What are Croydon Council hiding?

“You might also use it to question why Sutton Council has 5 members of staff earning more than the Prime Minister, also why 4 staff members details are undisclosed”

Early April saw the publication of the TaxPayers’ Alliance Town Hall Rich List.  This is the annual list detailing the pay of local authority employees receiving total remuneration over £100,000.  This list allows you to question why Surrey County Council have an undisclosed member of staff on £222,500, and what necessary function the ‘Executive director – customer, digital and transformation’, performs for £110,137.  You might also use it to question why Sutton Council has 5 members of staff earning more than the Prime Minister, also why 4 staff members details are undisclosed, 2 of whom earn more than their Chief Executive.  These may indeed be important roles, performed by conscientious staff, but with average council tax rises this year of 5%, it’s reasonable to question where the money goes.

Having written about previous entries from Croydon Council on the Town Hall Rich List, we were keen to see how things had changed after 3 years under the Executive Mayor.

“Now one might think this was an oversight, but this is the third year running Croydon Council has failed to publish details of the remuneration of their top earning staff”

Unfortunately, Croydon Council alongside 14 others, failed to produce details of staff earning over £100,000.  Now one might think this was an oversight, but this is the third year running Croydon Council has failed to publish details of the remuneration of their top earning staff.  It is reasonable to wonder if a de facto bankrupt council, which has issued three Section 114 notices, and which pushed up council tax by 15% in 2023 might feel it should be open to extra rather than less scrutiny on its spending.  Instead, Croydon has this year decided to be part of the 3.9% of the 382 local authorities, and the only one in London, who fail to publish the data.

“Croydon was the 2023 London Borough of Culture.  Yet in March 2025 residents still see funds flowing from the council for this dubious honour”

Worse still is this is becoming something of a trend.  Croydon was the 2023 London Borough of Culture.  Yet in March 2025 residents still see funds flowing from the council for this dubious honour.  In amounts over £500, £331K was paid out by the council in 2022 from the ‘Borough of Culture’ cost centre, £1.69million was paid out in 2023, £832K in 2024, and up to the end of March £3K has been paid out in 2025, for a program that happened in 2023.  You might wonder where the money went, the table below details the top 10 recipients.

Vendor NameAmount
Redacted£505,234.10
Stanley Arts£271,995.00
Talawa Theatre Company£201,000.00
London Mozart Players£145,762.50
Turf Projects_£145,000.00
White Label Publishing Ltd£137,518.60
Think Events (London) Ltd£121,551.67
BH Live Ltd£107,500.00
The Brit School£75,000.00
Savvy Theatre£73,500.00

‘Redacted’, i.e. we aren’t told who received the funding tops the list.  This redaction is a worryingly growing trend in Croydon’s spending.  Just 0.4% of payments for the ‘Borough of Culture’ payments over £500 in 2022 were redacted, this rose to 19.1% in 2023, 21.5% in 2024, and so far in 2025 stands at 39.7% of payments.  What are Croydon Council hiding?  As a reminder all of these payments came after the council had first issued a Section 114 notice and declared de facto bankruptcy, most came after they had driven up council tax by 15% in one year.

Similar results can be seen with spending from the ‘Culture Growth Fund’ cost centre.  Detailed below we can see the sharpe increase in spending from the fund after the fall following the first Section 114 notice.  Alongside this, we see how Croydon Council now see fit to redact details for over 25% of over £500 payments made so far in 2025.

YearYear spendPercentage of spend Redacted
2018£493,855.652.2%
2019£754,669.463.1%
2020£305,640.333.0%
2021£59,544.950.0%
2022£25,450.000.0%
2023£13,151.400.0%
2024£367,171.7816.5%
2025 (Jan-Mar)£104,910.3226.0%

“Croydon Council…. paid out just under £1.2million on Borough of Culture and Cultural Growth (whatever that means) in 2024, but won’t tell you who £239K (20%) was paid to”

Croydon Council despite a £1.4billion general fund debt, and a request for a total of £136million exceptional financial support from the Government for 2025/26, paid out just under £1.2million on Borough of Culture and Cultural Growth (whatever that means) in 2024, but won’t tell you who £239K (20%) was paid to.

