Town Hall reporter KEN LEE on how even insiders have been forced to admit that the Mayor’s plan to ‘fix the finances’ has flopped
Waste of money: Mayor Perry approved spending £6m on consultants for the transformation plan which has failed
The council and the government-appointed Commissioners are “concerned with transformation pace, focus and outcomes” related to the Town Hall “transformation” plan, according to a leaked internal report which has been published today by The Municipal Journal.
Jason Perry, Croydon’s failed Mayor, approved the move by the council’s previous chief executive, Katherine Kerswell, for the cash-strapped council to spend millions of pounds on external consultants, including Boston Consulting, Impower and Newton, which provided what they called a “transformation” plan.
It was supposed to resolve the authority’s long-standing financial problems. But according to internal document seen by The MJ, the transformation plan has failed.
Kerswell quit her job in October last year, and was handed £50,000 in lieu of notice, the payment approved by Perry.
Costly failure: The Municipal Journal has published details from an internal council briefing
According to The MJ, the internal briefing, which was circulated to council staff in July, says, “Some initiatives not progressing well and causing tension within the organisation.”
A staff survey found that the council’s transformation programme “was not understood”.
Senior execs within the council and the Commissioners told staff that there is: “A need to refocus and reset”.
Croydon Council has issued three Section 114 notices since October 2020. Its debt is now £1.7billion, up by £300million since Jason Perry became Mayor in 2022 promising to “fix the finances”.
Perry was re-elected in May for a second four-year term, having claimed that he had “stabilised” the omnishambles council’s finances. Yet this internal briefing suggests that that is far from the truth.
It confirms that a new financial strategy is “being developed for the coming year”.
The briefing was from the Commissioners and the council’s CMT – “Corporate Management Team” in councilspeak, meaning the six-figure salaried senior officials at Fisher’s Folly.
“The presentation revealed the council was closing down its ‘not successful’ shared services project,” The MJ reports.
“A ‘rapid review’ of the transformation programme in May found ‘activity has become too diffuse, with significant effort invested across many projects but limited demonstrable impact on services, financial sustainability or organisational performance’,” the magazine report says.
No access: Kerswell and Mayor Perry closed the Access Croydon public areas in the council HQ
“‘The context is one of significant financial pressure, high service demand and workforce instability, particularly in frontline and statutory services’,” it continues.
“‘Against this backdrop, the review emphasises the need to refocus transformation on its core purpose: delivering measurable outcomes, removing organisational friction and accelerating execution’.”
Dissembling as ever, Perry’s propaganda department ssued a statement to the magazine which claimed, “We set high aspirations at the outset and have since adapted our approach as the programme has developed.”
Which is a long-winded way of saying that Kerswell’s transformation plan, after spending £6million on outside consultants, has been junked.
Read more: Tory Perry tries to appoint £123,000 ‘transformation director’
Read more: After closing libraries, now Philistine Perry takes axe to CALAT
Read more: Perry’s plan: More borrowing. More debt. And £58m more cuts
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Silly staff, not understanding a transformation programme that has seen a once respected well-run organisation transformed into a basket case where top managers come and go, failing and getting paid off for it.
It’s not Council money that Perry is flushing down the Mayoral throne after he’s messed it up. It’s our hard-earned taxes
Sounds like Tory strategy every time – throw money at things in the hope enough money makes it go away. But it never works. Another fine example is Tory mis-handling of the NHS whilst they were in power.
Instead the council need to focus their attention on individual issues and find somebody to help who actually knows what they’re doing, rather than the most expensive “millions of pounds” outfit they can find. After all, we’re all paying for it.
“Against this backdrop, the review emphasises the need to refocus transformation on its core purpose: delivering measurable outcomes, removing organisational friction and accelerating execution”
In other words do what taxpayers pay you to do. More millions wasted by overpaid, overpensioned, underperforming Council leaders and no-one held to account.