Croydon’s Conservative Mayor, who has hiked Council Tax by 33% since 2023, still needs another £119m government bail-out to make his council budget balance. By STEVEN DOWNES
Perry, who in May is seeking re-election for a second four-year term, will have received £317.3million in Exceptional Financial Support from Westminster since 2023, increasing the cash-strapped borough’s debt burden, but while also increasing residents’ Council Tax by 33% in the same period.
Perry’s 2026-2027 budget proposals, including his latest 5% Council Tax hike, are set to be debated in the Town Hall Chamber on Wednesday night.
Tory Perry has failed to deliver a balanced budget during his entire term, although he has been given a “free pass” and not had to issue any further Section 114 notices – admission of effective bankruptcy – since November 2022.
That S114 led to Perry’s first Council Tax increase, a record 15% in April 2023.
In 2021, when seeking election as Croydon’s first executive Mayor, Perry promised to “fix the finances”.
No where to hide: Tory Mayor Jason Perry is refusing to be interviewed on his record by Inside Croydon
During his time in office, Perry has increased Council Tax by £600 per year (for a typical Band D property), and made hundreds of council staff redundant while axing public services, closing public libraries and even sacking the borough’s remaining school lollipop patrols. Yet “fix the finances” Perry has never managed to make the books balance.
So while Labour-controlled councils in Westminster and Wandsworth are able this year to increase Council Tax by the minimum 2% to cover their social care precept, Tory-run Croydon has needed the second-biggest bail-out in the country just to be able to continue operating what’s left of its services.
Council debt remains at £1.4billion, just as it was on Perry’s first day in office. It all renders his latest election campaign leaflets – slogan: “Stabilising Croydon’s finances” – a bit of a sick joke. And not a funny one, either.
“‘Back on track’?” one Katharine Street source said today of some of the Tory Mayor’s messaging. “Perry has just piled even more debt, and punishing loan interest, on to the long-suffering residents of Croydon, while delivering ever-worse services. The man has no shame.”
Perry and his cabinet member for finance, Jason Cummings, had been boasting publicly recently on how they had needed only – yes, only – £110.3million of the £136million EFS, or Exceptional Financial Support, provided by the government last year.
That £136million figure was a record capitalisation direction (borrowing allowed against the disposal of capital assets) for Croydon, and that coupled with Perry and council CEO Katherine Kerswell’s genius plan to borrow even more money, prompted the government to send in Commissioners in July to take the management of Croydon’s finances out of Perry’s hands.
In the red, in black and white: the MHCLG figures out Croydon’s problems
And while another £26million-worth of cuts meant that the whole of last year’s settlement was not required by Croydon, Perry and Cummings were less forthcoming about their need for £119million EFS for 2026-2027.
Over Perry’s four years in office, he has sought EFS of £50million (2023-2024), £38million (2024-2025), £110.3million (2025-2026) and now £119million (2026-2027).
“It is hard to characterise that in any way as some kind of ‘improvement’, or ‘stabilising the finances’, as Mayor Perry is trying to claim,” a senior council figure said today.
“If Perry’s ‘stabilisation plan’ had worked, there would never have been a need to send in the Commissioners. Or keep doling out £100million annual bail-outs.
“All Perry has managed to do while in office is lumber residents with another one-third of a billion pounds of debt. His election messaging is deceitful, and increasingly desperate.”
Only Shropshire County Council, with £121million, has been given more than Croydon’s EFS settlement for 2026-2027.
Potless: both councils covered by MP Steve Reed’s constituency, Croydon and Lambeth, need hundreds of millions in bailouts
Also on the bail-outs list is Lambeth with £116million, £96million of that back-dated to cover 2024-2025 and 2025-2026.
Lambeth and Croydon are in the constituency of Labour’s Secretary of State for local government, Steve Reed.
Croydon and Lambeth are among nine London councils requiring emergency funding, to the tune of £530million for boroughs in the capital.
Even the City of London Corporation is having to get financial help – £2.65m to manage financial pressures in its Housing Revenue Account.
“Recent analysis by London Councils found boroughs face an ‘impossible’ challenge to plug a collective £1billion funding shortfall in 2025-2026, which is expected to rise to £4.7billion by 2029,” The London Sub-Standard reports.
Rising cost pressures, for statutory services which have to be provided by law, in adult social services, schools’ SEND provision and providing emergency housing, have hit all councils across the country.
Under the EFS bail-outs announced yesterday, councils like Croydon will be allowed to use their capital funding, including receipts from asset sales, to cover day-to-day costs.
- Paid-up subscribers to this website can listen to The Andrew Fisher Interview with Labour’s Rowenna Davis by clicking here
- Andrew Fisher will be interviewing Liberal Democrat candidate Richard Howard and the Green Party’s Peter Underwood over the next few weeks
- We still have an empty Zoom slot available for Mayor Perry, should he pluck up the courage to face some proper public scrutiny
Read more: 33% Council Tax increase: Mayor Perry’s legacy for Croydon
Read more: Council’s agency staff bill includes £726 PER HOUR consultant
Read more: McMahon acts after serious concerns on ‘aspects of leadership’
Read more: Borrowing plan would lead to council’s ‘collapse’ says report
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