Category Archives: Shitty Hall

Our fine local authority – all about Bristol City Council and the Mayor

RISE OF THE ANTI-MAYOR: MARVIN TO SACK 1,000 STAFF

Anti-Mayor? The Reverend Marv stands in front of an inverted cross in his council chamber as he starts to invert everything he promised and ever believed in.

Following the Reverend Rees’s laughable ‘First 100 Days‘ PR effort last week – where he revealed he’d done NOTHING except sit on his backside and appoint a few committees – our hapless new mayor today announced he intends to immediately SACK 1,000 council staff to balance the books.

This will effectively spell THE END of functioning local public services like adult care, social services, and youth services and is the polar opposite of what the Reverend promised just three months ago in his ambitious manifesto.

One member of the Reverend’s pissed off staff has kindly summed up the truth of this ABSURD PLAN for us:

“Just had a prick of a manager come down to basically say: no overtime, no more temps, working weekends for basic rates etc etc And all brought in by a cunt on a grand a day!”

Not much we can add to that.

The council’s unions, meanwhile, have come out with a pathetic response, proposing a USELESS four point plan that will make no difference whatsoever:

“Responding to today’s announcement by the council, the unions have come up with a four-point plan to stave off the worst effects of the planned cuts:

•Meaningful consultations on a plan to deliver quantifiable savings to deal with the current budget shortfall and future savings
•A review of the decisions behind the budget shortfall in the 2014-2017 period
•A review of consultancy, agency and casual contracts to ensure value for money from these contracts in future
•The mayor Marvin Rees to make representations to Whitehall on the state of local government finance and the impact on Bristol’s 450,000 population of these cuts.”

What will this achieve? “Representations to Whitehall” my arse.The Reverend Marvin and his union friends need to come out fighting. REJECT the cuts outright; REFUSE to put 1,000 Bristolians out of work and REFUSE to destroy our local services.

Tell Theresa May and her piss weak DIVIDED GOVERNMENT to stick their Tory cuts up their Tory arses; set a proper budget to deliver the services we need and invite the Tories to come to Bristol and try to stop us.

Let’s see if May’s poxy little shit stain of a failing government is strong enough to take on Bristol shall we?

Come on Marv. You’re not a yes-man pussy public sector bureaucrat any more. Time to be a politician. That’s what we elected you for.

MEET THE NEW BOSS …

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Lady Gaga’s replacement has arrived … And it looks like we’re in for a treat (if you enjoy bent local government bosses)

Hughes: disreputable fat cat on a grand a day

“THE REVEREND” Marvin Rees continues his fight on the frontline of the battle against rising inequality by paying a scandal-hit “retired” local government officer and EX-PUBLIC SCHOOLBOY £1,000 a day to run his council on a PART TIME, four day a week basis.

The lucky recipient of this absurd generosity is dubious little shit, Stephen “OAP” Hughes. A bloke with bad teeth and an ill fitting suit who used to be Chief Exec at Birmingham City Council until he scarpered in February 2014 to become – wait for it … “A strategic consultant’ (surely “unemployed”? Ed).

As with all these dodgy local authority FAT CAT bosses, OAP left Birmingham under a cloud with an undisclosed fat pay off disguised as a pension for his lead role in a botched cover-up of the so-called ‘TROJAN HORSE’ affair.

This SORDID little tale finally became national news in 2014 after teachers had spent over a year raising concerns to Hughes’ council about various school governing bodies in Birmingham that were trying to introduce strict Islamic principles into education.

After considerable and lengthy dithering by OAP’s council, the story finally broke in BIRMINGHAM MAIL in March 2014 – just after Hughes had done a runner and “retired” to the private sector!

With the Birmingham Mail driving things forward, a leaked document soon came to light claiming DIRTY TRICKS were being used to oust non-Muslim staff in some schools in an operation called ‘Trojan Horse’.

And with Hughes out of the way, FOUR separate inquiries were immediately launched into the allegations, including Birmingham City Council and Department of Education probes. Ofsted also conducted inspections at 15 Birmingham schools.

