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Croydon council in a bit of a financial pickle

All spending stopped apart from vulnerable people services.
Does that mean every employee’s salary stopped?
 
I recall Walsall getting into a right pickle a few years ago and the council was 'replaced' by the Audit office I think.

Wasn't Northampton in the news recently? as about to go properly bust even though they had relentlessly pursued a vigourous outsourcing policy such that the actual council barely existed as an stand alone operation.
 
A bit rich of the "Conservative opposition leader Cllr Jason Cummings [to say] Labour were warned repeatedly over the last few years but ploughed on anyway" when all across the country tories have been encouraging spending of reserves in order to balance the budgets, and "they must take full responsibility for the damage they have caused" when it’s his own government that inflicted ten years of austerity,

It's unsurprising that "there is little evidence that the transformation monies have been used to achieve the Government’s intended aims of this capital receipts flexibility, namely, reducing demand, delivering savings or reducing costs" when in some parts of Croydon 44.5% of "children are living with the worst rate of deprivation". It’s ridiculous to lay the blame for that solely on the local authority.

Risk appears to be too tolerant even during good times and governance is reportedly a problem, but let’s not let Tory hypocrisy go unchallenged.
 
JensenHealey said:
I recall Walsall getting into a right pickle a few years ago and the council was 'replaced' by the Audit office I think.

Wasn't Northampton in the news recently? as about to go properly bust even though they had relentlessly pursued a vigourous outsourcing policy such that the actual council barely existed as an stand alone operation.
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Walsall's issue was more about the elected members bullying council officers, if I remember correctly. A Government appointed management team was introduced to sort it out. Kingston upon Hull was similarly run for a time in the middle 2000s.
 
deanf said:
A bit rich of the "Conservative opposition leader Cllr Jason Cummings [to say] Labour were warned repeatedly over the last few years but ploughed on anyway" when all across the country tories have been encouraging spending of reserves in order to balance the budgets, and "they must take full responsibility for the damage they have caused" when it’s his own government that inflicted ten years of austerity,

It's unsurprising that "there is little evidence that the transformation monies have been used to achieve the Government’s intended aims of this capital receipts flexibility, namely, reducing demand, delivering savings or reducing costs" when in some parts of Croydon 44.5% of "children are living with the worst rate of deprivation". It’s ridiculous to lay the blame for that solely on the local authority.

Risk appears to be too tolerant even during good times and governance is reportedly a problem, but let’s not let Tory hypocrisy go unchallenged.
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What would you expect the opposition to say, ‘well done’!
 
One of the biggest problems at Northampton was the sheer number of managers in post. The equivalent to the dept I work in had over two times as many as us and we are a much bigger county and service.
 
Rodrat said:
One of the biggest problems at Northampton was the sheer number of managers in post. The equivalent to the dept I work in had over two times as many as us and we are a much bigger county and service.
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Hierarchy building has always been an issue in LG mgmt in my opinion. More staff, more moolah.
Even up to the top - Chief Exec "I want so many staff; I want this specialist team". Treasurer "Well I want so many staff..I'm Finance, this is important!" etc,.
 
Not read it all yet, but one thing I did notice was Grant Thornton telling the council it had to get its act together on the overspend on services relating to unaccompanied asylum seeker children. Thing is, there's a very large Home Office presence in downtown Croydon, tower blocks where immigration appeals, asylum cases, etc, are processed. I've visited that building more than once, it's a soulless workplace at the best of times, but there's always a gaggle of asylum seekers and similar hanging around the building. I presume they're required to be there under some arcane immigration rules or other. It wouldn't surprise me if Croydon's problem with numbers of unaccompanied minor asylum seekers isn't down to government policy.
 
Irrespective of which party the council belongs to, this is astounding in terms of the leadership ignoring repeated warnings, failure to oversee, entering into property development activities without the requisite experince, abuse of due process and so on. Yet will those responsible be called to account? No need to answer that question.

And before anyone says the problem is down to government driven austerity measures and Covid - they had plenty of time to cut their cloth.

My points would equally apply to a tory led council in the same boat.
 
Weekender said:
Hierarchy building has always been an issue in LG mgmt in my opinion. More staff, more moolah.
Even up to the top - Chief Exec "I want so many staff; I want this specialist team". Treasurer "Well I want so many staff..I'm Finance, this is important!" etc,.
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The phrases,"Empire building", "bums on seats","jobsworth" are terms absolutely unheard of in private companies I have worked for and no one I have met who works for a private company has ever, ever heard of those terms either!
 
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