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Croydon Council
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 11:24 am
by discovolante
A drive by post from me. This seems pretty disastrous eh. I wonder how many other councils are in the same boat. Councils love to blame failure to meet their obligations on lack of financial resources and I'm sure that's true to a very large extent but maybe it's accepted as read when perhaps it shouldn't be. That said I'm not sure how much money has been lost due to mismanagement compared to government cuts etc and over what period etc so someone at the guardian should definitely look into that.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... nvestments
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... d-services
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:18 pm
by basementer
If memory serves, Brent Council cut services such as libraries to the bone after they lost a shedload of money by speculating in foreign currency. That was twenty or thirty years ago.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 7:18 pm
by Sciolus
There seems to have been a fashion for LAs to try to invest money in ways outside their core skills in order to try to raise cash. If any of these attempts have been successful, I'd be surprised. See also Robin Hood Energy and Bristol Energy.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 8:26 pm
by jdc
That said I'm not sure how much money has been lost due to mismanagement compared to government cuts etc and over what period etc
Govt cuts 2011-2020 can be seen in the graph on p.4
https://democracy.croydon.gov.uk/docume ... report.pdf
Table 3 on p.8 gives a figure of 86.8m central grant for 2019-20 and 94.5m the previous yr, going back to 114.6m in 2016/17.
Now I don't know how to work out what the previous years' figures were but I popped what I did have into excel, and multiplied backwards year-on-year by 1/(1-x) with x being 0.082 for the 8.2% etc and this gave me 185.4m for 2011/12. So that's down 98.6m from the starting figure by 2019-20
I don't know if that's right but it was easier to do this than find the figures from previous years.
If it's wrong, then I'll have another crack. If it is right, then someone else can do the mismanagement figures cos I cba.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 8:34 pm
by Vertigowooyay
Croyden Council has been in Private Eye a lot about the Brick To Brick property scheme they spent hundreds of millions on, that only resulted in something like 3 houses. Austerity is never going to be anything more than destructive but there have been a lot of other self inflicted factors to create Croyden’s current situation in conjunction with sh.tty government policy.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 8:40 pm
by jdc
basementer wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 2:18 pm
If memory serves, Brent Council cut services such as libraries to the bone after they lost a shedload of money by speculating in foreign currency. That was twenty or thirty years ago.
They invested another 15m in Iceland
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nt-iceland
Can't remember whether any of that cash was retrieved now.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:33 pm
by sTeamTraen
Perhaps related to the issue of a council going bankrupt, I've always wondered what the point is of public bodies getting fined. I sometimes see stories of hospital trusts, police authorities, or city councils being fined for failing to do something correctly. But what does this achieve? A fine to a person or a business means less money for them to spend on nice things like meals out or dividends. But when you have a budget to deliver services to the public, what does taking some of that achieve? So your hospital now has £50,000 less to spend on a new MRI machine --- is the expectation that this will somehow count against the chief executive at their next performance review? Or does the hospital say to the Treasury "Er, we're £50k short now, can we have a top-up" and get the money back?
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:35 pm
by discovolante
What would you propose as an alternative?
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:47 pm
by bmforre
discovolante wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:35 pm
What would you propose as an alternative?
Stocks or pillory.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:16 pm
by jdc
If your central grant is cut to the bone and your population is increasing faster than the UK average then you're going to have to do something to raise funds - and there are limits to how much you can raise from your council tax base (especially if they aren't all Richie Rich).
Councils like Croydon might have done a sh.t job of speculating to accumulate, but they were rather pushed into speculating in the first place by the govt. So, ultimately, everything is George Osborne's fault.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:39 pm
by bmforre
To the pillory with Osborne!
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:44 pm
by Rich Scopie
jdc wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:16 pm
So, ultimately, everything is George Osborne's fault.
I'll take that as a maxim to live by.
And if you think Croydon's f.cked, try living in Northamptonshire. Build a fancy new HQ with too few desks and no parking, then sell it for a shedload less than it cost to build, then lease it back, despite it being unfit for purpose.
Oh, and give millions to the local football team and not really care where it went, leaving the ground with a halfbuilt stand, and the ex-chairman with a massive new house.
