Category Archives: Marvin Rees

WASTED?

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bristol waste

What happened to Bristol Waste managing director Tony “I Am The” Lawless and his sidekick, finance director Adam “Dumb” Henshaw? Why did both suddenly quit on July 18 and disappear without working their notice?

The story goes that last March the rubbish bosses got their business plan signed off and approved by council boss Stephen “Preening” Peacock and the Reverend Rees. That business plan was based on holding a pretty strong line on pay in order to keep another of the council’s struggling businesses solvent. 

So, when the unions decided they needed a better pay rise they bypassed Bristol Waste altogether and went straight to the Reverend and his ex-union baron sideman “Slo” Kev Slocombe. The Reverend then instructed Bristol Waste (despite having no authority to do so) that they needed to make a better pay offer despite knowing full well they didn’t have the money. to pay for it.

Eventually Bristol Waste did make an improved offer. Not good enough to satisfy what the unions wanted but high enough to mean that it was double the amount of this year’s contract increase from the Reverend. Bristol Waste would now have to eat into their reserves and implement major cuts that formed no part of March’s business plan.

Soon after the pay hike announcement Lawless and Henshaw quit. Chris Holmes was quickly transferred over from Bristol Holding to take on the finance role, and a new interim MD was headhunted and appointed.

Last we heard Bristol Workplace (the recently outsourced cleaners and security from Bristol City Council) have already seen workloads substantially increased as the company attempts to deliver more for less. 

This month the new management will be launching a public consultation. Designed to be as boring as possible, one of its objectives will be to test out ideas that sound like they will be better for the environment but, in reality, will also save BWC lots of money. The preferred option being to go to three week rubbish collections rather than the two weeks currently in operation.

General word is that the Reverend doesn’t much care what the company does as long it doesn’t go bust before the end of his term in May 2024

CIL-LY GAMES

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CIL

To that most boring of events, the council’s annual budget meeting. Where 70 councillors argue for hours over a few million quid of a £400m budget that gets passed largely unscrutinised.

Last year, the Green’s longwinded Redland Councillor Martin “Yoda” Fodor – “Ramble for hours at a tangent, I can” – spotted that there was £12.5m of CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) funding from corporate developers sat there doing nothing.

So he popped in an amendment suggesting that the money be spent on improving parks and the city’s national laughing-stock public transport system. This was voted down by Labour who claimed the money was earmarked for projects such as: City Centre/Castle Park, Whitehouse Street, Frome Gateway, Green Infrastructure (inc tree planting & biodiversity improvements), City Region Sustainable Transport Strategy and Avon Flood Strategy.

At this year’s budget Yoda reappeared, he did, and popped in another amendment asking for £1m for parks and liveable neighbourhoods after he discovered there was £12.1m of CIL still sat there doing nothing. 

And Labour’s response? “The money’s earmarked for projects such as  City Centre/Castle Park, Whitehouse Street, Frome Gateway,blah, blah, blah.”

Yoda’s amendment got through this time but then the Reverend’s took five days “to think about it” and then rejected it!

What a joke.

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #20

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Opportunistic campaigners from that notorious hotbed of anti-semitism, the failing ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy run by racists and transphobes, have continued to generate a lot of unnecessary noise regarding the entirely essential and lawful sustainable remuneratory consideration I handed to Miss Klownowski from London when she resigned as Parish Secretary in 2017. As you all know, Miss Klonowski publicly explained she was doing the Christian thing and resigning to care for her tragically ill and dying parents and wasn’t involved in bullying anyone, anywhere, ever. The Christian community of St Marvin’s therefore should be celebrating Miss Klonownowki’s resilient selflessness and my administrative efficiency, not focussing on the minor material matter of money.

There’s a number of other things that the congregation needs to understand about this essential and lawful sustainable remuneratory consideration I handed to Miss Klownowski. Firstly, the whole issue is really boring. Miss Klonowski worked for the parish. Then one day she didn’t and we gave her a purely contractural payment to go away. This was all absolutely correct as has been confirmed by the high-level verbal legal advice acquired for me by our former interim Parish Committee member Miss McGeachie from Peterborough. You may recall Miss Klonowski personally appointed Miss McGeachie on a tax-efficient basis in 2017 to streamline the Parish Committee’s leadership function. Miss McGeachie sustainably delivered this streamline on target and to budget as well as enabling top-notch legal advice for me from someone in Wales whose name now escapes me.

