Charlotte Webster
Councillors from the notorious Croydon Council will vote on whether to release a long-awaited report detailing failings in the lead-up to the council’s first bankruptcy notice in the Autumn of 2020.
The report, known as the Penn Report, is written by Local Government Association’s Richard Penn, who carried out an investigation into the financial mismanagement of Britain’s most notorious council.
Croydon Council has for years been ravaged with complacency, corruption, and grosse inadequacy, at the expense of its inhabitants. Many of its top executive fat cats have in the past year resigned after multiple failings and shortcomings, which have been an embarrassment to its bosses.
The report was completed in February 2021 but has never been officially published. However, in October 2020 extracts of the report were published by the local news outlet, ‘Inside Croydon’- a fierce critic of the incompetent council. The Municipal Journal also published the report.
An excerpt published by the Municipal Journal read: “Major risks within the council’s revenue budgets and in its investment portfolio appear to have been downplayed in the face of what seemed to have been unbridled optimism and seemingly an almost reckless disregard of the potential adverse consequences of these risks.
“By narrowing its focus and attention to a small number of commercial, regeneration and other goals the council appears to have effectively blinkered itself to its wider responsibilities.
The report into the financial collapse of Croydon Council included the recommendation that councillors considered calling in the Metropolitan Police to investigate possible misconduct in public office, and a further suggestion that Jo Negrini, (pictured)the former CEO, may have broken the terms of her contract and could therefore be pursued to refund her £437,000 pay-off.
Katherine Kerswell, the current Croydon Council CEO, kept a copy of the report locked in her office in Fisher’s Folly since February 2021. Kerswell, a former civil servant has been chief executive of four separate council, yet has a tarnished reputation over the mass scandal in Croydon Council.
Four senior members of staff were suspended over the Penn report, and former leader Tony Newman, and former cabinet member for finance, Simon Hall resigned.
The report highlighted how hundreds of millions of pounds of public money were wasted in Croydon by Brick by Brick- the council-owned house-builders- over the fiasco of the botched Fairfield Halls refurbishment while Jo Negrini was the authority’s chief executive.
It also described a dysfunctional local authority where the former CEO was accused of ignoring elected representatives and keeping vital information from them.
Mr Hall was a subject of an investigation by The Eye Of Media.Com in 2021, after it emerged he had subjected a dejected mother whose son was a double victim of knife crime, to serious mental health problems after he constantly ignored her cries for help, despite several communications from her to be moved.
On Thursday morning , the appointments and disciplinary committee met at the council’s offices to decide whether the report should be published tomorrow, Friday. The council has always tried to sweep important information under the carpet in its vain attempts to evade accountability. While the majority of the meeting, and the final decision, were held in private the report was introduced publicly by council chief executive Katharine Kerswell.
Leader of the Labour opposition, Councillor Stuart King, revealed he had received a letter from one of the people “engaged in the process of the report” and shared this letter with the monitoring officer who decided it should be considered by the committee in the closed session.
Ms Kerswell explained to the committee that they would be deciding whether to release the report now that disciplinary action had been completed. She added this was an “important milestone” for the group of councillors.
Croydon Council has one of the worst reputations for incompetence and corruption, and has for a long time been in desperate need of a make over.