Council still receiving ‘vast quantities’ of planning applications

Posted on November 28, 2020 by insidecroydon

What trade magazine Property Week described as “an unprecedented volume of planning applications” has been submitted to Croydon Council in the couple of weeks since the authority issued a Section 114 notice to declare itself broke.

Developers remain keen to move in on Croydon

Between October 1 and November 24, the council received 908 planning applications, up by almost one-fifth from the 772 in the same period last year.

Given that one of the criticisms contained within the PwC report into the failures associated with the council’s loss-making house-builders, Brick by Brick, was delays over the planning process caused by lack of staff to deal with its applications, the release of this information to the trade press at this time might appear to be a none-too-subtle attempt to win a reprieve for the planning department from many, if not all, of the additional job cuts being made in Fisher’s Folly. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Croydon Council, Heather Cheesbrough, Planning, RIF, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

‘Vitriol’: council staff let managers know what they think

Posted on November 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: The former Town Hall leader and CEO have been criticised for allowing ‘a bullying culture’ at the council. ‘They were vicious in the way they marginalised anyone that spoke against them’.
STEVEN DOWNES reports

Croydon Council has a “fearful” culture where bullying behaviour goes unchallenged, according to staff responses in the survey carried out at the bankrupt council in the past few weeks.

Jo Negrini: presided over a council with a bullying culture, according to staff

Some staff expressed “anger and vitriol towards senior management”.

The staff engagement exercise also involved focus groups, with the findings reported to the council cabinet this week.

The most recent scrutiny meeting was told of the bullying culture at the council, and long-standing staff members have told Inside Croydon that, in their opinion, some of that came as a result of the approach of Jo Negrini, the chief executive until very recently, and Tony Newman, the now-former council leader who promoted her into the top job.

“They were vicious in the way they marginalised anyone that spoke against them, including, in Newman’s case, their fellow councillors,” the staff member said. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Graham Cadle, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Section 114 notice, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Car crash! Feltz radio interview has Ali struggling for answers

Posted on November 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

Hear the painful 20-minute interview on local radio that left Croydon’s council leader feeling exposed for her part in all the decisions that led to the collapse of the Town Hall finances

Hamida Ali: part of the old regime, and making many of the same mistakes

Hamida Ali, the new-old leader of Croydon Council, has never responded to Inside Croydon’s requests for an interview since she “stepped up” to take her new position a month ago.

Now, she might just be wishing that she had. It surely could not have resulted in a worse outcome than she managed to produce yesterday.

Among the latest redundancies at Ali’s council, it is now very likely that one of those to be handed their P45 will be whichever klutz in the council’s communications department who advised her that it would be a good idea to appear on yesterday morning’s Vanessa Feltz programme.

What followed on BBC Radio London, as you can hear for yourself from our media file below, was the epitome of a car crash interview. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Section 114 notice, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Kerswell to axe ‘at least’ 130 more jobs, starting next week

Posted on November 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

‘It’s like we’re some kind of grotesque human sacrifice’. KEN LEE, our Town Hall reporter, on how ‘deleting’ more than 400 council posts already this year just was not enough for the Whitehall suits

There soon will be hardly any council staff left at this rate

Staff consultations are due to begin next week to cut a further 130 council jobs, “at least”, according to sources within Fisher’s Folly.

That’s on top of the 400-plus council posts already “deleted” this year at the bankrupted council.

The move by interim chief executive Katherine Kerswell comes as Labour-controlled Croydon tries to plug a £66million hole in this year’s budget – £36million of which is attributable to profits and loan interest from loss-making house-builder Brick by Brick which remains unpaid. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Katherine Kerswell, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Five tips for improving mental health through gardening

Posted on November 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

The garden at the Royal Bethlem has helped thousands with mental health issues

The Bethlem Royal Hospital is raising funds to help its patients recover from severe mental illness in the calming environment of their therapy garden.

Under this year’s Big Give appeal, which runs from December 1 to 8, every £1 raised by the hospital will be doubled through match-funding.