It would be great for Croydon Council to stop needing to redact where it pays these funds, by simply stop wasting taxpayer money on unnecessary services.  But if they insist on spending these funds, along with details of top end staff remuneration, it’s time for Croydon Council to stop hiding the data and come clean.

“It is reasonable to wonder if a de facto bankrupt council, which has issued three Section 114 notices, and which pushed up council tax by 15% in 2023 might feel it should be open to extra rather than less scrutiny”

Conversation with Joanna Marchong, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) was setup to speak for ordinary taxpayers fed up with government waste, increasing taxation, and a lack of transparency in all levels of government. They fight to reform taxes and public services, cut wasteful spending and speak up for British taxpayers.  Locally the TPA has campaigned to highlight some of the disastrous policies of Croydon Council.

Join us on Wednesday 18th September for our drinks and conversation and with Joanna Marchong the Investigations Campaign Manager at the TPA.  We will discuss her role, the work of the TPA, and upcoming concerns for taxpayers.  Joanna can also be found on X/Twitter at https://x.com/marchong_joanna.

For drinks, a conversation and Q&A with Joanna about the TPA and taxpayer concerns, come along Wednesday 18th September at 7pm

This is part of our #ThirdWednesday drinks and events, we hold these in association with Dick Delingpole’s #ThirdWednesday Libertarian drinks club, and POLITICS in PUBS a group of people from across the political spectrum who value the freedom to question and to speak openly.

Join us Upstairs, Whispers5 High St, Purley CR8 2AF on Wednesday 18th September, from 7pm.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/mGpQTwtPbgbVMGz1/

Consequences for Croydon – TaxPayers’ Alliance article

With the Croydon Council having recently declared bankruptcy for the third time and planning a 15 per cent hike in council tax. The TaxPayers’ Alliance have published a deep-dive by Mike Swadling of this parish looking at how the people of Croydon found themselves in this mess, and what might happen next.

“The consequences of years of failure to control borrowing and spending by the previous administration are now being borne by the local taxpayers”

“Were it not so impactful on those who can least afford it, you could almost admire the thoroughness with which the council undertook its hatchet job on the borough’s finances”

“the council was failing to deliver on basic services. The Children’s Services department was rated inadequate. £1.1 million was spent developing Surrey Street Market but resulted in fewer traders”

“To compound all of this, London Mayor Sadiq Khan is proposing to bring most of outer London into the ULEZ zone. This will charge motorists with older, higher emission vehicles £12.50 a day for driving them”

“Spending public funds on arts that are not viable commercially or via voluntary donations as the council has been doing for years, is no less of a waste of money when it comes from someone else’s funding stream”

Full article https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/consequences_for_croydon

Déjà vu all over again – the sorry tale of Croydon council. 

By Mike Swadling

“Our council has ruined our town centre, lost tens of millions on commercial and residential property speculation, paid hundreds of thousands if not millions, subsidising entertainment for the few, all whilst reducing core services for the many”

Our recent email bulletin started with the following statement: “We have heard once again that Croydon Council is declaring de facto bankruptcy.  This will no doubt lead to more taxes and worse services for the people of Croydon.  Regardless of whether you believe in a small, limited government (as we do) or believe the state should provide extensive support, Croydon Council is surely a salutary tale of why regardless of the overall scale, government should focus on doing less, better.  Our council has ruined our town centre, lost tens of millions on commercial and residential property speculation, paid hundreds of thousands if not millions, subsidising entertainment for the few, all whilst reducing core services for the many.  We needed them, the vulnerable people who rely on the service they provide, needed them, to do fewer things better.”

In a sorry tale of déjà vu on the 22nd November Croydon Council again issued a Section 114 notice, declaring de facto bankruptcy.  This is the 3rd such notice, starting in 2020, after which Croydon was granted a £120 million bailout loan by the government to balance the books.    

“The council is £1.6 billion in debt, with £47 million in annual debt repayment.”

The council is £1.6 billion in debt, with £47 million in annual debt repayment.  In the councils Section 114 report they state “The conclusion is that, in order to balance its budget, Croydon needs to reduce its spending by £130m next financial year alone (before any council tax increase) which is simply untenable out of a net budget of some £300m.”

