Cash-strapped Croydon now has at least three execs, two of them interims, being paid at rates of £200,000 per year or more. But someone in Mayor Jason Perry’s council is trying to keep the latest appointment a secret.
EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES

Croydon has appointed a new assistant chief executive, the third one in less than a year, as the churn of top officials at Fisher’s Folly continues unabated, despite dire warnings for Jason Perry’s council from government-appointed Commissioners.

Stephen Gaskell started as the interim assistant chief exec in July, an appointment strangely unmentioned by the propaganda bunker in the council HQ. But our style-over-substance senior civic servants have managed to invent a councilspeak acronym for Gaskell that they use in internal publications: ACE. Geddit?

Unannounced: Stephen Gaskell is ACE, apparently

Gaskell has been recruited because his immediate predecessor, the well-regarded Jenny Rowlands, took barely eight weeks to see the chaos at Croydon Council before she scarpered off to a less-badly run organisation. Perry and his Tory muppets in the council cabinet must be keeping everything crossed that Gaskell manages to stick it out at Croydon for a little longer, at least.

Rowlands was appointed following the abrupt exit in October 2025 of Katherine Kerswell after five years as council CEO and three Section 114 notices. Kerswell quit Croydon just weeks after the government’s Commissioners arrived to oversee the management of the council. Kerswell was helped on her way by a £50,000 pay-off authorised by Mayor Perry.

When Kerswell’s assistant chief exec, Elaine Jackson, stepped up and into the breach, that created the vacancy for an assistant CEO.

Now even Elaine Jackson, as interim CEO, has gone, with Mike Jackson (no relation) taking over the top job in August.

With Conrad Hall recently confirmed as the council’s finance director, it means that the top echelon of the council’s leadership has all changed since the start of this year. 

Interim’s interim: Mike Jackson started in temporary charge of the council a fortnight ago

While the departures of Kerswell, Elaine Jackson and previous Section 151 official, Jane West, might not be the subject of much public lamentation, none of it signals a stable or well-run organisation under Jason Perry’s political leadership. Who says so? The government Commissioners, that’s who…

In the Commissioners’ first report to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which was published in March, they warned that efforts to end Croydon’s repeated deficit budgets are “at risk due to a lack of focus, prioritisation and robust, agreed delivery plans”.

And the report added that the council’s reliance on interim managers and a high level of “churn” among staff is also undermining any continuity in efforts to fix the problems.

Croydon’s reluctance to publicise the latest top hire, Gaskell’s generous contract funded from residents’ Council Tax, is matched by the authority’s secrecy over the appointment process.

Disapproving: Commissioner Ged Curran has warned against ‘churn’ and too many interims

The bizarre thing about Gaskell’s recruitment is that there is absolutely no record of it being discussed, or approved, by the cross-party council appointments committee at any time in the last nine months. Jason Perry is the chair of the council’s appointments and disciplinary committee.

Between January 1 and the end of September, the council’s website lists 11 meetings of the appointments committee. There were six held in March and April alone, around the time that Rowlands flounced off and someone might have decided that a replacement was required. The top-heavy structure of the council, with dozens of director-level staff on £90,000 per year or more, has been a nettle that Mayor Perry has steadfastly refused to grasp.

Nowhere at any of these council meetings, all logged and minuted, is there a single word about appointing another assistant chief executive, interim or otherwise.

There are notes about Mike Jackson’s interim appointment. That’s how we know that our cash-strapped council is paying him an eye-watering £1,500 per day.

There’s minutes about the long-delayed recruitment of a permanent chief executive, where the salary on offer is £275,000. Applications close just before noon tomorrow, so you’d better get a wiggle on.

And there’s a record of the meeting where it was agreed that in addition to his £166,000 salary, Conrad Hall ought to receive “danger money”, and extra £30,000 per year for “an occupational scarcity allowance”. Cushty!

Public record: when hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money is being spent, it really ought to be discussed and recorded, as was the case for Conrad Hall’s job, above, including the extra £30,000 ‘danger money’ to get around the pay scales

But any record of the decision to hire an interim ACE, and the amount Perry’s council will pay them? Nada. Zilch. Not a dicky bird. Which is odd. And questionable.

The council’s position is that interim appointments – some of which can pay £1,000 per day or more of public money on a temporary seat-filler – do not have to be approved by the committee. Which means that if they want to dodge public scrutiny, they will.

We know that Gaskell’s short-stay predecessor, Rowlands, was on £165,667, plus pension contributions (which could amount to more than £30,000 per year) and she got her own “scarcity allowance” of £7,769.

And we know as fact that Mike Jackson and Conrad Hall are both being paid at least £200,000 per year. So it is very likely that Gaskell, on his own special interim rates, will have joined them in Croydon execs’ exclusive 200k club.

Will Gaskell, unlike so many previous senior appointees in Croydon, be up to the job?

His public record shows that he spent 12 years working at Southwark Council, then a Labour-controlled borough, ultimately as its assistant chief executive. In that time, he co-ordinated that council’s response to the covid pandemic.

Gaskell’s role in introducing a new comms director – or “a spin doctor to peddle Labour lines”, as opposition councillors described it – and paying them a six-figure salary “at the same time as approving millions of pounds in cuts to vital services” was publicly criticised as “an insult to the communities who have been ignored by their council for years”.

So Croydon’s brazen executive recruitment drive will be familiar territory for Gaskell.

During August, Gaskell spent at least a week being given a guided tour of the borough by Carol Squires, a senior council figure who was promoted to interim director level by Kerswell. Which must have been nice for him.

Before joining Croydon, Gaskell had been on the local government interim merry-go-round, picking up 12-month contracts, most recently at the Greater London Authority and before that conducting a review for SOLACE, the council chief execs’ “union”. So he will no doubt be “in” with local government’s “in crowd”.

“Croydon is such a big, busy borough of contrasts. Diverse in geography, community and scale, I’m really getting to know the borough and loving the passion people feel for their place in it,” Gaskell gushed after his guided tour.

He says: “I am passionate about local government, keen to tackle the challenges the sector faces and curious about future innovation.”

And he says: “I am fascinated by place and the people who live there.” Which is probably essential if you are working in the public sector…

Gaskell says that he spends his time outside work “actively engaged in my local community, running a local live theatre group”, where he worked “with local business to bring a greater mix of activities to our area”.

Perhaps Gaskell can start by taking a look at the Fairfield Halls? If he needs a guided tour, Inside Croydon can oblige, at zero cost to the public.

• Click here to read the council’s ‘role profile’ for the permanent chief executive job

Read more: Exposed: New CEO’s role in Norfolk’s £30m incinerator scandal
Read more: Just the job! Council hands £200,000 finance chief role to Hall
Read more: Croydon’s rewards for failure laid bare in Town Hall Rich List
Read more: Council’s agency staff bill includes £726 per hour consultant

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