The project is urging everyone to connect with nature – whether you have your own garden or visit a local park. Here are five top tips for improving your mental health through connecting with nature, based on the New Economic Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing. Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Environment, Gardening, Health | Leave a comment

Newman returns… to vote down motion in support of Corbyn

Posted on November 27, 2020 by insidecroydon

‘Centrist’ Labour MP and councillors turn out for local party meeting to defend Sir Keir Starmer and David Evans, where a debate on freedom of speech was banned. Our political editor, WALTER CRONXITE, reports

Tony Newman, the discredited and increasingly widely distrusted former leader of the Labour group at the Town Hall which bankrupted Croydon Council, made a rare appearance at a local party meeting last night.

Tony Newman: not been chucked out of the Labour Party yet

Newman and his sidekick, Simon Hall, formerly the council’s cabinet member for finance, who left behind a £1.5billion mountain of debt, both attended the latest meeting of the Croydon Central Constituency Labour Party, where up for debate was a motion of no confidence in the party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and David Evans, the party’s general secretary.

There were two other motions which grassroots Labour members had hoped to discuss, one which called for the Labour whip at Westminster to be restored to former leader Jeremy Corbyn. Both motions were ruled out of order by officials at Labour’s London Region, thought to be acting on behalf of Evans.

The second motion to be banned was one which opposed restrictions on freedom of speech. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Central, Hamida Ali, Paul Scott, Sarah Jones MP, Tony Newman, Woodside | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Lacey still spinning as he hangs on to his job at Brick by Brick

Posted on November 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

It is not only the former council chief exec who has shown unconcealed contempt for the borough’s residents. Now, as our housing correspondent BARRATT HOLMES reports, the discredited head of the council-owned builders is pushing his luck, too

Contemptuous: Colm Lacey

Colm Lacey was last night effectively kicked off the board of Brick by Brick, the loss-making house-builders whose failure to deliver homes or revenues helped to bankrupt Croydon Council.

But he is refusing to resign from his job as the company’s chief executive, which comes with a gold-plated salary estimated to be worth £150,000 per year (we can’t confirm the precise figure, as in a style typical of his firm’s late delivery of housing, Lacey’s company has failed to publish its latest set of audited accounts on time). Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Callton Young, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Housing, Jane Avis, Leila Ben-Hassel, Section 114 notice, Stuart King | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

London can begin to emerge from covid lockdown next week

Posted on November 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

Croydon and the rest of London, plus Surrey and Sussex, though not Kent, will be able to emerge from the second lockdown next Wednesday, it was announced in the House of Commons this morning.

From December 2,  the capital and most of south-east England will be in what the government now calls Tier 2 restrictions. That means non-essential shops, even some pubs, can open for business once again. Continue reading →

Posted in Health | Tagged , | Leave a comment

‘The Tories have given us a sticking plaster for a broken bone’

Posted on November 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: It’s time to take a step back from the council’s financial crisis and look at the bigger picture, says the Green Party’s PETER UNDERWOOD

We know that the problems at Croydon Council are due to a long history of financial mismanagement and incompetence at the top – including both political parties that have councillors at the Town Hall and the officials working for them.

This has led to catalogue of bad decisions and poor judgement, particularly when it comes to property. From paying way over the odds to build Bernard Wetherill House, to leaving all of the town centre regeneration hopes in the hands of a private consortium who would always put their profits ahead of the borough’s future, through to the disaster that is Brick by Brick.

But Croydon is not unique. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Croydon Greens, Peter Underwood | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Make sure you protect your consumer rights on Black Friday

Posted on November 26, 2020 by insidecroydon

Keep a close check on your budget before venturing forth to snap up those Black Friday bargains.

That’s the advice from Citizens Advice Croydon ahead of what has become the biggest day in the retailing year. Citizen’s Advice is also reminding Croydon consumers of their online shopping rights.