In their Medium Term Financial Strategy report the council sets out the staggering amount of new Capitalisation Directions that may be required.

On these sums it is almost impossible to see how the council can meet its statutory requirements and save the funds necessary to balance the budget without additional help.  Whatever the path forward for Croydon it must start with realistic budgeting and basic accounting skills.  For some months, any Conservative councillor I have spoken with has been at pains to tell me the budget situation in Croydon is far worse than they expected.  Of course, some of this is politics but when you look at the figures of budget corrections it’s hard to disagree with the basic premise.

“this represents £9.5 million less for social services, libraries, local roads, swimming pools and other services.  This one mistake represents an additional £63 needed from each of the 150,100 homes in Croydon”

The level of over estimation of Parking and traffic income is clearly wrong, but unforgivable is the £9.5m a year that has been taken from the ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account (HRA).  The BBC report notes “The HRA is only supposed to be used for the authority’s social housing stock and it is from this account that maintenance and repair costs come for council homes. “What we’ve established is that there has been an overcharge of the HRA for several years,”.  This may sound like just an accounting issue, but this represents £9.5 million less for social services, libraries, local roads, swimming pools and other services.  This one mistake represents an additional £63 needed from each of the 150,100 homes in Croydon.   If this were the only mistake it might be forgivable but as the above table shows this is one of many.  No wonder in 2020 the council’s external auditors Grant Thornton described a council where “There has been collective corporate blindness to both the seriousness of the financial position and the urgency with which actions needed to be taken”.

I was pleased to be able to recently speak to the TaxPayers’ Alliance about some of the Council’s misspending.

The council is taking steps to improve the situation.  £90 million in savings have been made and £50 million of assets have been disposed of, with a further £100 million expected to be made in sales over the next few years.  The Colonnades retail park is included in this, the council purchased the Colonnades hoping to make money but will no doubt end up with a quick sale whilst still holding the debt from making the original purchase.  If only they had listened to those warning of this at the time.

Taxpayer funding of cultural events and community organisations by the council has finally reduced.  This hasn’t stopped the council being a sponsor of Croydon Pride yet again.  A great day out, but one surely not needing funding from a bankrupt council. 

“At the time of a cost of living crisis, unnecessary spending is already underway”

More worryingly in 2023 Croydon becomes the London Borough of Culture.  Funded by the Mayor of London, the “London Borough of Culture award aims to shine a light on the character and diversity of London’s boroughs and bring culture to everyone”.  At the time of a cost of living crisis, unnecessary spending is already underway as the table below from the councils records shows.

Payment DateVendor NameVendor TypeCost Centre DescriptionAmountInvoice Creation Date
23-May-22Stanley ArtsCommercialBOROUGH OF CULTURE£3,000.0025-Apr-22
23-May-22Stanley ArtsCommercialBOROUGH OF CULTURE£1,500.0025-Apr-22
08-Jun-22Savvy TheatreCommercialBOROUGH OF CULTURE£3,000.0012-May-22
25-Jul-22Stanley ArtsCommercialBOROUGH OF CULTURE£75,000.0027-Jun-22
20-Sep-22Fashion Meets Music Collective C.I.C.CommercialBOROUGH OF CULTURE£50,000.0007-Sep-22
28-Sep-22Savvy TheatreCommercialBOROUGH OF CULTURE£10,000.0007-Sep-22

“There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.”

The French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne noted “There is no more expensive thing than a free gift.”  With Croydon Councils record of misallocating funds, and run away spending, Croydon’s, London’s, and the nations taxpayers who are bailing out the council have plenty of reason to worry. 

Croydon Mayor, Jason Perry has noted “Even with Government support, the coming years will be incredibly financially challenging for Croydon Council. We must balance our books and become a much smaller organisation.”  Maybe a good way to start would be for him to politely decline to waste more taxpayers cash on the London Borough of Culture award.

Podcast Episode 75 – Climate – rational action, and affordability

We bring you the speeches from our recent event in Purley with speakers Benjamin Elks from the Taxpayers’ Alliance and Harry Wilkinson from Net Zero Watch.

