Ministers have sent in a taskforce to oversee Croydon council after an audit report revealed the Labour-run authority is on the verge of bankruptcy following a string of risky property investments and a failure to keep control of social care budgets.
Auditors heavily criticised the south London council for ignoring more than three years of internal warnings over its finances, accusing it of collective corporate blindness and fostering a governance culture in which poor spending decisions were not robustly challenged or scrutinised by councillors.
The council has a 60m black hole in its budget, and only 10m of financial reserves, auditors revealed, in a report that carried strong echoes of similarly deep-rooted corporate failings at Tory…
Read the full article at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/29/croydon-council-on-verge-of-bankruptcy-after-risky-investments
