Croydon, under its Tory Mayor, is getting worse, not better, judging by the number of complaints upheld by the Local Government Ombudsman in the last year.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Croydon continues to be among the country’s most rotten boroughs, and under Mayor Jason Perry the council is getting worse, based on figures from the watchdog, the Local Government Ombudsman.

According to the Ombudsman’s annual report, just released, there were

42

complaints upheld against piss-poor Perry’s increasingly piss-poor council following their investigations in the past year.

That’s an average of at least three complaints from residents being upheld every month.

The upheld complaints figure for Croydon, where the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s office found fault with Mayor Perry’s council, is up by 31% in 2025-2026 compared to the previous reporting year.

Failed Mayor: there are far more complaints submitted about the council under Perry

Total complaints lodged against Croydon Council have soared by more than 50% in the past two years under failed Mayor Perry.

Overall, there were far more complaints about Croydon Council made in the past year: 281 in total. That’s up from 234 in 2024-2025, and 186 in 2023-2024.

That was the first full year when Perry was in charge of Croydon Town Hall, with Katherine Kerswell as the authority’s chief executive.

Kerswell quit Fisher’s Folly last October, helped on her way by Perry agreeing to a £50,000 pay-off in lieu of notice. In the case of Perry, the residents of Croydon have another three more years of his petty ways, after he was re-elected as Mayor with a wafer-thin majority in May.

There is a very high bar set just for a member of the public to be allowed even to submit a complaint to the Ombudsman, as they first have to go through two stages of complaint with the council itself – first when it rules on its own conduct, then when it is allowed to mark its own homework.

Only when a resident has managed to get through those bureaucratic barriers at Fisher’s Folly might they then take the matter up with the independent watchdog at the LGSCO.

So if the Ombudsman is upholding ever more complaints about Perry’s council, it is indicative of a dysfunctional organisation which is failing on many levels, and is certainly not learning from its errors.

After the false dawn of some modest improvement last year, when only 32 complaints were upheld by the Ombudsman, down from 43 in 2023-2024, it appears that Croydon has slumped back into its bad old ways.

And according to the Ombudsman’s preferred method of measurement, comparing figures for upheld complaints per 100,000 population in an administration’s area, Croydon is firmly back among the rottenest boroughs in England, in 18th place on the table of shame with a score of 10.3.

That compares unfavourably with 2024-2025 when Croydon was a “mere” 31st on that table, with 8.0 upheld complaints per 100,000 residents.

Croydon’s total number of complaints in the past year – 363 – puts our borough in eighth place in that league table for 2025-2026, just behind Surrey County Council (368 with 93 upheld). Birmingham City Council – the largest local authority in Europe – tops that version of a poor performance table with its 747 complaints (of which 113 were upheld).

Croydon’s performance compared to its neighbours is worth considering.

• Sutton had just eight complaints upheld out of 83 received (3.7 decisions upheld per 100,000 population).
• Bromley had a total of 179 complaints submitted to the Ombudsman, of which 49 were upheld (14.6 complaints upheld per 100,000).
• Lambeth, who share a parliamentary constituency with Croydon, were subject to 349 complaints in total, of which 60 were upheld – a rate per 100,000 residents of 18.9 upheld complaints.

That makes Lambeth officially the second-worst borough in England – and gives the borough’s new Green Party administration at Brixton Town Hall a tough task to clear up after Steve Reed’s Labour colleagues.

Lambeth are runners-up again behind Haringey, with 19.3 upheld complaints per 100,000 residents (they had 51 upheld altogether).

The Ombudsman handles complaints across a range of mostly statutory services including adult social care, children and education, housing and planning.

Given the continued presence in these tables of serial offenders such as Haringey and Lambeth, Surrey and, indeed, Croydon, it suggests that council execs across the country are happy to take the occasional rap on the knuckles – and use public money to pay a few thousand quid in fines or compensation – and then carry on as normal.

Essex, with 235 upheld complaints (15.0 per 100k), were the only non-London council in the top/bottom 10 of the population-adjusted league table.

Overall, Essex had more upheld complaints in 2025-2026 than any other authority (from 518 received).

Overview: from the Ombudsman’s report, figures that reflect growing dissatisfaction with local authorities across England

Amerdeep Clarke, the Ombudsman, described this year as “an historic opportunity to rebuild public trust in local services through local government reforms”. Though some might suggest that councils such as Croydon, Bromley and Lambeth could achieve that by not giving their residents so much to complain about.

The Ombudsman’s figures show a 33% increase in complaints made over the past year, to 27,625. Things at town halls across the land appear to be getting worse, rather than better.

Housing complaints were the most common issue brought to the Ombudsman, making up almost one-fifth of complaints received.

And complaints about support for children with special educational needs and disabilities – SEND – made up more than one-third of all the cases upheld, more than any other single issue.

In her report, Ombudsman Clarke said, “The figures reflect… a broader and deepening crisis of public confidence”.

She said: “A 33% rise in complaints is not a statistical blip. It is a signal. There is a serious and growing gap between what residents expect and what they are receiving from their local authorities.”

And a 30% rise in upheld complaints against Perry’s council is not “a statistical blip”, either. Ombudsman Clarke makes a strong point. Croydon’s residents have been paying more and getting much less ever since Perry took charge.

• The full report, along with data for each local authority in England, is available at www.lgo.org.uk/annualreview

Read more: Surrey, Lambeth and Bromley beat Croydon as rotten boroughs
Read more: IT’S OFFICIAL: Croydon still among country’s worst councils
Read more: Croydon’s council close to the top of the table – for complaints
Read more: Council chief Kerswell has doubled up on £140,000+ executives

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