“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 Name | Amount |
| 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.
| Year | Year spend | Percentage of spend Redacted |
| 2018 | £493,855.65 | 2.2% |
| 2019 | £754,669.46 | 3.1% |
| 2020 | £305,640.33 | 3.0% |
| 2021 | £59,544.95 | 0.0% |
| 2022 | £25,450.00 | 0.0% |
| 2023 | £13,151.40 | 0.0% |
| 2024 | £367,171.78 | 16.5% |
| 2025 (Jan-Mar) | £104,910.32 | 26.0% |
“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”