The second consideration you therefore need to understand is that I was acting on sound legal advice. The fact that our former accountant, Mr Bdo, a foreigner from Vietnam, says in his weird and unnecessary report that this advice was wrong can safely be discounted as his firm has now been deservedly fired from St Marvin’s and replaced by Mr Grant Thornton, from a local accountancy firm on the High Street. Not only is Mr Thornton auditing our church’s accounts this year but he has also taken on some complex consultancy work at a very competitive rate to map an improvement journey for our church’s accounting practice. And Mr Thornton hasn’t produced any reports criticising me or anyone else in the parish leadership team. Proving beyond reasonable doubt that this whole issue is politically mischievous noise from opportunistic campaigners.

The final thing to understand is that Miss Klonowski’s remuneratory arrangements were nothing to do with me anyway. Miss McGeachie assisted by interim Parish Committee member, Miss Beardmore from Shropshire, navigated Miss Klownowski’s leadership exit journey back in 2017. So those saying the buck stops with me have clearly never operated a buck and have no idea where it should stop or, even, how to stop one. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “ask not where the buck stops for you but where you can stop the buck when confronted with trenchant criticism”.

Let’s now move on and focus on our resilient spiritual leadership journey together that binds us.

The Vicar

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #19

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You may have read in the local newspapers that the scourge of institutional racism is stalking the pews of St Marvin’s. The first thing to understand about all this is that none of this is my fault. Neither is it the fault of the executive head of the Parish Committee, the entirely non-racist Mr Jackson, or any other of my highly competent and equalities-positive senior leaders of our inclusive church project. This is a fact confirmed in a secret report you don’t need to see that I commissioned from my friend, The Very Reverend Holy Poonami

This has all been explained to Mr Norton, the editor of the St Marvin’s Post and one of our parish’s outstanding social liberals and anti-racists who assures me he has a lot of black friends. He now firmly agrees with myself and the Holy Poonami that the blame for all this racism at St Marvin’s lies firmly within the congregation, especially among those occupying the middle pews on Sundays. And rest assured, our inclusive parish leadership team are fully dedicated to efficiently shifting the blame for this problem on to these people as quickly as possible now that the newspapers have found out.

Further strategic responses you can expect from a wholly innocent and unaware inclusive parish leadership team will be an ongoing commitment to building a diverse parish by repeating language such as ‘inclusive’, ‘diverse’ and ‘outward looking’ as much as possible. This should allow inclusive parish leaders to continue to flourish despite acutely embarrassing accusations from the media.

In partnership with Mr Jackson and the senior parish leadership team, I will also continue to regularly publish waffle about our organisational values; ramble on about a parish journey of continuous improvement and, naturally, improve the robustness of our all-important equality impact assessments that nobody ever looks at.

You will also be excited to hear that the inclusive leadership team will ensure that the next Parish survey – due out soon – includes a section dedicated to you better understanding our outward-looking parish culture and religious environment. This will specifically address issues of fairness, equality, inclusion and diversity that many parishioners are struggling to spout as professionally as our inclusive parish leaders can.

Alongside our mission to place the blame elsewhere, I’m sure you will agree this is a hugely robust response from your inclusive parish leadership team. As my mentor the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says in his new ‘Book of Loon’, “When caught red-handed, profess thy undying innocence, buy in a report and blame those who can’t answer back”.

Finally a small word about these so-called “whistleblowers” who spoke to the press. In future can anyone identifying as a “whistleblower” contact the inclusive parish leadership team immediately? We are all extremely skilled in managing these problems in line with our inclusive parish leadership goals and, often, our inclusive goals conflict with the goals of the ungodly free press. Please note that “whistleblowers” who fail to comply with this simple instruction may come to regret it.

Hopefully, with such a robust inclusive leadership response now in place, the parish can move swiftly along and not dwell on this overblown media confection for too much longer.

The Vicar

POLLUTERS’ SECRET MEETING JOY

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Lenin

Disquiet in Avonmouth after it’s revealed that their two idiot Labour councillors Donald “Lenin” Alexander and Jo “Stupid Hippy” Sergeant, have met in SECRET with corporate polluters Sims Metal, based at the Port of Bristol.

Both councillors are refusing to divulge any information about their meeting with a business that’s notorious for systematically IGNORING regulators’ instructions as well as being a site of regular and inexplicable explosions.

An FoI request reveals this mystery meeting had no agenda and no minutes were taken. Conveniently leaving no audit trail for future reference. This has created to a lot of SUSPICION in the village. Why did senior representatives of a serial polluter’s REGULATORY BODY have a secret meeting with the polluter? What happened? Were used banknotes exchanged? How would we know?

