London borough ends legal bid to recover £437k settlement payment made to former chief executive

The London Borough of Croydon will take no further action to seek to recover a settlement payment worth £437,000 made to its former chief executive, Jo Negrini, in 2020.

The council’s Appointments and Disciplinary Committee took the decision “following a thorough review of the issues” at a meeting on Monday (9 December).

Croydon said: “The committee agreed that it was not cost effective to continue to seek recovery of as much of the settlement payment as was legally possible because embarking on expensive, difficult litigation, even on an important point of principle, was not ultimately in the best interests of Croydon residents.”

It added: “The committee was unanimous that the real frustration was with the majority of members on the council’s former Appointments Committee who should never have agreed to the settlement payment in the first place.”

The committee approved the settlement in August 2020. In December 2022, the council said that decision was lawful, but admitted that it should not have agreed to pay the settlement as there were "significant failings" in officer advice on the decision.

The London borough said that it had meanwhile reached a cross-party agreement to lobby the Government on the legal framework concerning misconduct in public office.

The move comes after a police investigation into historical financial mismanagement and governance failures at the council earlier this month decided that no further action should be taken, despite reportedly finding potential wrongdoing, breaches of statutory duty and incompetence.

The failings were considered to be collective, rather than individual ones.

Croydon said the Appointments and Disciplinary Committee maintained that the current powers to prosecute individuals in public office for serious failures and breaches of statutory duty is inadequate.

On the Metropolitan Police’s decision to take no further action, the council said this was owing to the current law, in which misconduct in public office is a common law offence, being “very narrowly defined, which means it is only applied in very limited circumstances”.

Members of the committee were said to be “deeply disappointed” with the outcome.

In addition to lobbying ministers on changing the law on misconduct in public office, Croydon will resume its work on making referrals to professional bodies, which were paused pending the outcome of the police review.

Jason Perry, Executive Mayor of Croydon, said: “I’m pleased that we continue to have a cross-party agreement to lobby the government on this issue. We are hugely disappointed that we can no longer take further action within the existing laws, for holding those people who damaged Croydon so badly to account. 

“Residents have, quite rightly, been very angry over this. I share that anger. This highlights a serious gap in the law, and we are calling for change so it cannot happen to other local authorities."