Can Croydon’s progressive councillors keep Perry’s 15% council tax rise at bay?

This evening saw a packed council annual budget meeting and hordes of protesters unfurling banners outside the town hall to protest against the executive Mayor’s sudden decision to attempt to impose hard a 15% council tax rise on hard pressed Croydon council tax payers.

Presenting a petition to the council on behalf of 25,000 Croydon residents, Ken Towl spoke starkly to Jason Perry.  His message was clear –  ‘you don’t have a mandate, you make us pay for the failings of politicians and put the burden on the shoulders of the people of  Croydon’.As the evening went on, council member after member reiterated this point stating that at no point during his campaign did Perry say he was even considering a council tax raise of this size.  What is hard to understand is why Perry even dreamed that it would be possible to get the budget through the Council.

The balance of power in Croydon is anti-conservative with thirty seven Labour, Green and Liberal democrats having the ability to win votes in the Council chamber.  Croydon may have a Conservative mayor, but the council could best be described as No Overall Control. The first two big mistakes that Perry made were firstly grabbing all executive power to himself and secondly selecting a cabinet made up entirely from the minority conservative group.  If Perry was serious about making the mayoral system work in Croydon, he would have selected his cabinet in such a way that properly reflects the political representation of the full council.

The Council’s brand-new mayoral system does not give many decision-making powers to the full council, but one power that they do have is setting the budget.   Croydon’s virtually brand new Mayor is trying to get his first budget agreed and is finding out that being an executive mayor does not mean that the Council will agree with him.  Now his budget seems to be well and truly stuck in the system and Mayor Perry doesn’t seem to have the faintest clue how to unstick it.

The Mayor needs to get a dose of reality.  The council has the ability to vote down his budget.  If he wants to get a budget through the council, he needs to get the council on board, or at least of majority of them.  At the moment the numbers on the Council simply do not add up in his favour.

Perry’s budget was voted down by the council this evening by 37 votes to 34. The opposition lodged their objections, with Labour stressing that the 15% rise in Council Tax is excessive. Councillor Stuart King, the leader of the Labour group suggested that the Mayor makes use of the time revisiting the budgetary proposals he was developing in early February which did not include this massive Council Tax rise. Likewise Councillor Ria Patel, speaking on behalf of the Greens said that the Green Party was opposed to the budget due to the excessive rise, but they also wanted to see more clarity how residents can access the hardship provision. Cllr Patel also stressed that the Greens wanted to see more work done on the effects of the budget on biodiversity.

Mayor Perry seems to have a lot of work to do before the meeting next week, but one thing is very clear. He may have narrowly won the mayoral vote, but his political party did not win the necessary number of votes for him to do whatever he likes.