Stupid Hippy

Perhaps we should keep a careful eye on Lenin and Hippy’s holiday destinations next year? Will they be sunning themselves somewhere especially exotic while kids in Avonmouth get to stay home and be EXPOSED to carcinogens and the RISK of lung disease due to an ineptly regulated business?

Maybe this pair of hopeless councillors should take advice from their own council on matters

of CORRUPTION and how to avoid legitimate accusations of it? “All workers are required to avoid any activity that might lead to, or suggest, a breach of the Bribery Act 2010,” they’re advised. But perhaps this pair are too important to follow their own advice?

Dipshit

Although, at least, Lenin and Hippy aren’t quite as bent as Avonmouth’s former Tory councillor, Wayne “Dumb” Harvey, who managed, for a couple of years, to be a non-executive director of the Port of Bristol Company on behalf of Bristol City Council while also being an EMPLOYEE of the company!

No doubt, in the corridors of power at the Counts Louse the nonces running the place consider this a gold standard in independent company oversight? Although anyone in the real world would know Harvey had a BLATANT conflict of interest and it would be impossible for him to oversee, at board level, the running of a business that employed him at a junior level.

BristolCity Council’s latest non-executive director overseeing the Port of Bristol is our friend Green Councillor Stephen Clarke. He currently seems too busy running a small but profitable property empire and evicting vulnerably housed young people to worry about CORPORATE POLLUTERS in Avonmouth.

Plus ca change.

LABOUR RIMMER SERVICING GREEDY BOSSES

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Rimmer – naff suit, stupid job title, increased expenses – ready to fuck the workers

Get a middle-ranking trade union bureaucrat in a naff suit, hand him a job title and an increased councillor allowance and he’ll have his TONGUE inserted up the ARSE of a boss quicker than a strategic director can say “get your tongue on my sweet spot Kye”!

Step forward Kye “RIMMER” Dudd, Labour’s new union firebrand chair of the council’s Human Resources Committee, responsible for dishing out ridiculous PAY RISES to failing bosses. Last year this useless committee decided to chuck senior council bosses a 20 PER CENT pay rise to reward their “talent” just weeks after all the lucky recipients of this taxpayer generosity had conspired together to set an UNLAWFUL BUDGET for the city.

Now the senior management pisstakers are back in front of the committee again on Thursday, recommending ANOTHER pay rise for themselves of 20 per cent. This time “TO REFLECT MARKET RATES“. All they now require is for Rimmer’s daft committee to sign their nonsense demand off as quietly as possible.

Naturally, an almighty fuss has accompanied the news of this latest HUGE PAY RISE demand from bosses in the midst of CUTS to council tax benefits to the poor, the closure of libraries and the sacking of school crossing patrols. And Rimmer is right on it … Servicing the needs of his bosses on six-figure salaries by trying to SILENCE DISSENT and steer this ludicrous pay hike through the council.

His first move has been to attempt to BAN gobshite councillors, Tory Richard “Bunter” Eddy and Lib Dem Gary “Fuckbucket” Hopkins from the crucial committee meeting on Thursday – even though he has no power to do so – claiming they have BREACHED confidentiality by discussing the useless recruitment process for recently departed Chief Exec Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski.

Clearly there’s no interest from Rimmer in working cross-party to put an END to these ridiculous and ever-increasing salaries for bosses then. For some reason it’s much more important for Rimmer to engineer a pathetic little party POLITICAL ROW in the finest tradition of thicko small town provincial politicians.

“As a trade unionist, I am horrified that unlike any other organisation in the world, these two force us to play out Human Resources issues in public, disrespecting the employment rights of employees and damaging the ability of the council to manage people effectively and the organisation cost-effectively,” HUFFS the idiot, Rimmer.

Because, “as a trade unionist” Rimmer’s main concern is obviously the employment rights of a Chief Executive earning £140k a year who received £70k for resigning? Mustn’t go around disrepecting useless, bullying, money-grabbing BOSS SCUM must we Rimmer?  Where’s the respectful SILENCE and CAP-DOFFING from the lower orders as greedy bosses assisted by trade unionists and the Labour Party openly rip us off, eh?