Still, I understand the last utter incompetent to run the council got fired, with a massive payoff and went to...
...ah yes. Croydon.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:51 pm
by jdc
Rich Scopie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:44 pm
jdc wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:16 pm
So, ultimately, everything is George Osborne's fault.
I'll take that as a maxim to live by.
And if you think Croydon's f.cked, try living in Northamptonshire. Build a fancy new HQ with too few desks and no parking, then sell it for a shedload less than it cost to build, then lease it back, despite it being unfit for purpose.
Oh, and give millions to the local football team and not really care where it went, leaving the ground with a halfbuilt stand, and the ex-chairman with a massive new house.
Still, I understand the last utter incompetent to run the council got fired, with a massive payoff and went to...
...ah yes. Croydon.
Which one was at Northants? I've got Jo Negrini at Croydon Jul 2016-Sep 2020, Jon Rouse 2007-Jan 2013, and Nathan Elvery was appointed interim Chief Exec by the Tory council when Rouse left and given the job permanently by the Labour council in May 2014.
Inside Croydon has some interesting comments on all the CEOs since 2007 (and on both Con and Lab councils):
Jon Rouse, Wechsler’s successor, was appointed by the Conservatives. He was presented as the model of the modern council chief exec, dynamic and full of new ideas, a world away from the staid old town clerk. Rouse’s time in charge was summed up as “an alchemist who turned property into debts”. It is a garden path down which others have led us since.
In his previous role in charge of the borough’s finances, it was Elvery who committed to the convoluted CCURV property scheme with developers John Laing which saw Taberner House, the council offices, demolished and a shiny new headquarters, Fisher’s Folly, built for £150million – about three times the cost of an equivalent office block.
To this day, no one has ever explained why Croydon needed to spend £100million over-the-odds on such a building, which per square metre of office space was more costly than The Shard. That £150million bill is one of the items sitting, festering, among the £1.5billion debt that the council has built up.
When Elvery scarpered for West Sussex (temporarily, as it turns out – it only took them three years to rumble him and a £260,000 severance package to get rid of him) some bright spark had the idea to hand the job to Negrini, charmed by the prospect of her bringing to the town centre what had eluded her predecessors – a massive new shopping centre.
The Tories have said everything is the fault of the Labour council:
https://www.croydonconservatives.com/ne ... peculation
Labour have pinned all the blame on the Conservative govt.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:23 pm
by Vertigowooyay
With truth, as ever, being beaten shitless somewhere in the middle.
Rotten Boroughs in Private Eye is always the page that makes me most depressed, because local council shenanigans cut across party lines and it feels like they're all corrupt f.ckers.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2020 7:27 pm
by sTeamTraen
discovolante wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:35 pm
What would you propose as an alternative?
I don't know, but I think it has to involve the individuals who took (or failed to take) the decisions. Maybe it would be clearer if we first sorted out the issue of corporate fines, where as I said, yes, it affects dividends, but it doesn't hit the decision-makers especially hard unless they are major shareholders.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:09 am
by Millennie Al
jdc wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:16 pm
If your central grant is cut to the bone and your population is increasing faster than the UK average then you're going to have to do
something to raise funds - and there are limits to how much you can raise from your council tax base (especially if they aren't all Richie Rich).
Councils like Croydon might have done a sh.t job of speculating to accumulate, but they were rather pushed into speculating in the first place by the govt. So, ultimately, everything is George Osborne's fault.
Councils have no business speculating with public funds. They should spend the money available and then stop. If that is going to result in schools closing, rubbish left uncollected and homeless people dying, then the council should make the consequences clear and demand more money. If none is forthcoming, councillors are free to pay out of their own pockets or appeal to charity. If they instead embark on financial speculation it cannot end well. If they lose money, then they're in an even worse position, while if they somehow make money they merely make it look like it's ok to provide inadequate funding for important services, thus storing up even more trouble for the future.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:18 am
by Millennie Al
sTeamTraen wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:33 pm
Perhaps related to the issue of a council going bankrupt, I've always wondered what the point is of public bodies getting fined. I sometimes see stories of hospital trusts, police authorities, or city councils being fined for failing to do something correctly. But what does this achieve? A fine to a person or a business means less money for them to spend on nice things like meals out or dividends. But when you have a budget to deliver services to the public, what does taking some of that achieve? So your hospital now has £50,000 less to spend on a new MRI machine --- is the expectation that this will somehow count against the chief executive at their next performance review? Or does the hospital say to the Treasury "Er, we're £50k short now, can we have a top-up" and get the money back?
