After more than four years of ‘soft-touch’ intervention with a so-called ‘improvement panel’, today Whitehall mandarins lost patience with Mayor Jason Perry and CEO Katherine Kerswell’s poor management of Croydon Council. By STEVEN DOWNES
Jim McMahon, Labour’s minister for local government, has announced to the House of Commons that his department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is to appoint Commissioners to take over the management of Croydon’s basket-case council.
“The council’s financial position is deteriorating rapidly,” McMahon’s written statement said, expressing “serious concerns, particularly on the council’s ability to improve”.
McMahon was also critical “on some aspects of leadership and on use of resources”.
Sending in Commissioners is the most extreme intervention that a government can take with mismanaged and financially distressed local authorities. But today’s announcement is extraordinary since it comes after more than four years of “soft-touch” oversight by a government-appointed improvement and assurance panel.
The improvement panel, appointed in February 2021, chaired by Tony McArdle, had together with council chief executive Katherine Kerswell been planning an “exit strategy”. They were due to conclude their work in July this year.
But the latest government bail-out, a record £136million of “exceptional financial support” agreed in February, put the kibosh on that, with Kerswell’s feeble “Stabilisation Plan” published last month only serving to emphasise how all previous efforts to sort out Croydon’s finances have failed. Whitehall mandarins have been left with no alternative.
Lame duck Mayor: Jason Perry.
It may be significant that the announcement comes the day after Chancellor Rachel Reeves presented her Spending Review in the Commons, which offered precious little respite to troubled local authorities across the country.
Croydon follows rotten boroughs in Doncaster, Tower Hamlets, Rotherham, Northamptonshire, Liverpool, Slough, Sandwell, Birmingham and Nottingham in having its affairs supervised by Commissioners. Doncaster’s intervention lasted longest, with Commissioners in charge of local affairs for four years.
None of the councils in that “Hall of Shame” have issued as many Section 114 Notices as Croydon’s three, though. And with Croydon’s finances declared “unsustainable” by the council’s own finance director, Jane West, and by McArdle in the past six months, many thought that a fourth S114 Notice could not be far away.
For Jason Perry, the Tory elected as Croydon’s first executive Mayor in 2022, the arrival of Commissioners at Fisher’s Folly will be a devastating blow – whatever spin (or “lies” as we call them at Inside Croydon Towers) he tries to put on matters. Having promised to “fix the finances”, today’s announcement underlines how Perry has fucked Croydon’s finances.
Croydon thus has a lame-duck Mayor for the next 11 months, and Croydon Conservatives have a badly tarnished candidate leading their election campaign towards the 2026 Town Hall polls. Inside Croydon understands that local elections, due in May 2026, will still take place.
Read more: Government grants Perry’s record £136m council bail-out plea
Read more: What will sending in Commissioners mean for our council?
Read more: Kerswell’s ‘Stabilisation Plan’ has failed before it is approved
Read more: Council Tax hits £2,500 per year as debts continue to mount
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Perry has always been a lame duck but will anyone really take him to task?
Does this mean Kerswell Reid won’t be picking up the award for Croydon as Council of the Year at the big Local Government Bash next week or will she still have the bare face cheek to go for it?
Actually by sidlining Perry, his invisible Cabinet and the out of touch Kerswell Reid things might be actually moving forward for Croydon.
The bash was last night. And they lost
Poor writing useing obscene language totaly unnecessary.
Lets hope that Labour can sort out the mess they created in the first place,
Yeah, well at least we can spell. Obscene or otherwise.
I’m no fan of Tower Hamlets either but ‘obscene’ is a bit strong.
Lest we forget, this is a result of both Tory and Labour administrations. Labour inherited a huge deficit of over 800 million when they took power in 2014 and just made it worse. And all this against the backdrop of savage Conservative/Lib Dem and then Conservative central government austerity measures which exacerbated the problem. Neither of the main parties comes out of this with any credit.
Hi Jason, or do you prefer Mayor Perry? Not for much longer.
Think about all that money Perry has just wasted on giving himself and all the councillors a fat pay rise, mowing wildlife to death, printing the “Our Croydon” fanzine about himself then sending a copy to every home in the borough and, to top it off, paying a tax-dodging bankrupt a grand a day. This while our council’s finances were clearly so precarious.
If he’d any decency and political nous he’d resign now and force a by-election. If Croydon Tories had any sense, they’d force him out, like they did with Mike #Wadgate Fisher. Instead Perry will be allowed to limp on, getting paid £7k a month to do sod all
Hasn’t he just been a ceremonial Mayor throughout his term of office already and pocketing the money to do effectively sod all. The statement made by the Minister shows he has been an abject failure and should resign after such a damming verdict, but you know old Part Time.
Depressing. The saga rolls on.
Here goes the council tax
..like the neighbourhood ?!
Steven Downes vs Jason Perry charity boxing match should be soon…
The pen is mightier than the boxing glove!
The only surprise is that it took so long. Bringing in a CEO who was paid over 400k to leave Kent after 16 months to replace a CEO paid over 400k to leave Croydon was never going to work. Kerswell should be exited on performance grounds with no payout. Or do the honourable thing and resign.