“With so many bargains around at this time of year, many people across Croydon may feel the pressure to part with their money,” says Claire Keetch, the chief exec of Citizens Advice Croydon. Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Charity, Croydon CAB | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Negrini missing from list of finance investigation interviewees

Posted on November 25, 2020 by insidecroydon

EXCLUSIVE: The former CEO, who presided over a £500m increase in the borough’s debts in just three years, may avoid being questioned about the financial collapse of the council. By STEVEN DOWNES

Questions to answer: Jo Negrini, the council’s former £220,000 per year CEO

Jo Negrini, the council official who led Croydon to the brink of bankruptcy before strolling away with a £440,000 pay-off in August, could yet dodge questioning in the official investigation into the borough’s financial collapse.

That’s according to senior officials at Fisher’s Folly, who have ordered journalists to “remove any reference to Jo Negrini” in their reporting of the investigation which is to be conducted with the help of the Local Government Association, which was announced last week by Negrini’s successor as council CEO, Katherine Kerswell.

“Many will think it’s a scandal if Negrini is immune from questioning,” one senior Croydon source told Inside Croydon today, as the reality emerged that, when negotiating the chief exec’s severance terms, the council’s lawyers failed to include anything to oblige her to assist with any post mortem into the mess she had done so much to create.

The investigation, Inside Croydon has discovered, is to be conducted by Richard Penn, the CEO at Bradford council when Eric Pickles was the leader of the city council. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Jo Negrini, Katherine Kerswell, Section 114 notice, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Give a little, help a lot: comic Jo Brand backs Bethlem appeal

Posted on November 25, 2020 by insidecroydon

The therapy garden at the Royal Bethlem Hospital has helped thousands of patients

TV comic Jo Brand is backing an appeal from the Bethlem Royal Hospital, where she used to work as a mental health nurse, to raise funds to help patients recover from severe mental illness in the calming environment of the hospital’s therapy garden.

Under this year’s Big Give appeal, which runs from December 1 to 8, every £1 raised by the hospital will be doubled through match-funding.

“As a former Bethlem and Maudsley Nurse,” Brand said, “I saw first-hand how important it is for people to access outdoor space and nature to aid their recovery.

“The Bethlem Garden is a unique and wonderful example of NHS staff providing a vital service, supported entirely by charitable funding.” Continue reading →

Posted in Charity, Gardening, Health | Tagged , | Leave a comment

‘Mistakes will be made’ warn staff after latest round of cuts

Posted on November 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: Libraries to close, refuse dumps to close, while elderly, disabled and mental health services are to be cut. Even buses for SEND schoolchildren face the axe. Yet the council’s ‘renewal plan’ will still spend £37m more in 2021-2022 than was budgeted in this disastrous year that has bankrupted the Town Hall.
STEVEN DOWNES reports

Shirley Library is one of the branches which is under threat of permanent closure

Council staff were still reeling this morning after yesterday’s departmental briefings and the release of the latest cost-cutting proposals, which many believe will require dozens, if not hundreds, of further redundancies on top of the 400 jobs that have been already axed this year at the bankrupt council.

This is the plan which Croydon is going to present to Whitehall in search of a bail-out loan – though whether the mandarins will be impressed with all the proposed cuts still coming up with an overall increase in spending of £36.96million in 2021-2022 remains to be seen.

The “renewal plans” are contained in one of a welter of documents going to tomorrow night’s Town Hall cabinet meeting to deal with the financial emergency at the council. The reports include PwC’s recommendations for loss-making house-builders Brick by Brick. Continue reading →

Posted in Adult Social Care, Children's Services, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Katherine Kerswell, Libraries, Refuse collection, Sarah Hayward, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Brick by Brick part of a perfect storm that bankrupted Croydon

Posted on November 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON COMMENTARY: The Price Waterhouse Coopers report confirms that the council-owned house-builders have been badly mismanaged, putting at risk millions of pounds of public funds. As one reader asks – why wasn’t something done much sooner?

Could Brick by Brick be trusted even to build a house with these bricks?

This is a thoroughly damning report.

It confirms concerns about Brick by Brick which have been expressed by many outside the council for a long time, and which have been well-reported by Inside Croydon.