Rimmer is also, it seems, a bit CONFUSED about the role of his committee that meets in public to discuss, er, council human resources issues in public. This simple democratic oversight – according to Rimmer  – is now “damaging the ability of the council to manage people effectively and the organisation cost-effectively”. Of course, if only Rimmer and the Reverend could line the pockets of bent bosses and elitists IN SECRET it would be so much more cost effective wouldn’t it?

Meanwhile ordinary staff at the council, who Rimmer pretends to give a shit about for electoral purposes, will be told at the same meeting that they will have to wait until – at least – JANUARY to hear about their own wages.

A proposed salary restructure for the plebs, which, last year, his HR committee promised would be completed by April, has now been DELAYED by Rimmer until next year for reasons he won’t explain. More of those “confidential” and “cost effective” reasons no doubt? Or perhaps Rimmer’s just a CUNT who’s only interested in lining the pockets of wealthy bosses from public funds?

Up the workers!

CITY COUNCIL SENIOR BOSSES LINE UP ANOTHER PAY RISE

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We’re not making this up …

Having awarded themselves pay rises of up to 20 PER CENT in 2016 for arranging an unlawful budget, Bristol City Council bosses are lining up yet another pay rise for themselves. “Independent” reports in front of the Human Resources Committee next week want to award senior bosses pay rises of up to 13 PER CENT!

The council’s latest Pay Policy Statement awaiting sign-off from gullible councillors next week says:

“For the period covered by this Statement, the salary for Group Director roles will range from £135,000 to £165,000 with a mid-point of £150,000. (Currently £136k)

The salary for Director (Level 2) roles will range from £100,000 to £120,000 with a mid-point of £110,000. (currently £98k)

The salary for Director (Level 1) roles will range from £85,000 to £105,000 with a mid-point of £95,000. (currently £98k)

Salaries at these levels will normally be between the minimum of the range and the mid-point. Payment above the mid-point is reserved for roles where there is clear evidence that the market rate is significantly higher than the mid-point.”

Meanwhile the pay and grading review for ORDINARY STAFF (which might result in significant pay rises to the lowest paid staff at the council  who are currently earning at near minimum wage levels) that was supposed to be completed in April is now delayed until, at least, JANUARY 2018.

What a total fucking joke. Bosses should be getting big pay cuts. They have failed to deliver time and again. They’re simply not worth the money.

BIG WEDGE’S BULLY SHAME

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The Reverend with his Bully-in-Chief

WAS REES RUNNING A BULLYING CULTURE FROM THE TOP AT BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL?

Why has the council’s chief lawyer and Bundred crook, Shahzia “Dim” Daya started threatening councillors with legal action if they discuss the recently departed council Chief Exec Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski with the press?

Total mystery surrounds the sudden RESIGNATION of the Reverend Rees’s representative on Earth and chief bag carrier. Big Wedge, barely six months into a role filling her boots with extraordinary sums of public cash while leading an inane “improvement journey” at the council quit on Monday 4 September for “family reasons” taking a payoff reputedly in the region of £70k. What for?

This, so the story goes, is because Big Wedge suddenly discovered her parents were seriously ill and she needed to to look after them. We can only sympathise with this SUDDEN and SIMULTANEOUS deterioration of these executive parents, both of whose health apparently collapsed in the six months since Big Wedge began her latest well remunerated public sector “improvement journey”.

No doubt Big Wedge watchers are pleased that she’s continued to display her remarkably ordinary intellect and way with a tired old cliche to the very end. Isn’t quitting for “family reasons” a hackneyed old code in political circles for “JUMPING BEFORE I’M PUSHED“? So what has Big Wedge really been up to?

Creating and running a systematic BULLYING CULTURE at the top of the council is what. We understand that in early September a letter began circulating claiming that Big Wedge had personally bullied 14 Service Directors out of Bristol City Council over the last year and had then paid them off to keep them silent.

Intrigued, a local reporter called the council’s PR department where they were greeted with barely-concealed PANIC at the mention of Big Wedge and bullying. The reporter was promised they would receive a call back with a statement. Obviously this never came.

Instead, for the rest of the week, local newspaper editors received regular calls from various senior bosses and PR types at the council BEGGING them not to run any bullying stories in relation to Big Wedge. Then – after a weekend, apparently considering her position – Big Wedge announced the following Monday morning she was quitting “for family reasons”. Coincidence or wot?

What’s even stranger, however, is why the Reverend and Big Wedge ever thought bullying bosses out of the organisation and paying large compensation packages was necessary? (Were they getting a kick out of bullying their staff?) Because didn’t they have a brand new INDEPENDENT REPORT (kept secret from us) into their managers’ conduct around financial management in 2015 – 16 and the unlawful budget set in 2016?

