Political Editor WALTER CRONXITE on suspicions that Croydon’s £84,000 per year part-time Mayor is trying to cover-up yet more ‘runaway’ spending
Irresponsible: Mayor Jason Perry spent much of the past week on personal and Conservative Party business in Manchester
Jason Perry, the failed Mayor, has returned to Croydon after spending much of the week on a personal re-election mission at the Conservative Party annual conference in Manchester, where Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, claimed that the Tories “are the party of fiscal responsibility”.
Stride won’t be holding up piss-poor Perry as an example of fiscal responsibility any time soon.
Croydon’s £84,000 per year Mayor toddled off to the Tory conference without any published indication of his council’s spending since May – almost six months ago.
Fiscal responsibility? Perry has presided over a council where spending last year was described as “runaway” by a panel of local government experts who had been installed in Croydon by one of Stride’s former colleagues, Michael Gove.
And Perry has needed government bail-outs every year he has been in charge at Croydon Town Hall, topping it all off with a record £136million of emergency funding earlier this year.
These overspends come despite Perry raking in record levels of Council Tax from Croydon’s long-suffering residents, who have been hit by 27% hikes in their local taxes since he was elected Mayor in 2022.
Personal promotion: Mayor Perry has spent much of the past week on a personal mission
Croydon’s failed Mayor is spending what seems likely to be the final months of his administration under the supervision of government-appointed Commissioners, who arrived at Fisher’s Folly in July.
But the sloppy accounting and slow delivery of council financial reports means that when Perry held a council cabinet meeting at the end of September, the figures available only went up to May. There was nothing for June, July or August.
It was over the spring and summer in 2024, when Perry was then pre-occupied trying to whip-up anti-ULEZ sentiment ahead of the London elections and then campaigning on behalf of Chris Philp in Croydon South for the General Election, that he took his eye off the ball and allowed council spending to become “runaway”.
Croydon, with debts of £1.4billion, has three times issued Section 114 notices to signal it was unable to balance its budget. The council finished the 2024-2025 financial year having overspent by at least £30million.
Before Perry set off on his little self-promotion tour to the north-west, he oversaw a Town Hall cabinet meeting which did its best to put a rosy hue on the state of the council finances.
But even there he was forced to admit to the “nonsustainability” of the council’s revenue budget, as he simultaneously tried to claim that his budget was on-track to underspend by £16.5million.
Such an underspend has been virtually unknown in Croydon for half a decade or more. It is Perry’s desperate hope that this might allow him to reduce the amounts he needs to borrow from central government, referred to in councilspeak as “capitalisation directions”.
Poor turnout: Manchester’s Tory Party conference was notable for the lack of enthusiasm and low numbers. Perhaps Tory members knew that shadow home secretary Chris Philp was going to try out his new routine as a stand-up comedian
Yet the finance report to cabinet also noted “that service directorates are asked to reduce their net expenditure so that the annual budget can be balanced with reduced use of capitalisation directions”.
And, “It should not be underestimated what a challenge this will be against the background of increased demand pressures which are continuing to build across local government as well as increased market prices.” Which was the excuse given by Perry for his “runaway” spending in 2024, too.
Unsurprisingly, opposition councillors are suspicious that vitally important financial figures are being kept back by Perry and his council chief exec, Katherine Kerswell.
Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall, expressed concerns that the only information in the public domain on the council’s budget was four months out of date.
Suspicious: Labour leader Stuart King
Councillors, King told the meeting, “could only take a cautious and qualified degree of confidence” in what was being presented. Which is polite councilspeak for saying he doesn’t believe a word that Kerswell and her finance officials are saying.
King highlighted how the council is already forecasting spending £37million more on social care and housing services than in 2024-2025. King has said that this is “evidence that the council had not got a grip on rising demand, despite it being essential if the budget was to be balanced”.
And then there’s Kerswell and Perry’s “Stabilisation Plan”, which few Town Hall figures have any belief that it will work.
“Published in April, approved in June, but in September the business plans for the savings in it were still not finalised,” King said.
Read more: Council accused of cover-up over multi-million agency spend
Read more: Borrowing plan would lead to council’s ‘collapse’ says report
Read more: Perry takes time out to press the flesh at Tory Party conference
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Doesn’t reed have any power to DEMAND what is going on???