The consultants Price Waterhouse Coopers say, “The depth of our work has been limited by the unavailability of robust financial information from [Brick by Brick]. The lack of management accounts and a 13-week rolling cash flow is concerning.” Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Arts Council refuses to investigate job losses at Fairfield Halls

Posted on November 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

Arts correspondent BELLA BARTOCK on the mounting scandal at the council-owned arts venue, where fears grow that it might never reopen

Uncertain future: the Fairfield Halls has been closed for  all but six months since 2016

The Arts Council has told Inside Croydon that they are powerless to intervene after BHLive, the social enterprise appointed to run the council-owned Fairfield Halls, laid off the last of its full-time staff just days after receiving a £2.5million grant intended to help the venue reopen after covid-19.

According to some former staff members, they fear that the Fairfield Halls may never reopen due to the unfinished and poor standard of some of the controversial refurbishment works carried out at the venue.

Former staffers at the Fairfield say that they have been told by senior management at BHLive that they will be unemployed for just nine weeks, and that they could then be re-hired in the New Year – though they fear on much-reduced terms.

Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Ashcroft Theatre, BH Live, Fairfield Halls, Theatre | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

E-Moo-gency services rescue pregnant cow on Farthing Downs

Posted on November 24, 2020 by insidecroydon

The steaks were high when the London Fire Brigade got an e-moo-gency call-out on Sunday morning to avoid udder chaos on Farthing Downs.

The pregnant cow on Farthing Downs after being hauled from a ditch

One of the herd of Sussex cattle that are part of an ecology project on the Downs, near Coulsdon, had fallen into a ditch on Ditches Lane and needed rescuing.

Station Commander Matt Leaver, who was at the scene, said: “Crews worked swiftly to rescue a pregnant cow who was stuck on her side in a ditch.

“Working with a local vet, we used large animal rescue equipment, including ropes, strops and slings, to help the cow get back on her feet safely.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Coulsdon, London Fire Brigade | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Lacey to be removed from board of mismanaged Brick by Brick

Posted on November 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

Consultants’ report is latest damning review of Croydon’s badly-run council. By STEVEN DOWNES

Colm Lacey is to be removed from the board of Brick by Brick, the council’s loss-making house-builder, while funding for new schemes is to be frozen and all land transfers halted, under recommendations from consultants published today by Croydon’s bankrupt council.

Colm Lacey: removed from the board of Brick by Brick, the company which he mismanaged so badly

The report, from Price Waterhouse Coopers, is the latest fiercely critical review of the Labour-controlled council’s badly-run investment and development schemes.

In the case of Brick by Brick, the council has poured more than £200million into the firm since 2015 but has not received a penny back in profits or loan interest and repayments – a key cause of the council being forced to declare itself bankrupt with a Section114 notice 10 days ago.

The consultants criticise the poor financial management of Brick by Brick, where Lacey, a former council exec with no experience or background in running a commercial development firm, was appointed as its founding managing director and chief exec. Lacey is one of just two directors currently on the board at Brick by Brick, the other being chairman Martyn Evans.

A meeting of the council cabinet this week is expected to approve the removal of Lacey and Evans from the board, to be replaced by two senior figures in the reviews that have been carried out in Fisher’s Folly since the council’s finances went into a tailspin in May: Duncan Whitfield, Southwark’s director of finance and governance, and Ian O’Donnell, the CIPFA accountant who found 75 areas of the borough’s governance that did not meet best practice.

Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Brick by Brick, Colm Lacey, Croydon Council, Jo Negrini, Martyn Evans, Planning, Section 114 notice, Simon Hall, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Work to stop floods in Kenley and Purley scrapped by council

Posted on November 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

Parts of Kenley, Purley and Whyteleafe were affected by flooding for months in 2014

Croydon’s bankrupt council has cancelled vital flood-prevention measures in the south of the borough because it has already spent the money it was given for the works.

That’s according to the Town Hall opposition Tories, who say that funding had been provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but the council failed to ring-fence the cash and so it was subsumed into the general fund.