Several teachers forced out of schools involved in the Trojan Horse scandal came forward to the press and the investigations to complain that they were offered SECRET SETTLEMENT AGREEMENTS by OAP’s council to shut up them up about their allegations.

The teachers had all raised SIMILAR CONCERNS that governing bodies were trying to introduce strict Islamic principles into schools.

The government report into the scandal found that there was a view among teachers that OAP’s city council preferred to GET RID of teachers rather than confront dubious school governing bodies.

Meanwhile Ofsted immediately put five schools OAP had protected in SPECIAL MEASURES after damning inspections found kids were not being protected from extremism or prepared for life in modern Britain.

OAP’s response to this PERSONAL DEBACLE was to tell the press that “the Government and Ofsted had over-reacted” to an anonymous document which was “designed to stir up racial and religious antagonism”.

Although he had never bothered to actually launch any kind of investigation, which might have backed up (or not) his UNORTHODOX VIEW of events.

Perry Barr’s Labour MP Khalid Mahmood was less than impressed with Hughes excuses and told the Birmingham Mail “[Hughes] is only interested in COVERING HIS BACK” before asking, “Why did he DO NOTHING?”

Why indeed?

Now this nasty piece of work – who will openly fuck up whistleblowers and honest public sector workers and protect extremists and religious nutters to keep his HUGE INCOME rolling in – is running Bristol.

Looks like some fun times ahead …

RAT AND SHIP UPDATE

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MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ - There'll be hell toupee with him in charge...

MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ – Hell toupee when we see what he’s done …

So it’s farewell, then, to Max Wide “Boy”, the city council’s Business Change boss who leaves the organisation at the end of May after two years of hard graft SACKING PEOPLE in return for over £250k! What a deal that’s been for the city.

Former BT salesman, Wide Boy, arrived at the council just two years ago on a £130k a year wedge after a stint controversially PRIVATISING SERVICES in Barnet. His remit in Bristol was to deliver £64m of cuts by 2017.

His final report to the city’s cabinet suggests he’s actually delivered about £33m of these cuts by FIRING around 500 council staff and a further £18m may get delivered if his ‘EFFICIENCY SAVINGS’ pan out as planned. Meanwhile the £12.9m in cuts still outstanding will need to be found by a further 450 REDUNDANCIES according to the cabinet report Wide Boy published shortly before scarpering.

So well done Mayor Fucking Useless and Bristol City Council. You’ve paid someone a quarter of million pounds to sack a 1,000 people and run away before the disastrous results of this policy become clear.

STOP THE AUCTION

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AUDIT WATCH

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Ironic Name Brain in action

Our dear old friends at the council’s in-house financial watchdog, the AUDIT COMMITTEE, managed to excel even themselves in the totally-fucking-useless-and-incompetent stakes at their meeting in March to look at Green Capital spending.

Long touted as the moment that Bristolians would get the answers to their questions about what happened to the £8M OF PUBLIC MONEY spent on a year long jolly for the city’s ultra-privileged and their mates, the meeting was ineptly chaired by Labour’s Mark “Ironic Name” Brain. A man who increasingly resembles some sort of special needs case rather than a senior local politician.

Under Ironic Name Brain’s careful stewardship, members of the public were invited to ask their Green Capital questions to THIN AIR while direct questions from councillors on how public money was spent by the Green Capital’s private company, Bristol 2015 Ltd, also went UNANSWERED. Because nobody from Green Capital bothered to turn up for the first hour and a half of the agenda item!

However,Bristol 2015 Ltd chief exec, Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates did finally put in an appearance but only after Deputy Mayor Geoff “Cods” Gollop admitted to our feisty and fearless independent financial watchdogs that he had personally undermined their authority and had instructed Bristol 2015 Ltd NOT TO ATTEND the meeting that he was only an invited guest at!

This blatant SABOTAGE by the mayor’s office of an independent committee of councillors did result in a mild rebuke to Gollop from Ironic Name. Although the obvious action of halting the DERANGED, HALF-ARSED MEETING immediately and arranging a proper public bollocking for Gollop and a proper meeting to investigate Bristol 2015 Ltd appeared way beyond Ironic Name’s abilities. Instead he ploughed on. Overseeing a farce.

