Having recently taken on the Economy and Jobs portfolio for the Conservative opposition on the Council, I got my first chance on Monday 21st September to question the Cabinet on what they are doing to support workers and business in Croydon.
Like many others in the Borough, I have been greatly concerned about the knock-on impacts on the Council’s finances. They have been mismanaged so badly that the Chief Executive has been replaced and there has had to be an extensive staff consultation on people’s jobs. The result is the Council consulting on a 15% staff reduction to save £2m this year and £15m next year.
So, last Monday I asked the Leader of the Council when his administration would at least have the decency to apologise to our Council staff, many of whom are also our own residents, for the damage done to livelihoods caused by suchmismanagement? Or are the staff merely a resource to be managed?
Sad to say that Tony Newman and his Cabinet didn’t have the decency to at least make those apologies, to offer a sorry to all the people being affected by decisions taken way above their pay grades but for which they will be the ones to bear the brunt of. These are hundreds of jobs gone, dozens made forcibly redundant and real staff, real people losing their jobs at the worst time.
In the same Cabinet meeting, there was also a paper on the support grants being distributed by the Council to businesses across the Borough. Overall, the Council has allocated £2.87m of its own money in small grants to 540 business. Whilst this is a good start to help small businesses in Croydon, who are after all the backbone of our local economy, the performance of the Council in distributing the grant funding provided by central Government is significantly below par when compared to other neighbouring Boroughs.
The Council received £60.6m from central Government for grants to small businesses and to those in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. This is money already allocated to Croydon from the Treasury but as at 2nd September only £49.5m on that money had been granted, a distribution rate of 81.7% - putting Croydon in the bottom 10% of over 300 Councils in England.
In contrast, Bromley has managed to distribute 91.0%, Sutton 90.8%, Lambeth 96.6%, Merton 95.9%, Tandridge 93.6% and Reigate and Banstead 93.8%.
Every one of our neighbouring Boroughs has done a better jobthan Croydon in distributing Government funding to our small businesses.
As with the disastrous mismanagement of the town’s finances that is leading to so many residents being made redundant by the Council, it is about time the Labour Administration stood up for the people and business of Croydon.
