Once again our thanks go to our finance officer and chief executive and senior leadership team for their efforts in bringing forward these reports.
My heartfelt thanks also go to our staff working in departments across the borough, many dealing with the most vulnerable in our borough at a time of great personal upset and worry for them with regard to their jobs and yet they continue to serve our residents.
So, Croydon is now clearly a record breaker:
- The highest debt in London, £1.5bn, equating to £15,000 an hour borrowed since Labour took office.
- The first authority to issue back to back S114 notices, two to date with a potential third to follow tomorrow.
- The loaning of £200mn to their wholly owned development company without the need for any repayments
- The lowest reserves in London at a derisory £7mn
But Sadly these are not good records.
It is shameful that our borough has been brought to such bankruptcy.
And now we have a Labour Council who sound like a broken record as they roll out the soundbites and platitudes to explain how they have bankrupted the borough.
We hear from them how the Council finds itself in dire straits. How they’re a 'new' administration. How they’re rightsizing the budget.
They 'sympathize'.
Well I’m sorry to say that it is the same old Labour party
They continue to lack pace, lack urgency, lack options and lack the ability to change.
Only tonight we heard from Cllr. Hall saying that he was never shown any facilities agreements despite loaning over £200mn to Brick by Brick.
You would have thought when you are overseeing such loans you would proactively ask to see such agreements and indeed ask for management accounts, surely these are basic accounting procedures.
It just highlights a lack of rigour on the part of this Labour Council when playing monopoly with tax payers money.
And now we know that the bail out bid totalling some £150mn has gone to government.
And yet again Labour refuse to answer important questions.
And Cllr Ali takes pride that everyone was able to ask a question at Cabinet - except of course about borrowing £150mn.
Despite your external auditors making it plain that you must respond to challenge, you are failing to do so.
This Labour Council lacks leadership and direction.
It was this Conservative Group that called a vote of no confidence in Cllrs. Newman and Hall and yet you all backed them.
It was this Conservative Group that called for the sacking of Cllrs. Butler and Scott which then happened.
It was this Conservative Group that called for action to reduce councillor allowances which has once again forced this Labour Council to make a decision.
This is the second S114 notice and what has demonstrably changed?
Cllr Ali herself says that simply our situation hasn’t changed, well that’s simply wrong as we heard tonight that the situation has deteriorated by £16mn so what have you achieved? Very little.
As the weeks pass this Labour Council continues to prove that they are not capable of running this borough.
This borough deserves so much better than this moribund failing Labour council.