Spreaker

iTunes


Google Podcasts


Podchaser

Podcast Addict
Deezer

Spotify


Stitcher


Castbox

Amazon

Climate – rational action, and affordability

Image: By GodeNehler – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74650075

Join us on Wednesday 28th September for an evening talking about the climate, rational action, and affordability.

Our guests, Harry Wilkinson, Head of Policy at Net Zero Watch and Benjamin Elks of the Taxpayers’ Alliance will each present and hold a joint Q&A.

As energy prices rocket and everything from driving your car to changing your boiler becomes more restricted, Ben and Harry will be giving their thoughts on the government’s Net Zero measures.

Come along 7pm, upstairs at Elliott’s Bar, 5 High St, Purley CR8 2AF.

Benjamin Elks worked in pension prior to moving to the TPA last year working in Fundraising, Operations and Events.  Ben supported our recent action day with the TPA in Purley questioning executive pay at Croydon Council.  Ben has a degree in Politics and War Studies from the University of Wolverhampton and plays for a local rugby team in his spare time.  Ben can be found on Twitter at @elksy91.   

Harry Wilkinson is the Head of Policy at Net Zero Watch. Net Zero Watch aims to is highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. Harry has regularly written for the Conservative Woman and has appeared with us on our Podcast. Harry can be found on Twitter at @HarryWilkinsonn.   

Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1119759738961387

The TaxPayers’ Alliance in Purley.

On Saturday 30th July we had a great morning out in Purley with the TaxPayers’ Alliance asking residents if they think Croydon’s former Chief Executive Jo Negrini was worth her £613,895, 2020-21 remuneration package.

The publics response was overwhelming and clear, with only one person saying they felt the former Chief Executive deserved the remuneration.

Photo’s and a short video from the day below.

Press Release: THE TAXPAYERS’ ALLIANCE, TOWN HALL RICH LIST ROADSHOW COMES TO PURLEY

The TPA are coming to Purley on the 30th July for the latest leg of the Town Hall Rich List Roadshow.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, was launched in 2004 to speak for ordinary taxpayers fed up with government waste, increasing taxation, and a lack of transparency in all levels of government.

Following years of waste at Croydon Council and the de facto bankrupting of the borough, they are coming to Purley on the 30th July for the latest leg of the Town Hall Rich List Roadshow.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance have held several street stalls in Croydon prior to the issuing of a Section 114 notice and Croydon declaring de facto bankruptcy, these have focused on executive pay. Their review of Councillors’ allowances highlighted the premium rates councillors received compared to nearby colleagues, and the town has too often featured on their Blog.. The taxpayers and service recipients of Croydon would all be better off if the council had listened when the TPA all too frequently highlighted our town.

Now, with assistance from the Croydon Constitutionalists, they will be asking local residents whether they thought Croydon’s former Chief Executive Jo Negrini was worth her £613,895, 2020-21 remuneration package.

Locals will have the opportunity to have their say, by using ping pong balls to cast their votes. Croydon Council’s political make-up has changed, but with many tough years ahead this is an opportunity for people to say if they want to retain the council’s remuneration habits of the past.

The street stall will be open Saturday 30 July, 10:30 am – 1pm, outside 911 Brighton Rd, Purley CR8 2BP.

If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Michael Swadling at [email protected].

Full Release PDF:

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, Town Hall Rich List Roadshow comes to Purley.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance, was launched in 2004 to speak for ordinary taxpayers fed up with government waste, increasing taxation, and a lack of transparency in all levels of government.

Following years of waste at Croydon Council and the de facto bankrupting of the borough, they are coming to Purley on the 30th July for the latest leg of the Town Hall Rich List Roadshow.

With assistance from the Croydon Constitutionalists, they will be asking local residents whether they thought Croydon’s former Chief Executive Jo Negrini was worth her £613,895, 2020-21 remuneration package.

Locals will have the opportunity to have their say, by using ping pong balls to cast their votes.  Croydon Council has changed, but with many tough years ahead this is an opportunity for people to say if they want to retain the council’s remuneration habits of the past.

Come and join us, to help the people of Purley send a message to the council.

We hope to see you Saturday 30 July, 10:30 am – 1pm.  In Purley, outside Andrews Estate Agents 909-911 Brighton Rd, Purley CR8 2BP.

Facebook: https://fb.me/e/1RgXJZniH