So why wasn’t this report used as the basis for DISCIPLINARY ACTION against these bosses? This would have saved us a fortune and ensured none of these crooks ever worked in local government again. Surely a win-win?

Or maybe this secret report contains some rather more uncomfortable facts that need to remain secret? For example, Klonowski started working in a SENIOR ROLE in finance at Bristol City Council in 2015. What exactly did she know about HIDDEN DEBTS and UNLAWFUL BUDGETS?

Similarly, council lawyer Shahzia “Dim” Daya, who’s still got her feet firmly under the table at the Counts Louse and is now threatening councillors all over again, OVERSAW the council budget meeting in 2016 where an unlawful budget was set with her FULL KNOWLEDGE. Alison “Three Jobs” Comley – still raking in a six figure sum – also knew all about the unlawful budget, according to PUBLISHED MINUTES, and she continues in post trashing parks and unlawfully refusing to house the homeless.

Then there’s the pair of BENT CHIEF INTERNAL AUDITORS who knew lots and lots about unachieved savings and inaccurate reports to councillors. They, too, are still collecting generous salaries for their mendacity and failure.

Isn’t it time the Reverend published his secret new report into his bent bosses so we can find out what’s been going on inside his useless council and we can sort it out if he can’t?

NB. Any legal threats in relation to this article to the Bristolian’s email please.

BULLY CHENEY’S LAME SPIN MACHINE FORGETS TO TELL US THE TRUTH

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Cheney: always research and clarify as he may be talking bollocks

The Reverend Rees’s rookie finance chief, Craig “Crapita” Cheney, has issued a bizarre and slightly mental statement attacking the Bristol Cable after they published an article this week claiming the Reverend was employing MORE – not less – bosses at the council on salaries of £50k a year or more.

In a meandering outburst lacking in either PRECISION or CLARITY – and obviously written by arse-covering council managers for him – Cheney fails to CONFIRM or DENY the accuracy of the Cable’s central claim. Instead he ATTACKS the paper for quoting information he personally signed off as accurate and complete and ready for public consumption.

“The MISTAKE [The Cable] made is in the READING of a table of data contained in the council’s draft annual statement of accounts,” Cheney spins with a straight face. Of course, how silly of people to read the data Cheney supplied in his accounts! That’s not what a published “table of data” is for at all is it? Cheney then cheerily slags the Cable for “not approaching the council to RESEARCH and CLARIFY the nature of that data.”

Er, why would they? Is Cheney claiming anything he publishes needs to be researched and clarified because it’s probably a load of BOLLOCKS? Is this not a little time-consuming for a council claiming to be struggling to resource basic public services and confusing for journalists who might think information provided by a local authority finance department in their Statement of Accounts is ACCURATE and COMPLETE?

Cheney’s contention is that his “table does not reflect the number of council employees who receive a basic salary of £50,000 or more per year as was reported” because it includes low paid staff who received large redundancy pay-offs last year. On the basis of this THIN CLAIM, Cheney then demands an APOLOGY from the Cable while dismally failing to publish information that does accurately “reflect the number of council employees who receive a basic salary of £50,000 or more”!

Cheney’s demand for an apology is deranged for, at least, two reasons. First, the error is down to Cheney’s own SLOPPINESS and INABILITY to present information unambiguously and accurately. For some reason, the chump has departed from the usual custom and good practice of previous years and not stated in his accounts the number of employees earning £50k or more only because they were in receipt of large payments last year for ‘loss of office’. Why?

Moreover, despite taking the time to issue his long, rambling and self-serving statement, Cheney chooses NOT to correct his schoolboy presentation errors properly. Where’s the unequivocal clarification of how many of the 222 staff listed as earning £50k plus last year are only listed due to their redundancy payments and how many are receiving a salary every year in excess of £50k? Why is Cheney so coy about providing this SIMPLE INFORMATION in his daft attempt at aggressive rebuttal?

This leads to the second reason why Cheney’s demand for an apology is ridiculous. He hasn’t REBUTTED the Cable’s main claim – that the city council is employing MORE staff on £50k a year than they were a year ago! Are they or aren’t they? Cheney must know.

The Cable needs to tell Cheney, Rees and the Labour Party bullies to fuck off and provide the FULL PICTURE they have on these salaries. Like the council has managed to do in every other year they’ve published salary information.

What’s the big secret this year?