According to local Conservatives, schemes intended to alleviate the kind of floods which hit Purley and Kenley so badly in 2014 are among the first casualties of cost-cutting being undertaken since the council issued its Section 114 notice to declare that it has gone broke. Continue reading →

Posted in Coulsdon, Croydon Council, Environment, Helen Redfern, Kenley, Purley, Purley Oaks and Riddlesdown, Section 114 notice | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Support for Corbyn to be debated at party meeting this week

Posted on November 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

Members of Croydon Central Constituency Labour Party – where use of the word “Blairite” was once banned – will this week debate a motion of no confidence in their party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and David Evans, the party’s general secretary.

Support: party members in Croydon are among those who have criticised the way Jeremy Corbyn has been treated

Another motion to be discussed at Thursday’s virtual meeting calls for the Labour whip to be restored to former party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Croydon Central covers the area where, nearly 20 years ago Evans, after working on two General Election campaigns for Tony Blair, set up the offices of his business, The Campaign Company.

Evans has been an influential figure behind the scenes with Croydon Labour, while his company has benefited from hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of council contracts. He shares a daughter with Alison Butler, the former deputy council leader and part of discredited council leader Tony Newman’s Blairite clique. Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Croydon Central, Sarah Jones MP, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Row after Labour councillor calls for scrutiny chair to resign

Posted on November 23, 2020 by insidecroydon

Backbench councillors who have been marginalised for years under Tony Newman and his cronies are beginning to ask some awkward questions.
KEN LEE reports

Jamie Audsley: call for scrutiny chair to resign

Jamie Audsley, a councillor consigned to almost permanent backbench status under the rule of former leader Tony Newman, started a full-blown row within the council Labour group at the weekend after he sent an email to Sean Fitzsimons calling for his resignation as chair of the Town Hall scrutiny committee.

The work of the scrutiny committee, and its failures to adequately flag-up the council’s failings over its finances, Brick by Brick and the then leader’s misadventures in the property market, were roundly criticised by the Report in the Public Interest from auditors Grant Thornton last month. Sarah Ironmonger, from Grant Thornton, repeated most of those criticisms in a coldly surgical examination of Croydon’s bankrupt council at last week’s extraordinary council meeting. Continue reading →

Posted in Caragh Skipper, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Jamie Audsley, Report in the Public Interest, Sean Fitzsimons, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Council staff are summoned to meetings for more job cuts

Posted on November 22, 2020 by insidecroydon

Hundreds of council staff members, from departments across the organisation, face special meetings tomorrow which many believe will determine whether they have any future working for cash-strapped Croydon.

Cuts to council jobs are likely to go even deeper after meetings this week

This comes on top of the 400 posts at the council which have been earmarked to be axed or left unfilled in the first round of mass redundancies carried out over the past four months.

Now, after the council issued a Section 114 notice a fortnight ago to declare itself bankrupt, interim chief executive Katherine Kerswell is looking to make even deeper cuts to the services, even those which it has a duty to provide by law. Continue reading →

Posted in Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Katherine Kerswell, Section 114 notice, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

BHLive laid off Halls staff just days after receiving £2.5m grant

Posted on November 21, 2020 by insidecroydon

EXCLUSIVE: Our arts correspondent, BELLA BARTOCK, on the mounting scandal surrounding the operating company in charge of the Fairfield Halls

Chris Symons: BHLive chief is silent on the situation at the Fairfield Halls

Within days of being awarded a £2.5million government grant intended to help the arts venues that they operate through the covid-19 lockdown, BHLive, who manage the Fairfield Halls, laid off the last of their full-time staff at the Croydon venue.

Around 30 staff, in senior, full-time jobs at the Fairfield Halls, have been made redundant by BHLive since August, without the Bournemouth-based social enterprise making any attempt to use the government’s furlough scheme now that it has been extended to next March. The last of the P45s were handed out at the end of October.

These follow the 80 part-time and casual staff who were “let go” by BHLive in June.

