CROYDON IN CRISIS: Council’s assistant CEO forced to cancel retirement plans in order to fill in for her former boss, who is being given a £50,000 pay-off for not working her notice period. By STEVEN DOWNES
Elaine Jackson has been persuaded to postpone her retirement plans in order to provide “cover” following the abrupt departure of her erstwhile boss, Katherine Kerswell.
In the hot seat: Elaine Jackson took the place of Katherine Kerswell alongside piss-poor Perry, the elected Mayor, in the Town Hall Chamber last night
Croydon’s failed Mayor, Jason Perry, announced the move at last night’s meeting of full council in the Town Hall Chamber, with Jackson sitting alongside him in the seat that Kerswell had occupied since 2020.
Perry began the meeting by confirming that he had accepted Kerswell’s resignation, and then tried to perpetuate the myth that he had not agreed to bung the departing chief exec a £50,000 leaving prezzie – equivalent to three months’ salary, paid to her for not working.
That Jackson is being asked to stay on, instead of retiring next month as she had planned, is a direct result of Perry agreeing that Kerswell need not work her notice period.
Jackson joined Croydon Council as assistant chief executive in late 2020, her salary initially paid by the Local Government Association as a way of easing Kerswell’s into the hot-seat at the omnishambles council, which had just been served with its first Report In The Public Interest, and was to issue two Section 114 notices, admission of effective bankruptcy, before the turn of that year.
Jackson had been working at neighbouring Tandridge District Council, where she had been CEO for little more than a year before she got the call from Fisher’s Folly’s seventh floor. In what became her typically self-serving style, Kerswell hired Jackson just before she ordered a recruitment freeze for everyone else at the council…
‘Life-changing accident’: Elaine Jackson is staying on
Jackson has struggled lately with significant mobility issues, having broken a leg in five places in early 2024. In announcing her planned departure two months ago, Kerswell described the incident to staff as a “life-changing accident”, prompting the early retirement. It was mere coincidence that government-appointed Commissioners had rolled into Croydon in the weeks preceding.
Jackson, Kerswell and Jane West, Croydon’s finance director since 2022, are among seven senior council execs to have quit or announced plans to leave their jobs at the council since the Commissioners were confirmed in July.
The Commissioners were said to be keen to examine exactly why, after deleting around 500 front-line roles at the council, Kerswell and Jackson still needed quite so many senior execs to manage these now non-existent posts.
According to official figures from the council, obtained through a Freedom of Information request for this website, by 2023-2024, Kerswell had
15
executives working at the council on salaries of £135,000.
That’s more than double the number of council executives on those pay scales when Kerswell took over in 2020, after years of empire-building by her predecessor, Jo Negrini.
By the time of her resignation last week, Kerswell was on a salary of £204,000 per year, thanks to a £12,000 pay hike she was given earlier in 2025 by Mayor Perry.
Kerswell was one of six council employees on £170,000 per year or more. In 2020, there were just three on such stellar local government salaries.
And meanwhile, the council’s spending on agency staff had nearly quadrupled in four years since Jason Perry became Mayor. As well as Kerswell hiring an array of £1,000 per day interims, the council even paid a staffing agency £726 PER HOUR for one consultant to help the head of HR, Dean “Shagger” Shoesmith, make more job cuts…
Soaring spending: how Croydon Council’s expenditure on agency staff has increased under Tory Mayor Jason Perry
Originally, Jackson had planned to retire from the council in November.
Last night, Perry sent a message to council staff via Fisher’s Folly’s internal comms system just half an hour before a Town Hall meeting. It had been five days since news of Kerswell quitting had been first reported by this website. Council insiders suggest that this late announcement could be an indication that Perry and the Commissioners had struggled to come up with an acceptable, agreed cover solution.
Perry wrote: “I am pleased to let you know that Elaine Jackson has agreed to cover the role with immediate effect.” Sounds like Jackson’s Christmas cruise around the Caribbean has had to be cancelled, then…
“Elaine has been our assistant chief executive since 2020 and as many of you will know has been instrumental in driving our improvement and progress to date.”
That “improvement and progress” includes a £30million overspend on last year’s budget, another government bail-out, this time £136million, and an assessment from auditors Grant Thornton that “arrangements to achieve financial sustainability have deteriorated”. That’s “progress” in Perryworld.
Not missed much: Katherine Kerswell had attended council meetings as Croydon CEO for five years
In his note to staff, Perry provided a summary of Jackson’s attributes.
“A highly experienced senior leader, Elaine has spent time in local government, health and the private sector. She has a strong background in transformation…”, that’s councilspeak for axing jobs and services, “…and has played a leading role in developing our Future Croydon plan, which is critical to our council’s continued improvement and future financial sustainability.”
Perhaps Perry hasn’t read the Grant Thornton auditors’ report? It’s here, in case anyone wants to share it with him…
“Elaine was planning to leave the council next month, but has agreed to put her departure on hold to provide this cover. Her decision to remain at Croydon a while longer is good news for our council and our residents. I look forward to working with her as we move into the delivery of ur transformation programme, and will keep you updated on longer term plans.”
