A Tale of Two Boroughs
Earlier, we reflected upon the similarities between two cash-strapped boroughs and their need to generate funds by using motorists as uncapped sources of unrestricted income.
Their approach to using traffic penalties effectively as, new taxes, was not we discovered, the only thing that they had in common.
The references to Croydon, below, come from Inside Croydon (12th Dec 2024).
It seems that Angela Raynor, who holds Local Government amongst the departments she heads, has been told by the commissioners running Croydon Council that there will be an £83m shortfall in their budget.
That sounds eerily familiar to news we heard from Newham recently. We reported on the attempts to cover a shortfall in the Newham budget of some £79,259,000. And fears that Newham was heading for bankruptcy have hit the headlines of the mainstream press.
It seems that “Cash-strapped Croydon Council is going to need an even bigger government bail-out in 2025”. And what did we discover about Newham’s financial plans, nothing less than they will be seeking a generous bail-out from the government.
“As Inside Croydon first reported in September, the cash-strapped council under Perry and Kerswell is hurtling towards the rocks of bankruptcy with a vast overspend in this financial year, despite the help of the latest £38million bail-out from government.”
It seems that Croydon “remains financially unsustainable without significant government support”. Does that sound at all familiar?
One other thing that Newham has in common with Croydon is that the CEO in Croydon is Katherine Kerswell who readers will recall, is one of the multitude of chief execs to have graced the fourth floor at Newham Dockside. It seems that Kerswell has an unfortunate history of being associated with financially disastrous councils, (in addition to Newham and Croydon, she was chief exec at “another basket-case council”, Nottingham City Council).
In addition to squeezing motorists, Croydon “will be increasing Council Tax by the maximum … allowed in April, which is likely to bring increased in the local rates since he (Mayor Perry) has been in power to 27%.”
That must ring a few bells for Newham residents where taxes have risen by some 25% and are set to rise again in the new year.
The Croydon mayor told an interviewer that “things are going to get worse”. But that is where the two boroughs differ. As Mayor Fiaz never ceases to remind us, Newham council finances are very well managed and we are not heading for bankruptcy. So, we have got nothing to worry about.
Tine was, (and its only six years ago), that Newham was regarded as one of the best run boroughs in the country. In the millennial year, 2000, Newham swept the board at the Local Government Awards, being crowned Council of the Year.
This is what the judges said.
“The whole agenda of best value, the leadership and the vision for the area was what really impressed us. The scale of the task, noted by judges in the past, was formidable. They are a multi-ethnic community and there is a great deal of poverty. But the council has done a lot of work to ensure that the services it delivered really related to the needs and interests of the various groups.”
Twenty-five years later and Newham is now competing for the bottom place.
For those who are interested in how Newham managed to balance the books and freeze council tax for a decade; and still introduce the most radical children’s programme in the country; and introduce MoneyWorks which took residents out of debt and WorkPlace, which got tens of thousands of Newham residents into work, we just happen to know of a publication by two of those involved.
on Amazon.