After the brickbats for the work-shy do-littles who populate our Town Hall Chamber, today we celebrate those elected representatives who keep busy by keeping council officials busy
They will be dancing down Sauchiehall Street tonight, as proud Scot Karen Jewitt has topped the table for the second year running as the Croydon councillor who has done most casework.
And it wasn’t even close.
For the period covered, Jewitt, a back-bench Labour councillor for Thornton Heath ward, submitted an astonishing 400 members’ enquiries – questions to Town Hall staff about aspects of her residents’ lives and council services. Over the 15-month period our Freedom of Information request covered, that works out at almost 27 enquiries per month.
Top of the pops: Cllr Karen Jewitt
There is a very familiar look to our 2025 Top 10 of harder-working councillors, because runner-up again, just as he was in 2024, is Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall.
And last year’s fourth, Tory councillor Samir Dwesar, moves up one place this year.
But as well as brickbats, we also deliver some well-tempered praise for those elected representatives who do the dogged groundwork to try to hold to account Mayor Jason Perry, chief exec Katherine Kerswell and other officials in Fisher’s Folly.
Our figures are based on official council data, provided under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, because Croydon’s omnishambles of a council lacks the kind of transparency found at other local authorities, where such routine detail is shared with the public who pay the wages of council staff and fund the allowances that are paid to councillors.
Runner-up: Cllr Stuart King
We ask for the number of member enquiries submitted by each of Croydon’s 70 councillors. Croydon Council provided us with details for 69 of them, and managed to list one councillor twice, in one instance misspelling their name.
Casework volumes are but one measurement of a councillor’s workload, and effectiveness, as former councillor Robert Canning has explained. There are other things that take up the time of our 70 councillors, like ward tours, police liaison meetings, ward surgeries (though some councillors duck even those).
Yet even the councillors listed as having done very few pieces of casework for their residents – just three in 15 months by our 2025 Toss-car winner Sherwan Chowdhury – still manage to find loads of time to go out and deliver leaflets for their political parties.
Funny that…
And, with our Toss-cars tables now in their third year, there is a suspicion that some councillors are “gaming” the system, deliberately submitting higher volumes of member enquiries, in the hope of burnishing their reputations a little.
Third place: Cllr Samir Dwesar
According to the figures provided, between January 2024 and the end of March 2025, Croydon’s 70 councillors collectively submitted 4,543 pieces of casework – an average of 65 each.
But our figures show that only 23 councillors achieved that benchmark figure or better. Which also suggests that 47 of our councillors are worse than bang average.
In fact, there were just 12 councillors other than Jewitt who submitted 100 or more enquiries over the period.
The composition of our 2025 Top 10 also firmly debunks the suggestion that cabinet and shadow cabinet members or committee chairs are just too busy with Town Hall meetings to be able to manage straightforward casework.
Councillors doing the most casework
1, Karen Jewitt (Lab) 400
2, Stuart King (Lab) 293
3, Samir Dwesar (Con) 229
4, Rowenna Davis (Lab) 198
5, Gayle Gander (Con) 187
6, Lynne Hale (Con) 186
7, Claire Bonham (LibDem) 170
8, Ria Patel (Green) 144
9, Amy Foster (Lab) 130
10, Simon Fox (Con) 122
Honourable mentions ought to go to Yvette Hopley (112), Margaret Bird (111) and Robert Ward (102), all Conservative councillors, who all managed to submit more than 100 enquiries, but just missed a place in the Top 10.
It is notable that Croydon’s only Liberal Democrat councillor, Claire Bonham (Crystal Palace and Upper Norwood ward) makes it into the Top 10 again this year, while one of the borough’s two Green councillors, Fairfield ward’s Ria Patel, is also there.
At least three of the Top 10 are effectively full-time politicians. Lynne Hale (who works on Tory MP Chris Philp’s staff), Amy Foster (previously on Sarah Jones’s staff, now working for Natasha Irons) and Simon Fox (Philp) all have the possibility of firing off members’ enquiries as part of their day job.
Deputy: being Jason Perry’s mayoral sidekick has its compensations for Lynne Hale
Hale is also on Mayor Jason Perry’s pay-roll as his deputy mayor. So as well her parliamentary assistant’s salary (probably something in the mid-£30,000s per year), she pockets £43,096.08 a year in special responsibility allowances.
So residents might think that they are entitled to expect a bit of extra effort from that councillor, especially when compared to Jewitt, Dwesar, Bonham and Patel, who each receive just the basic allowance of £11,984.04.
Hale also has council cabinet responsibility for housing, so it is likely that housing issues take up a large proportion of her workload.
And might fourth-placer Rowenna Davis be demonstrating her capacity for work at the Town Hall? Davis was chair of the scrutiny committee until the autumn, and is now Labour’s candidate in next May’s mayoral election. Her record for getting busy with residents’ casework will do her cause no harm at all.
New entry: Green councillor Ria Patel
A councillor since 1994, Jewitt is well-known locally for her long-standing work for local community groups and charities. The level of casework enquiries she has been submitting to council officials suggests a doggedness on behalf of residents.
King’s output in this respect is impressive, and it no doubt reflects his efforts to question Mayor Perry’s administration as well as issues in his West Thornton ward.
The high number of enquiries submitted by the likes of Jewitt, King and Dwesar does, though, throw into sharp relief the poor efforts of the vast majority of our councillors, who could not even bother to submit an average of one member enquiry each week.
If you live in a ward represented by one of those 47 councillors, then you’d be entitled to start asking questions of them.
Read more: The Toss-cars 2025: We name Croydon’s laziest councillors
Read more: Measure the effectiveness of councillors, not just the casework
Read more: Making the case for councillors’ casework to be made public
Read more: The Toss-cars 2024
Read more: The Toss-cars 2023
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Can one of them ask why my council tax has gone up 27pc while services have got worse?