That Perry provided no detail whatsoever, in his note to staff or to councillors in the Town Hall Chamber an hour or so later, suggests that no one has quite worked out yet how long Jackson has got to hang around providing CEO “cover”, nor when what Perry referred to as “formal interim arrangements” are confirmed.
What it does seem to suggest, however, is that lead Commissioner Ged Curran, missing from last night’s council meeting due to “ill health”, doesn’t fancy taking on the top job. At least, not yet.
Read more: The Kerswell Affair: Croydon is worse off after CEO’s five years
Read more: When’s a pay-off not a pay-off? When it’s 50 grand in Croydon
Read more: Auditors issue Perry with warning over ‘unsustainable’ finances
Read more: Council’s agency staff bill includes £726 per hour consultant
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Jackson must be absolutely furious to be blindsided by Kerswell’s sudden resignation particularly as she would have been looking forward to her retirement next month. Surely one of the other 15 executives could have been asked to be an interim or even full time CEO as replacement.
As per the rush for the exits, think the number of exec directors left is much reduced since August, Graham.
And it suggests that Perry doesn’t actually rate any of those that are left as capable of stepping up.
“And it suggests that Perry doesn’t actually rate any of those that are left as capable of stepping up.”
That might make them ideal candidates as the next CEO if Piss-Poor doesn’t rate them. He kept saying that the Kerswell was wonderful when everybody else could see that she was useless.
Maybe the only candidates for CEO of Croydon Council are only attracted by the £200k salary, because being CEO of a Council which is bankrupt on so many levels like Croydon won’t exactly enahnce anyone’s CV. Especially as they would be world’s most overpaid ventriloquist’s dummy, just doing the bidding of the (faceless and anonymous) Government-appointed commissioners(?)
Nobody forced her to agree to stay on for extra money as a welcome boost to her retirement fund
I thought the point of an Executive Mayor was to provide executive decision making and explain the strategy that their Council is pursuing. Why does Perry alway require someone to be at his side to support him at Council Meetings. The Council is not even making decisions anymore since these have become the remit of the Commissioners who now officially run the Council. The whole hollowness of this farce and of course the costs to be paid by the Public never seems to bother Perry. Perry is a liability and should be placed on unpaid gardening leave since he does not have an Executive function anymore and the Council already has a Ceremonial Mayor in place.
Because he is an elected Mayor and not an employee there is no provision to place him on”gardening leave” or sack him.
But equally because he’s not an employee there are no payouts he can claim if he even thought about resigning.
If he resigned his statutory deputy (Cllr Lynne Hale) would take over as interim executive Mayor.
We’re coming up to the 6 month rule for vacancies where by-elections aren’t held if there is a vacancy for a councillor if a full election is due within six months. I’m not sure if this six month rule applies to elected mayors though.
But he has clearly failed at being an executive mayor and actually making decisions. Perry seems to have just done what Kerswell told him to do and even done that badly.
Perry is behind so many bad decisions in Croydon. Everyone knew promoting Negrini to council CEO was a mistake. Everyone knew allowing Kerwell to become a permanent CEO at Croydon was a mistake. Perry is a serial bad decision maker who should deselected and go back to his family business making plastic drain pipes.
What is it it about Croydon that attracts the very worst performers into public office? Negrini, Kerswell, Cheesbrough, Perry?
On matters of fact:
Jo Negrini was hired by Croydon Council as exec director of Place (or whatever the title was at that time) when Jason Perry was the cabinet member responsible. It is understood that Negrini’s references including one from Steve Reed, who had known her working in Lambeth
Negrini’s promotion to CEO was when there was a Labour administration at the Town Hall. The appointment was unanimously approved by the appointments committee, we were told at the time.
Kerswell’s interim appointment in 2020 was under a Labour administration
As was Kerswell’s confirmation as permanent CEO in 2021
Croydon Council is bound by The Local Government (Early Termination of Employment) Regulations 2006. This quite clearly covers Exit payment caps (recently revised), and Internal HR/finance policies requiring public accountability for all non-statutory payments.
That means Croydon Council can’t simply pay someone off after a resignation unless it’s justified and fully documented — otherwise it could be treated as an unlawful public expenditure.
Perry has some explaining to do.
So-called opposition councillors worth their allowances would be checking those points right now
Why exactly has Kerswell gone so suddenly? Surely the fact the Council is failing is hardly new? Why now?
It was always Kerswell’s long game to await a golden handshake before retiring.
Clearly events have taken over and Kerswell was worried that she would be sacked with no golden-hsndshake. Perry would have given her the nod.
She then grabbed what she could – £400-500,000 would have been her target but has spectacularly fucked up by ending up with only ] £50,000 and after tax will see less than half of that.
I understand her husband was on a similar local authority gravy train – secure a top job, hang around like a bad smell until someone pays you to fuck off.
Parasites, both.
It’s only a matter of time before we know what really happened and Perry will be back in the gutter (business)….
Because she has finally realised that her strategy and policies are clearly not working so time to do a runner and take another payoff.
Kerswell was never a leader and neither is Jackson. The corporate directors are an unnecessary layer of comfort and all of the hard work is done by Directors and Heads of Service. The whole organisation is Toxic. Corporate Directors force others to make decisions so that they can claim they are not theirs