Croydon's failing Labour Council has bankrupted our borough. Their choices have doubled debt to £1.5 billion, that’s £15,000 borrowed every hour they’ve been in control.
The sad truth is that many of our hardworking Council staff will be losing their jobs. This will be a time of deep worry and anxiety for our loyal officers - especially in the run up to Christmas.
The Conservatives on Croydon Council believe that a reduction in councillor pay is the right thing to do and that’s why on 9th December Croydon Conservatives demanded an urgent Council meeting with proposals to cut councillor pay. Labour responded to our challenge and published plans to do just that.
Agreed unanimously by all councillors at an emergency meeting on Wednesday 16th December, Croydon Council has agreed to cut approximately £300,000 from councillor pay.
The 2021/22 scheme changes will include:
- Permanent deletion of second non-Statutory Deputy Leader post;
- Reduction of Cabinet from 10 to 9 (including Leader and Statutory Deputy Leader);
- Deletion of separate role of Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board – with function absorbed into Cabinet member role;
- Reduction of Deputy Cabinet Member roles to four Deputies;
- Introducing Cabinet Member Advisory Committee Chairs at a new limited SRA rate of £5,000;
- Reducing the SRA for the Chair of Scrutiny by £10,000;
- Applying a 20% reduction on all SRA’s that are not new or already reduced;
- Mirroring changes to SRAs in the Shadow Cabinet to that in the Cabinet;
- Deferral of any inflation increase for 2021/22 on the core basic Councillor Allowance, in addition to SRAs.
These plans would not have been published without pressure from Conservative Councillors.
Cllr Jason Perry, Leader of Croydon’s Conservative Councillors comments:
“We are very pleased that all Councillors have agreed to a reduction in Councillor’s pay and allowances which will deliver a saving in the region of £300,000 per year from 2021/22. However, we believe that change needs to happen at pace and Shadow Cabinet members will be taking the 20% reduction with effect from 1st January 2021.
Once again it has taken leadership from the Conservative Group on the Council to deliver this saving for our borough. By calling an Emergency Council Meeting we forced Labour to bring forward their plans. Without our insistence they would have spent many more months arguing about any potential changes.”
