Category Archives: Marvin Rees

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?

CENSORSHIP WATCH: THE BRISTOL CABLE

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In an unprecedented move, Bristol’s co-operatively owned indie newspaper, The Bristol Cable, has REMOVED an entirely accurate article from its website following COMPLAINTS from the Reverend Rees and his bent coterie of very shy high-earning council bosses.

The article, published YESTERDAY, drew attention to a the council’s Draft Statement of Accounts, originally highlighted by the Bristol News Facebook page last week, that the Reverend’s council was employing more people on salaries exceeding £50k a year than they were a year ago.

The Reverend failed to comment to the Cable yesterday but did tell a Full Council meeting last night that the salary figures in his Statement of Accounts were INACCURATE and MISLEADING because they included the redundancy payments received by departing bosses.

This seems UNLIKELY since the Rev’s statement doesn’t list the gross salaries and benefits of his highly paid managers but the general ‘Remuneration Band’ they fall within. A ‘Remuneration Band’ would not ordinarily include one-off redundancy payments.

And if it did, why aren’t the twenty-one high-earning bosses – who shared out £2.5MILLION between them in redundancy pay-offs last year – listed and named in the report as earning over £150k last year as the law requires?

Regardless of these facts, the Cable has pulled the article and replaced it with the following statement: ***PLEASE NOTE THIS ARTICLE IS SUBJECT TO A COMPLAINT AND UNDER REVIEW***

Why has this article been pulled? It’s based on figures published in June by the council that were signed off by their Audit Committee on 27 June. If the figures are wrong, it’s the council’s job to explain this and publicly correct them. There is absolutely NO PRECEDENT or GOOD REASON for The Cable to pull a whole article published in good faith quoting publicly available official figures. Especially when these figures are yet to be formally denied anywhere as inaccurate.

It’s also laughable that The Rev Rees has put out a call across the city for “ideas” to deal with his budget deficit. However, when an “idea” involving not paying his bosses such large sums of money for sod-all appears, he tries to ban it!

If Bristol City Council wishes to attempt to censor information that makes the mayor look like a powerless twerp, then that’s their affair. But why are the Bristol Cable making fools of themselves by being bullied into supporting the council in their efforts to censor the truth?

The Cable article, obtained from the web’s cache is published below:

331 employees are now paid an annual basic pay of between £50,000 and £124,000, compared to 216 people in the financial year of 2015/16.

At the same time as general public sector pay caps and cuts has battered the council, almost every band of executive salaries at the council has seen an increase in numbers in the past year. Of the 21 senior pay categories that changed over the year, 18 have seen increases in the number of staff receiving top salaries.

These figures include the £160,000 a year council chief executive Anna Klonowski. It also includes at least three other executives who have seen their pay packets swell over the year by around £7,000 each, taking them to well above £160,000 a year including pension contributions.

Under pressure for implementing drastic cuts, Mayor Marvin Rees, who was elected in May 2016 has challenged anti-cuts protesters to come up with solutions, rather than just criticise. Defending the council positions on cuts, Mr Rees has written: “If we do not make a saving in one area we have to make it in another area. The consequence of one person’s priority is the de-prioritisation of another person’s priority.”

Responding to this latest information, Tom Whittaker a spokesperson from Bristol People’s Assembly, a coalition of trade unions and activists, said: “Clearly there can be no justification for executive pay rises when services are being cut, when many of Bristol’s poorest residents are struggling to survive under the impact of austerity and when ordinary council workers are enduring a long pay freeze.”

Mayor Rees was asked what involvement he had in these decisions, and how it fitted with his priorities agenda. He did not respond to the request.

The figures come from the 2016/17 unaudited annual accounts published by the council, available here.

AUDIT’S IDLE HANDS STILL ON THE PAYROLL

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Bristol City Council’s Audit Committee continues to impress. The committee, that’s supposed to oversee sound finance and good governance at our council, releases its annual report to councillors today for the year the Bundred Report into the council’s latest FINANCIAL SHAMBLES was published.

Among a host of serious management misconduct at Bristol City Council, Bundred’s report detailed how the Audit Committee had been thoroughly MISLED by its own Chief Internal Auditors and senior bosses about their ‘savings programme’ for 2013 – 16. Sometimes through the use of straightforward LIES to the committee and sometimes through the use of “summary reports’ that conveniently LEFT OUT any bad news or actual facts.

This resulted in councillors setting an UNLAWFUL BUDGET for 2015 – 16 that proposed the council spend £30million more than they were legally permitted. So there’s lots to tell councillors and the public in this annual report then?

Or maybe not? As the latest Labour Party mug flailing around totally out-of-his-depth as the Audit Committee Chair, Olly “Meadiocre’ Mead, has delivered a short five page report of remarkable blandness and few recommendations. Indeed, it’s such a load of shite it could only have been written for him by his BENT Internal Audit Service.

Summing up a year of revelations of outright financial CRIMINALITY from his senior staff and auditors and financial ARMAGEDDON for the rest of us, Mediaocre felt his committee needed to focus on just three problems: ‘Maintaining an apolitical/independent approach to meeting agendas and items thereon’; ‘providing robust challenge to determine the effectiveness of Council’s governance  framework’; ‘ensuring  focused meetings to maximise the Committee impact’.

If anyone can find the part of the Bundred Report criticising ‘politicised’ Audit Committee meetings and a lack of focus at their meetings – do let us know. Otherwise just assume this is a load of wind and irrelevant bollocks from a CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT Internal Audit Service trying to cover their tracks by, er, misleading councillors (all over again).

Nothing sums up the misleading nature of this report more than the fact that NOWHERE does it mention the pretty important news that the council has appointed a new private sector Interim Chief Internal Auditor – Jonathan Idle of JR Idle Audit Services Ltd – no doubt for the standard annual six figure wedge. The appointment of this new Chief Internal Auditor hasn’t been formally announced to councillors anywhere else either.

Naturally, in order to waste even more of our money, which the Reverend Rees insists is in short supply, they’ve also KEPT their job share pair of USELESS and CORRUPT existing Chief Internal Auditors Melanie “Joe” Henchy-McCarthy and Alison “Mullet” Mullis in post. Although they’re now rebranded as just ‘Head of Internal Audit’ while being paid the same money.

In other words, the council’s response to the TOTAL FAILURE of their Audit Committee, Internal Audit and Chief Internal Auditors is to spend over £100k a year more of our money on a private sector consultant to do the jobs of pair of useless failures – who should be SACKED – who are still raking in excessive salaries they don’t deserve.

Also, NOWHERE in Mediocre’s report, is it mentioned that the Audit Committee has, for the last five years, received report after report from McCarthy and Mullet assuring councillors that finance management and risk at the council has been a story of CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.

Until – that is – the Bundred Report appeared last year. Now we’re told by Chief Exec Big Wedge, in a separate finance report to Cabinet in May, that “the required Internal Audit Plan is not deliverable within existing resources” because of the “scale of finance improvements required”. Why is this serious AUDIT FAILURE and five year tissue of OUTRIGHT LIES from Internal Auditors not mentioned by Mediocre?

It’s also worth noting that the two ‘independent’ members of the Audit Committee –  Brenda “Wise Monkey” McClennan and Ken “Fool” Guy – who mysteriously noticed NOTHING amiss as various financial scandals engulfed the council during their extended eight year tenures  – have finally been let go.

Although – as yet – no replacements have been secured. Perhaps because if a normal member of the public sat on this committee listening to the bollocks spouted by the unholy alliance of city council senior bosses and their PATSY AUDITORS they might start asking difficult questions?

What a shambles.