CROYDON IN CRISIS: ‘Sinister’ and ‘pathetic’ are how some council figures have described the council’s internet ban on this website. A FoI request has unearthed details of how the £204,000 pa CEO has been spending her time pursuing her own personal whims. EXCLUSIVE By STEVEN DOWNES
Since then, Croydon Council has broken the law in trying to cover-up and delay the release of documents that confirm that it was Kerswell who ordered a council-wide block on access to this website.
But this week, reluctantly, they finally provided an official answer to a resident’s request for the correspondence which led to possibly the most paranoid act yet of an increasingly secretive and anti-democratic local authority.
Emails between Kerswell and Ian Golland, the council’s “director of digital and resident access”, show the CEO chasing up a previous request to “blocking access to the Inside Croydon website and email address”.
Busy boss: CEO Katherine Kerswell’s focus was on Inside Croydon when she had council’s finances to consider
Sources inside the council told us in March that they had encountered this information block.
Anyone seeking to use an in-house council computer received the following message when they tapped in the Inside Croydon url to their browser:
“This site has been blocked in accordance with the Croydon Council Acceptable Use Policy as it may be inappropriate for business use.”
A brief survey of staff’s browser access to other parts of the World Wide Web suggests that there have been no restrictions placed on other sites. “We can still access quality news sites such as The S*n,” one of Kerswell’s demoralised staff said.
Council employees reacted with “utter disbelief” that senior management would resort to such an approach, spending council money and time to achieve their goal. One Katharine Street source described it as “sinister”. Another called it “pathetic”.
“It shows that it is not only the finances that are out control at Kerswell’s council,” said a Town Hall source. “This is an outright assault against freedom of speech, and senior council staff have taken this decision without any reference to the borough’s elected representatives.”
Some elected councillors were unaware of any ban on Inside Croydon. Until, that is, they tried to send an email to this website, and found that that was blocked, too.
“A custom mail flow rule created by an admin… has blocked your message,” is the notification received by councillors using their council email accounts, confirming that this is not an accident or “glitch”, but a deliberate action taken by officials at Fisher’s Folly.
“Sending to inside.croydon@btinternet.com is blocked.”
Blocked: the automatic message Croydon Council staff receive should they commit the thought crime of trying to access this website
But as with most things Kerswell and her lackeys try to do, their block on Inside Croydon was half-arsed, ineffectual and counter-productive.
“We can still access your Facebook, Bluesky and Spotify,” one staffer told us.
In the context of the multi-million-pound problems confronting the council, that Kerswell can find time in her busy schedule to bother about where her staff get their information seems an extraordinarily bad error of judgement. And waste of her time and the public’s money.
Kerswell is now paid £204,000 per year.
Following our previous report about the online block, one loyal reader submitted a Freedom of Information request. That was on April 23.
“Please provide a copy of the instruction to the council’s IT team or external partner requesting the blocking of Inside Croydon,” they wrote.
“Please identify all emails sent or received by Katherine Kerswell CEO since 1st January 2025 where ‘Inside Croydon’ is mentioned. This should be achieved through a simple e-Discovery exercise.”
IC, I see: correspondence provided by the council shows how £204,000 per year CEO Katherine Kerswell has been spending her valuable time
Simple for some, maybe…
Under the law, public bodies such as Croydon Council have a duty to respond to FoI requests inside 20 working days.
Croydon failed to meet that deadline.
The resident duly challenged them over this, seeking an internal review (the necessary next stage, to ask the council to mark its own homework, before any escalation to the Information Commissioner).
Dragged kicking and screaming, the council finally delivered up a response of sorts this week – four weeks later than required by law. And even then, they failed to provide all the required correspondence.
The first document they offered up was an email from Kerswell to Golland, cc’d to one of the CEO’s two assistants, Elaine Jackson (so wasting three executives’ time, not just her own).
It was sent at 9.19am on Thursday, March 20. Kerswell chose her email subject: “quick query”.
Technical issue: Paul Golland
“Hi Paul – hope all is well,” Kerswell wrote. “Please can you update me in regard to the
access for staff to IC website and email address?
“Many thanks, kk.”
This suggests that it was not the first time that Kerswell had been in contact with Golland on the matter.
So the reply she got from one of her top team may have been a bit of a surprise.
It was not until 3.07pm that Thursday that Golland, who probably has more important things to concern himself about than responding to the latest whim of the chief executive, got round to replying to Kerswell’s chase-up email.
“I am well thanking you, hope you are as well?” Golland wrote.
“Can I clarify what the IC website and email address are?”
Oh dear.
Kerswell wasted no time in rushing back a response.
At 3.11pm – four minutes after Golland sent his email – Kerswell was right back at him. For Kerswell, this must have been top priorty stuff. Far more important than closing libraries, or the change in service provider for Croydon’s carers, or Veolia taking back the bins contract.
Unlike Croydon’s failing finances, Kerswell was all over this.
Copying in Jackson (another on a generous six-figure salary) again, Kerswell wrote to Golland: “Hi sorry – its blocking access to the Inside Croydon website and their email address, kk.”
Glad we got that cleared up.
But is this really how we expect our council chief executive to be spending her valuable time when we are paying her about £122 per hour?
The resident who raised the FoI has the dogged determination and a no-nonsense approach which is difficult not to applaud. They have asked again for an internal review of the handling of the request.
“I don’t believe that you have published all the information relevant to my request and seek an internal review so that the full chain relating to the instruction and execution of that instruction can be made public.”
Might the determined questioner get their reply before the Commissioners arrive to take over the management of Fisher’s Folly?
Read more: Business as usual for Kerswell – but remember to bring a pen!
Read more: McMahon acts after serious concerns on ‘aspects of leadership’
Read more: Kerswell’s ‘Stabilisation Plan’ has failed before it is approved
Read more: CEO Negrini’s long campaign to shut down Inside Croydon
Read more: Councillors now ordered not to complain over missed bin collections
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