Tag Archives: ECHR

SEND PARENT SPY SCANDAL: SEND ITEM ABANDONED AT CABINET MEETING!

SEND  Reputational narrative
Reputational narrative from Jon Smith, Newsdesk Supervisor at Bristol City Council

Yesterday, a report was set to go to Bristol City Council’s cabinet to agree a large capital spend to tackle the city’s crisis in school places for SEND children. Imagine the surprise when the agenda item disappeared off the agenda at midday yesterday prior to the meeting at 4.00pm.

The council later claimed that the item was pulled due to the spiralling costs of building work. Had these costs spiralled in the five days since the report was first published online?

Another theory is that the item was hastily pulled to avoid the public making statements and asking questions about SEND that could have included queries to the Reverend Rees about his dodgy SEND spying scandal. Has an urgent item of SEND expenditure been pulled to save our thin-skinned mayor from embarrassment and, possibly, legal complications?

Here’s one statement from a parent that got pulled when this agenda item got pulled at remarkably short notice. Read it and make up your own mind about what’s going on:

The Decision Pathway Report says: ‘Whilst this report puts forward a positive story about the council investing capital funds to deliver much needed capacity within the SEND sector, it is often the case that the reaction to such proposals is mixed. This should not deter BCC from proactively sharing this news ahead of the Cabinet decision in August and we’d recommend taking a positive stance on talking about the amount being invested and the impact it will deliver. Preparations can be made to put reactive lines in place to respond to likely counter’s [sic] from external commentators and we’d recommend ensuring a comprehensive stakeholder comms plan is in place to cover individual projects and ensure those impacted are fully aware of the proposed investments.’

This section has been added by a PR officer on 14 June 2022. Send families form the majority of external commentators in this context. These are families who have had the most traumatic of experiences. If nothing else is obvious to Cabinet, the need for an additional 450 Send places shows how many children and young people have been suffering and for how long. 

To tone police and minimise the response from ‘external commentators’ shows that disability discrimination truly is an acceptable form of discrimination by the council and administration. Its external comms department is party to victimising the families of those with protected characteristics for speaking out and advocating for their needs. 

Appendix D [pictured below] says there will be ‘reputational risk’ if the council is unable to name education settings in EHCPs. This is because ‘sufficient provision is not yet in place’. It says the key consequences of this ‘could result in increased complaints to the council and/or a judicial review’. The Key Mitigations state:

‘Communications plan required. External Communications Team engaged. Workshop to develop comms strategy to be held’. It is dated 27 July 2021. In addition, there are two restricted items, a first for council Send papers. 

The One Page Business Case paper says that the lack of specialist provision results in: ‘CYP educated out of area, CYP needs not met, BCC not meeting legal duty, More expensive placements being used, Judicial reviews, Negative reputation, Political pressure, EHCPs cannot be finalised.’ All papers show the extent of the specialist places crisis and the impact of this, such as the LA ‘not meeting legal duty’ and ‘EHCPs cannot be finalised’. 

These are things that families have been speaking out about for years. And yet, for speaking out they are ‘critical commentators’ with External Comms running a workshop to deal with it. This workshop was to develop a strategy to protect the council’s reputation against families using the entirely legitimate legal action of Judicial Review, against an LA not meeting its statutory duty. 

Leaked emails by The Bristolian last month revealed that council staff, including at director level were monitoring the social media of Send parents and compiling lists of individuals and organisations they considered to be ‘critical’. This included cross referencing personal accounts and delving through photographs and sharing the data with third parties. The External Comms team just keeps popping up like some kind of Council Black Ops whenever something happens the LA doesn’t like. 

The papers named above potentially indicate the council is in breach of Article 10 of the Convention on Human Rights [Freedom of Expression]. It supports residents’ concerns about unlawful covert surveillance taking place – as far back as July 2021 – as well as possible Victimisation under the Equality Act 2010.

Public Forum statement to Bristol City Council Cabinet 02 08 2022 (unpublished)
SEND  Comms risk
‘External Comms Team engaged’ to stop parents’ judicial reviews?

OFFICIAL: COUNCIL HOUSING BOSS HOOPER IS A TORY SUPPORTING BULLY!

hooperAll is not going to plan, it seems, with Bristol City Council’s efforts to ASBO environmental campaigners in Avonmouth on behalf of the TORY PARTY.

Readers may recall that the council’s thick and useless housing boss, Nick “DROOPER” Hooper fired off a letter to the two campaigners before Christmas threatening them with LEGAL ACTION for the new crime of hand delivering a letter to idiot savant Avonmouth Tory councillor Wayne “DUMB” Harvey.

Our intrepid campaigners, knowing a load of half-arsed BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL BULLSHIT when they read it, immediately fired in a complaint to the council, questioning the extent of the alleged statutory POWERS claimed by Drooper, his right to SECRETLY SNOOP on them and his apparent DISREGARD for their human rights..

A reply has now finally been received. And we discover that the council has simply IGNORED the majority of the complaint while helpfully explaining that no investigation into the pair took place despite Hooper’s legal threat detailing the conclusions of his. er … Investigation!

By what other process did DROOPER obtain “allegations” against the pair, consider the evidence and form his biased opinion then? Did it all just pop into his head as a vision while high on opiates? Or perhaps he just MADE IT ALL UP?

The council then go on to explain, using their amazing legal logic, that Drooper, by denying the pair their basic civil right of a RIGHT TO REPLY are not entitled to any civil rights whatsoever (such as the protections afforded under ARTICLE 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights)!

Normally at this point, we would say that you couldn’t make this shit up. But they obviously they have!

On the bright side, the council have not DENIED that Drooper is politically biased and doing favours for his friends in the local TORY PARTY. Neither have they denied that the purpose of his letter was to BULLY and HARASS local residents.

So at least we can all agree and publicly state without fear of legal action that Drooper is a POLITICALLY BIASED TORY BULLY BOY.

However, rest assured the matter will not rest here. A matter not likely to be helped by a RUMOUR emerging from the depths of Lawrence Weston that the complaint Drooper acted upon did not even come from councillor DUMB – who’s basically semi-literate and far too busy dropping his pants and bending over the desk for Merchant Venturer Port bosses Mordaunt and Ord to write a letter of complaint – but from local MP Charlotte “BACARDI” Leslie’s office.

Surely known Tory sympathiser DROOPER, Bacard’s office and the council wouldn’t be stupid enough to conspire to issue a blatantly BENT ASBO to help a Tory MP in a marginal constituency just months before an election?

Would they?