors and musicians for the most exclusive and lavish events of the London scene”. The hotel’s Grand Room has a capacity for 2,000 guests “to dine banquet style”. So that’s 200 tables at £4,000 a time…
It’s not known how much of Croydon Council Tax-payers’ money might get squandered on council execs attending the LGC Awards. Croydon Council has yet to answer formal enquiries about the number of tables booked and the prices paid.
They might have even managed to get a “sponsor” on board to underwrite the costs. Companies such as rubbish contractors Veolia, for example, are often eager to lend a hand, and an armful of cash. Veolia, after all, owe Perry’s council a £40million contract favour…
“We’ve got more to do, but thanks to everyone who has supported us on this journey,” a council flunky tweeted on Croydon’s official account when the LGA shortlists were announced.
By any objective measure, there’s not been much improvement at Croydon at all.
In fact, quite the opposite. As well as all the additional borrowing, the multiple axed services and the 27% hike in Council Tax, according to the Local Government Ombudsman, they received 218 complaints about Croydon in 2024-2025. That’s up from 186 complaints the previous year.
‘Most improved’: take your pick. They will all likely have booked a table
Of the Croydon complaints the Ombudsman investigated, 89% were upheld.
Croydon is not alone in the audacious, self-congratulatory nominations that have been shortlisted for these awards in 2025.
Southwark Council is listed among nominees for “Campaign of the Year”, for their “Securing the Future of Council Housing”. That’s the same Southwark Council that since 2012 has demolished an estimated 7,500 council homes.
Then there’s the “Digital Impact” category. Potential winners are Birmingham City Council, who since 2020 have spent £110million on an Oracle IT system that was budgeted at £19million, and where they are “unlikely” to have a fully functioning finance system until 2026. And that’s according to a report in the … Local Government Chronicle.
The LGC Awards lack credibility as much as self-awareness, and are of no relevance at all to the people that local government is supposed to serve.
“A one-night festival of oananism,” as one weary-looking veteran of several such trade awards events described them.
By our reckoning, it is six years since anyone from Croydon Council dared show their face at this kind of awards bash. It was in 2019 when Tony Newman, Alison Butler and Alisa Flemming had a big night out and collected two trophies on behalf of Croydon, with comedian and actor Hugh Dennis performing the compere duties. Within months, the borough was declared bankrupt…
It is notable, therefore, with local elections less than a year away, that piss-poor Perry is daring to try to step on the awards stage once again.
Happy days: within months of boasting of their awards, the council run by Newman, Butler and Flemming had gone bankrupt. Pity poor Hugh Dennis
Croydon Council refused to release their self-congratulatory awards nomination when Inside Croydon submitted a Freedom of Information request.
“The council considers this aspect of the request is exempt under Sections 21 and 22 of Freedom of Information Act 2000…,” they said. “We aim to publish this information in or after June 2025, once the awards ceremony has taken place.”
The council’s reluctance to share information simply belies their secretive nature, corporate paranoia and crass stupidity. Croydon’s self-penned nomination is available on the LGC‘s own website.
It really does read as if it was written by Kerswell herself. And as if it took all of four minutes.
See how many bare-faced lies you can spot in the 99-word submission:
“Croydon has changed at an unprecedented scale and speed,” it begins.
“We are rebuilding our council after one of the most challenging financial and governance crises in local government. We own our past, but we are not defined by it. This is a new chapter for Croydon.
“We are tackling our challenges, with sound financial management and robust governance.
“We are transforming to become a modern, cost-effective council, that puts residents first.
“Through our commitment to transparency and accountability, we are rebuilding trust. The government has recognised Croydon’s progress; through our relentless focus and commitment, we have improved – and at pace.”
If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.
Inside Croydon has also asked for the council’s guest list and total spending on the event. No one’s bothered to get an answer to us just yet. Probably too busy down at Moss Bros getting measured up for a rented dinner suit.
As one well-read fortnightly magazine might say: Trebles all-round!
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