Jordan correspondence and block distribution of characters

We complete the determination of the ℓ-block distribution of characters for quasi-simple exceptional groups of Lie type up to some minor ambiguities relating to non-uniqueness of Jordan decomposition. For this, we first determine the ℓ-block distribution for finite reductive groups whose ambient algebraic group defined in characteristic different from ℓ has connected centre. As a consequence we derive a compatibility between ℓ-blocks, e-Harish-Chandra series and Jordan decomposition. Further we apply our results to complete the proof of Robinson's conjecture on defects of characters.