Fines don't necessarily work like that on private companies. They can also work by making the company have less to spend on their core activities, which means that they are at a disadvantage competing with other businesses which can then affect market share etc. So ultimately a business which is fined more than its competitors will slowly wither away.
In principle, it could work the same way in the public sector. A hospital which cannot affort the MRI machine has to send patients to another hospital, so gets assessed as being less useful and gets less funding next year. If this happens too much, the hospital will get closed down, thus eliminating the people in charge who were causing the problem (or they get forced out earlier due to the decline). However, public sector activities are often expected to be loss making and are not as much in competition, so this may not work - instead the hospital with wrongdoing gets more funding, and if they don't get fined next year they're in a better position than when they started, so the system can actually encourage the behaviour it is supposed to prevent.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:15 am
by Rich Scopie
jdc wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:51 pm
Rich Scopie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:44 pm
Still, I understand the last utter incompetent to run the council got fired, with a massive payoff and went to...
...ah yes. Croydon.
Which one was at Northants? I've got Jo Negrini at Croydon Jul 2016-Sep 2020, Jon Rouse 2007-Jan 2013, and Nathan Elvery was appointed interim Chief Exec by the Tory council when Rouse left and given the job permanently by the Labour council in May 2014.
I'll have to check on that - I'm rather light on details I'm afraid.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:22 am
by JQH
Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 6:23 pm
With truth, as ever, being beaten shitless somewhere in the middle.
Rotten Boroughs in Private Eye is always the page that makes me most depressed, because local council shenanigans cut across party lines and it feels like they're all corrupt f.ckers.
It does. Problem is that some authorities are controlled by the same party for decades. Knowing that the other lot will never get a close look at what you've been up to encourages a certain laxness.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:24 pm
by sTeamTraen
Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:18 am
sTeamTraen wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 12:33 pm
Perhaps related to the issue of a council going bankrupt, I've always wondered what the point is of public bodies getting fined. I sometimes see stories of hospital trusts, police authorities, or city councils being fined for failing to do something correctly. But what does this achieve? A fine to a person or a business means less money for them to spend on nice things like meals out or dividends. But when you have a budget to deliver services to the public, what does taking some of that achieve? So your hospital now has £50,000 less to spend on a new MRI machine --- is the expectation that this will somehow count against the chief executive at their next performance review? Or does the hospital say to the Treasury "Er, we're £50k short now, can we have a top-up" and get the money back?
Fines don't necessarily work like that on private companies. They can also work by making the company have less to spend on their core activities, which means that they are at a disadvantage competing with other businesses which can then affect market share etc. So ultimately a business which is fined more than its competitors will slowly wither away.
In principle, it could work the same way in the public sector. A hospital which cannot affort the MRI machine has to send patients to another hospital, so gets assessed as being less useful and gets less funding next year. If this happens too much, the hospital will get closed down, thus eliminating the people in charge who were causing the problem (or they get forced out earlier due to the decline). However, public sector activities are often expected to be loss making and are not as much in competition, so this may not work - instead the hospital with wrongdoing gets more funding, and if they don't get fined next year they're in a better position than when they started, so the system can actually encourage the behaviour it is supposed to prevent.
But the point of most public sector organisations is to provide services to the public. If their management is corrupt or incompetent, and you let the place wither away, then yes, the incompetent people lose their jobs (at least in theory; in practice there will often be substantial compensation, and employment in senior jobs in places like local councils seems to be a bit of a merry-go-round), but local people now also don't have a hospital, or have to drive 40 miles more for an MRI, and they didn't do anything wrong.
I don't know what the solution to this is, but I think it has to involve a shift in the balance of personal versus corporate, in terms of responsibility and where the negative consequences fall.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:59 pm
by Rich Scopie
Rich Scopie wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:15 am
jdc wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 4:51 pm
Rich Scopie wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:44 pm
Still, I understand the last utter incompetent to run the council got fired, with a massive payoff and went to...