Former Fairfield Halls workers who have spoken to Inside Croydon have expressed their disgust at the way they have been treated by BHLive, and raised serious concerns about the future of the council-owned venue. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, BH Live, Fairfield Halls | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Grassroots Labour Party members in calls to sack David Evans

Posted on November 20, 2020 by insidecroydon

WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, on the backlash against Sir Keir Starmer and his general secretary’s treatment of Jeremy Corbyn

David Evans: divisive figure, in Croydon Labour and across the country

David Evans, the “power behind the throne” of Croydon Labour, is now under attack from local parties across the country for his mishandling of disciplinary measures against former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

One south London CLP last night called for Evans to be sacked.

Evans, a former aide to Tony Blair, was credited with helping Labour regain control of Croydon Town Hall in 2014 and helping Sarah Jones win the Croydon Central parliamentary seat three years later.

Earlier this year, shortly after Sir Keir Starmer became leader, he was appointed General Secretary of the Labour Party. Inside Croydon reported at the time that the appointment could “tear Labour apart”.

And now, after Evans’s decision to suspend Corbyn from the party following the publication of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission report on antisemitism in Labour, CLPs – constituency Labour parties – across Britain have passed motions condemning the treatment of the former leader.

Tribune describes Starmer and Evans’s position as “a war on the membership”.

Continue reading →

Posted in Alison Butler, Croydon Central, Croydon Council, Croydon North, Croydon South, Sarah Jones MP, Section 114 notice, Steve Reed MP, Tony Newman | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Croydon house fires prompt safety warnings over batteries

Posted on November 20, 2020 by insidecroydon

The London Fire Brigade successfully tackled a fire at a house on Whitehorse Lane in South Norwood this morning. It was the second house fire at a home in Croydon in a couple of days, in a week when the Brigade issued safety warnings over the use, charging and storage of the batteries most households use in their laptop computers and mobile phones.

The fire on St James’s Road destroyed a flat. It was thought to be caused by a battery. Pic: LFB

The warning over lithium-ion batteries came after an entire flat was destroyed by a blaze believed to have been caused by one in a flat on St James’s Road in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

No one was seriously hurt in either of the two Croydon fires.

This morning, just after 4am, four fire engines and around 25 firefighters from Woodside, Norbury and Croydon fire stations were called to the fire in South Norwood, where the roof and the first floor of a semi-detached house were destroyed and most of the ground floor was damaged. A small part of the roof of a neighbouring property was also damaged by the blaze. Continue reading →

Posted in London Fire Brigade, South Norwood | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The late, late show: scrutiny sees anger and hears of bullying

Posted on November 19, 2020 by insidecroydon

CROYDON IN CRISIS: The council is ‘on a journey’, according to the interim chief executive, who clung firmly to platitudes and clichés at her first scrutiny committee this week. But will it all be just ‘words, words, words’, as a veteran councillor asked? WALTER CRONXITE sat through the turgid meeting so that you wouldn’t have to

Sean Fitzsimons: a Doubting Thomas, six years too late

It’s been rare to see real emotion from the borough’s councillors in their various meetings in previous years. So the outbreak of frankness and outright anger evident in the virtual scrutiny and overview committee on Tuesday night was, in its way, a refreshing change to the tightly-controlled, censored sessions that were a vital element of the opaque council when Tony Newman and Jo Negrini were in charge.

But there was also a sense that it is just all too late now.

“We have to rethink our approach,” Sean Fitzsimons, the scrutiny chair, told his committee, a little belatedly. It was the widescale failings of the scrutiny committee to, well… scrutinise elements of the council’s financial wheeling and dealing which had drawn special criticism from the council’s auditors in their Report in the Public Interest last month. Continue reading →

Posted in Brick by Brick, Croydon Council, Hamida Ali, Jerry Fitzpatrick, Jo Negrini, Joy Prince, Katherine Kerswell, Paul Scott, Report in the Public Interest, Sean Fitzsimons, Section 114 notice, Tony Newman, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments