Our Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on the increasing inequalities in pay at the cash-strapped council
Condescending: Katherine Kerswell
Everyone can relax: Katherine Kerswell’s back!
Croydon Council’s chief executive announced her return from holiday with her regular, condescending “Weekly Waffle” internal email to staff on Friday.
There, she told council employees that summer holiday childcare “can be an expensive and pressured time for people” (as if they didn’t already know) and then proceeded to offer patronising tips on “free things to do in Croydon to keep the little ones entertained”.
Not that any of that will be much of a concern to Kerswell on her £204,000 salary, while presiding over an organisation where many staff have to cope with wages of little more than one-tenth of that figure.
Kerswell’s already generous rate of pay was increased by just over 5% earlier this year, so staff at the cash-strapped council reading her Weekly Waffle may have had mixed feelings when she confirmed that they are to receive wage rises of a more modest 3.2%.
“I hope you will have all seen the news from Dean Shoesmith, our chief people officer, on the intranet that an agreement has now been reached on the 2025-2026 local government award. The National Joint Council and the unions have agreed a 3.2% increase,” Kerswell wrote.
For a typical, hard-working Croydon Council employee on a salary of £27,000, that works out to an extra £864 per year, barely covering price increases for food, fuel or transport, never mind all the costs of summer childcare. And the Shoesmith making the pay rise announcement? Yes, the same head of HR who spends £726 PER HOUR for a consultant to assist him in “transformation” – which is councilspeak for job cuts.
Cut off: Kerswell’s council can’t even get its phone system to work properly
Croydon’s staff pay rise will be made in September, Kerswell advised, including back-dated pay to April 1.
Not that any of that will make the new phone system, installed on Kerswell’s watch, work any better, after being out-of-service for the best part of a week earlier this month.
Residents might get a better level of service over the weekend of August 22 to August 25, though. Fisher’s Folly is to be completely closed from 6pm on the Friday, through until Sunday night.
Referring to “BWH”, meaning the council offices, they say the building “will need to be closed for a full power-down from 6pm Friday August 22”. And in bold letters, they emphasise, “No one will be able to enter the building at this time.
“This is a legal requirement to complete servicing and maintenance work on high voltage equipment,” the notice says.
“If no one’s in Fisher’s Folly,” a council insider said, “will anyone notice?”
Read more: Council chief made mates’ rates payments at £726 per hour
Read more: Mayor coming under pressure to sack council CEO Kerswell
Read more: Agency spend scandal: Perry blasted for ‘ridiculous shambles’
Read more: Government grants Perry’s record £136m council bail-out plea
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“If no one’s in Fisher’s Folly,” a council insider said, “will anyone notice?”
That reminds me of a cartoon I saw in the Spectator a few years ago, which features some people sitting a round a large table at the Association of Middle Managers, where they are saying to each other, “Has anyone noticed that we are on strike yet?” !
What wacko world are we in, when the CEO and executives of a bankrupt organisation get a pay increase?
Local government (at least in Croydon) has completely lost touch with reality. You don’t pay off failed CEOs over 400k. Or pay failed local government civil servants day rates of £1k per day or £726 per hour.
We are paying for this. The town centre has been devastated by the incompetence of these people and the entire borough has suffered. There are many, many people really struggling. There needs to be some serious changes to how public servants are held accountable.
Why hasn’t she gone?
Why hasn’t she gone? Why should she? If she wasn’t doing a good job, you can bet that Mayor Jason Perry would take steps to improve her performance or remove her from office.
In the absence of complaints backed by evidence from councillors, commissioners, auditors or very much last and least, us, the public, she can and will carry on
I assume you are being ironic. There is no measure that she hasn’t failed against: finances, service provision, planning, refuse collection, managing performance of her team, consultant fees, libraries.
Got herself a nice pay increase though.
Local government pay increases are set nationally
Put Kerswell and Perry in a rubber dinghy and send them to France!
That’s £864 before tax. Not all of it will reach their pockets to pay for those things. I’m not disagreeing with tax, just pointing out the absolute net benefit to staff is less optimistic than IC says!
Important to note that £ 864 is an additional cost to the councils budget along with the additional employers national insurance and employers superannuation contribution on top of that.
Equally the employee will be paying additional NIC, pension and tax on that as well.
Absolutely astounding for doing nothing noticeable
Your point on an HR Consultant being paid £726 per hour caught my eye, but, try as I might, I could not see any specific evidence cited for this reporting, only “council documents”. I am sure your readers would appreciate you citing the source for this.
We did. In our original report. For which there is a link in the article.
The payments over £500 is also available on the council website.
Sorry, the only link I saw was to this piece, and within that piece there is no substantation of the £726 per hour, nor how many hours she is contracted for. On LI she notes her current role as HR Consultant to Croydon Council since 2022 with no other roles listed since that time, inferring to me that this is at least a significant amount of ongoing time, if not full time. At £726 per hour, even 20 hours per week, that would be c£750k per annum. If that is remotely close, that is a staggering amount. Would love yourselves as journalists to dive into exactly what contract amounts this HR consultant has been paid if at the lofty levels of £726 per hour.
I followed through that link and within that article there is not reference to any source for that statement of that hourly rate. I then downloaded the latest monthly spreadsheet of payments over £500, but without more information on the vendor name, category etc, cannot find any actual reference to amounts paid.
If this individual is working, say, half the week at the council (it is the only role they show as active on their LinkedIn) and at £726 per hour, this is c£750k per annum in fees. If this is the case, you would have quite the story. If, on the other hand, this is not the case, am sure your readers would like to know where you got the number of £726 per hour and how many hours this person works at that rate.
You can ask the same question as many different ways as you like, but the answer will always be the same: we have provided all the sourcing for the figures, from the council’s own spending account, in our original reports on this story. It’s there. In detail, down to the number of times Adecco billed for her services during a set period, and the way they sought to “disguise” the payments by using a deceptive heading. You just need to read it.
Nice to see my stratospheric council tax being frittered away by Perry and his Omni Shambles
So staff providing vital services should be denied a pay rise because of the actions of political leaders?
Local government staff are employed under national contracts.