...ah yes. Croydon.
Which one was at Northants? I've got Jo Negrini at Croydon Jul 2016-Sep 2020, Jon Rouse 2007-Jan 2013, and Nathan Elvery was appointed interim Chief Exec by the Tory council when Rouse left and given the job permanently by the Labour council in May 2014.
I'll have to check on that - I'm rather light on details I'm afraid.
Sorry - my timings and details were a bit out.
- council.jpg (189.67 KiB) Viewed 2632 times
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:31 pm
by jdc
Millennie Al wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:09 am
jdc wrote: ↑Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:16 pm
If your central grant is cut to the bone and your population is increasing faster than the UK average then you're going to have to do
something to raise funds - and there are limits to how much you can raise from your council tax base (especially if they aren't all Richie Rich).
Councils like Croydon might have done a sh.t job of speculating to accumulate, but they were rather pushed into speculating in the first place by the govt. So, ultimately, everything is George Osborne's fault.
Councils have no business speculating with public funds. They should spend the money available and then stop. If that is going to result in schools closing, rubbish left uncollected and homeless people dying, then the council should make the consequences clear and demand more money. If none is forthcoming, councillors are free to pay out of their own pockets or appeal to charity. If they instead embark on financial speculation it cannot end well. If they lose money, then they're in an even worse position, while if they somehow make money they merely make it look like it's ok to provide inadequate funding for important services, thus storing up even more trouble for the future.
The idea that councils would have got more money from the govt if they'd made the consequences clear and demanded more money is a bit naive - what do you think councils did when the cuts were made? Your suggestion that councillors pony up a few million themselves is clearly ludicrous. The charity suggestion is the only one that has any merit - Leeds has helped to raise money for its parks by generating revenue from events, and setting up a charitable fund for parks. (Although I'm sure you wouldn't approve of them generating revenue from events, as that involves speculating with public funds.)
I don't see how 'Councils making it look like it's ok to provide inadequate funding for important services' is an issue. We all knew it wasn't OK when Osborne did it, and that didn't stop him from doing it did it? And if it were an issue, then it would also be an issue for your suggestions of charity or councillors paying for services themselves.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 2:23 am
by Millennie Al
jdc wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:31 pm
The idea that councils would have got more money from the govt if they'd made the consequences clear and demanded more money is a bit naive - what do you think councils did when the cuts were made?
I didn't mean to imply it would have been effective - just that that should be where they stop. And councils are always complaining that they need more money (sometimes merely so that they can reduce local taxes). so it it seldom effective.
The charity suggestion is the only one that has any merit - Leeds has helped to raise money for its parks by generating revenue from events, and setting up a charitable fund for parks. (Although I'm sure you wouldn't approve of them generating revenue from events, as that involves speculating with public funds.)
A trivial level of speculation can be disregarded. That's the level where, if the project is a complete failure the worst consequence is that the people running it look bad, but no significant services need to be cut to compensate.
I don't see how 'Councils making it look like it's ok to provide inadequate funding for important services' is an issue. We all knew it wasn't OK when Osborne did it, and that didn't stop him from doing it did it? And if it were an issue, then it would also be an issue for your suggestions of charity or councillors paying for services themselves.
Obviously we didn't all know that as the country voted for more of the same since then.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 10:30 am
by nekomatic
Councils have statutory obligations and as I understand it councillors and officers could be open to personal liability if they were to deliberately fail to discharge them. It seems optimistic to think that ‘but there wasn’t enough money’ would be a watertight defence.
Re: Croydon Council
Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2020 1:44 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Why don't councils just raise local taxes to make up the shortfall? They could target it a bit progressively/towards Tory-voting demographics - higher bands of properties and business rates for the rich c.nts, and whatever it is that old people enjoy, bingo halls and chip shops and stuff I guess.
Put out an announcement saying "central government have cut our funding by £10m, therefore we're raising the money locally, if you don't like it take it up with them".
Obviously they'd lose the next election, but apart from that it's a good idea.