Time tables show oflog is Gove’s Tory dog ​​- Inside Croydon

The Conservative government handed over “fundamentally flawed” data about local councils to a Murdoch-owned newspaper for publication just days before this month’s local elections. By our City Hall reporter, KEN LEE

Handling: under Michael Gove, Oflog is less a watchdog, more a political poodle

If Croydon’s part-time mayor Jason Perry had any hope that Oflog, the supposed new regulator for local government, could help solve the council’s financial meltdown, it is likely to be very disappointed.

Michael Gove played party political games ahead of the local elections earlier this month, with his Department for Equalisation, Housing and Communities supplying his former employers at Murdoch. time with Oflog data in the form of local authority ‘league tables’ showing that the new watchdog is a mere poodle for national politicians (Gove’s stunt didn’t work, with the Tories still getting a shock at the polls and Andy Street losing the mayoralty West Midlands).

Mayor Perry said he hoped Oflog could “help strengthen the accountability of local government” and punish those who bankrupt councils. Two years into his term, poor Perry has failed to deliver on his promise to bring local Labor politicians and ex-council staff to justice over the collapse of the council’s finances.

This kind of local government accountability was dismantled a decade ago by Gove’s predecessor, ‘Big’ Eric Pickles, when he got rid of the county auditor and started a free-for-all in town halls across the country.

Oflog was not created to be an independent regulatory body.

Instead, a briefing from Gove’s department about Oflog data, then misrepresented by the times, has led local government officials to express their frustrations in dealing with an additional, highly politicized level of government.

Shaun Davies, chairman of the Local Government Association, says pre-election news highlighted councils’ concerns about the role of Oflog and the “lack of progress made in establishing Oflog as an independent body”.

Councilor Davies, Labor leader of Telford and Wrekin Council, said: “All political groups and politicians in the Local Government Association have, since the inception of Oflog, been constructive in our approach, while highlighting our concerns about the currency of data, the choice . of metrics and the potential for the data to be used in a way that is not helpful in providing the public with an accurate picture of the state of local government.

“Our warnings about the use of data and Oflog’s ability to advise and inform the media about what the data does and does not show have now been done.

“The fact that this happened in the pre-election period, when councils’ ability to respond adequately is reduced, made this worse.”

It is not the first time Gove and the DLUHC have played fast and loose with their public information and duties during an election.

Selling conservative propaganda: how a Murdoch-owned newspaper removed partisan material supplied by the Tory government during the election ‘purdah’

In late 2021 and early 2022, what should have been quarterly reports from the government-appointed ‘improvement committee’ on Croydon Council’s performance were withheld before local elections to avoid providing Labor officials with ammunition from the City Hall, which showed that they were acting more responsibly.

Davies said that this year, while acknowledging that the councils’ performance ranking was compiled by a media organization (ie time), the LGA was “deeply concerned that neither Oflog nor DLUHC acted quickly to correct the inaccuracies and misleading content”.

He claimed that the method used by time compiling these indicators into a ranking was “fundamentally flawed”.

Davies said: “For example, giving average scores to councils that do not provide a particular service automatically rates them higher than half of the councils that do.”

In case you are wondering, time The league tables placed Croydon 305th out of 317 local authorities, below Southwark and Lambeth, for example, but ahead of the worst-performing councils Nottingham, Liverpool and Birmingham (all in a state of financial distress) and Harrow controlled by the Tories.

And in a nod to the sensitivities of the publication period, during local election week, Murdoch’s paper’s website helpfully provided a link to an online tool for residents to find where the nearest polling station could be found. ..

Croydon data published by Oflog has not been very up-to-date since May 2022, when Perry surprised many – including himself – by winning the borough’s mayoral election. DLUHC is still waiting to have full comparable data for all councils.

Croydon’s 2022 figures highlight just how dysfunctional the council had been when it was run by Labour. There is also more recent planning department performance data up to December 2023 which shows little progress in improving Croydon Council’s appalling planning department.

The only way is up?: Croydon is ranked 305th Times Meals. Note the “helpful” link for readers to find their polling stations

Looking at data published by Oflog on Croydon, of the 38 public interest reports issued by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in the year to April 2023, an extraordinary number covered Croydon. There have been four reports on social services for adults, social services for children and housing, covering part of Labor’s time in power.

Croydon was more than twice as bad as the average for local authority complaints per 100,000 residents backed by the Ombudsman in the 2021-22 council year when Labor was last in power.

Even before interest rates rose, 16% of Croydon Council’s core spending power was spent on interest payments. Money spent on loan interest is money not spent on difficult services.

The total debt was nearly five times Croydon’s annual expenditure – totally unsustainable. The average ratio of local governments in England and Wales between total debt and annual expenditure in 2021-22 was 226%.

No improvement: little has improved in Croydon under Mayor Jason Perry

The percentage of non-main A roads in Croydon maintained by the workforce requiring maintenance was close to four times the local authority average, with 11% of such roads in Croydon requiring attention.

The basket case that is Croydon council’s planning department has been a mess under Labor, with the percentage of major (77.5%) and non-major (72.5%) planning applications decided within the deadline well below average national. Most London councils have a rate of 91.9% to 100%.

Some government DLHUC data on the performance of Croydon’s planning department to December 2023 shows very modest progress, with the council’s planning department helped by a significant drop in applications, probably as much because developers have just given up on Croydon. But then stopping development was, after all, one of Perry’s campaign promises.

From July 2022, the council’s planning committee is chaired by Perry’s fellow Conservative councilor Michael Neal. Of the 43 major planning applications to be considered, with all their prospects for jobs and additional housing, only nine were decided within the statutory time limit for consideration.

Read more: Perry pleads for poverty when he has more council tax than ever
Read more: Croydon put into special measures: ‘Worst of possible worlds’
Read more: The council was forced to issue its third bankruptcy notice in just two years

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