Gaga’s performance, once she turned up, was undoubtedly the STAR COMIC TURN. The £192k a year council chief deciding to insist that she was only attending as Chief Exec of Bristol 2015 Ltd and couldn’t possibly answer any questions about the council she’s in charge of. Instead she redirected questions about the council to a HAPLESS MINION.

Meanwhile any questions directed by councillors to Gaga about Bristol 2015 Ltd were BATTED AWAY. “I don’t hold the data in my head,” she waffled. Neither did she have any data on a piece of paper, because, she claimed, she didn’t know about the meeting in advance and had only decided to pop in after seeing the meeting being webcast!

This RIDICULOUS CHARADE, performed under their noses by their most highly paid boss, passed without comment from the half-wits on the Audit Committee. And, after around two hours of aimless fucking about, the committee blandly concluded that “LESSONS NEEDED TO BE LEARNED“. Although what lessons or how the council will learn them is anybody’s guess as they didn’t bother to say.

All this meeting really demonstrated is that the only bigger waste of time and money than Bristol’s Green Capital is Bristol City Council’s Audit Committee. What are these wankers for?

CITY COUNCIL JOB WATCH

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Austerity you say? Well, there’s PLENTY OF JOBS around at Bristol City Council. So many, in fact, that some managers have to do a lot more than one!

Step forward, Chief Exec Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates who has at least SEVEN jobs. Not only is she the council’s full time chief exec on an income they list as £192k a year, she’s also the city’s electoral Returning Officer – on around £15k a year – and the chief exec of Bristol 2015 Ltd, the dodgy Green Capital operation, where she trousers £12k a year.

Then she is also the director (on undisclosed money) of FOUR city council run companies – Bristol Waste Company Ltd, Bristol Energy & Technology Services (Supply) Limited, Bristolisopen Ltd and Bristol Holding Ltd.

How on earth does she find the time to run a council? Although she’s not alone. Step forward Alison “FOUR JOBS” Comley, who now earns £136k a year at the council under the overblown job title of Strategic Director for Neighbourhoods.

The work itself might not be too overblown, however, as Four Jobs has time on her hands to do another THREE jobs. One of which is the artistic director at Theatre West – an Arts Council funded theatre group – which sounds suspiciously like a FULL TIME job to us.

Then in her SPARE TIME Alison is director of the council’s Bristol Holding Ltd and Bristol Waste Company Ltd on an undisclosed income. You have to sympathise with poor Alison though. Even with four jobs entirely funded from the PUBLIC PURSE she probably has to try and get by on less than Gaga’s £200k plus a year.

How does the poor woman cope?

SELL-OFF!

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The only people who don’t seem to have noticed there’s a MAJOR HOUSING CRISIS in Bristol are the bosses at the council’s wretched Housing Department and our city councillors.

44 RICHMOND TERRACE in Avonmouth has been a council house for years. Or at least it was until about six months ago when the family occupying this tidy little terraced home were MOVED OUT by the council and builders sent in to renovate it.

The work on the house – at council taxpayers expense – is now complete and so a family in need of council house can move back in, right?

Wrong! The council has now put the property ON THE MARKET for sale by auction because they’ve decided – in the middle of a council housing shortage – it’s SURPLUS TO REQUIREMENTS!

44 Richmond Terrace is just one of 15 COUNCIL HOMES we know about that’s recently been renovated at OUR EXPENSE and which will be sold on to property developers or someone wealthy at an auction later this month.

Because it’s unlikely anyone other than property developers or investors will get a look-in as properties sold at auction require FULL PAYMENT within a month, a process that massively favours cash buyers.

This all raises two questions. First, why are the council selling homes they could use to house local families in DESPERATE NEED? Second, if they intend to sell the houses, why have they FORKED OUT OUR MONEY to renovate them first? Couldn’t they just flog them as is?

Why the hell are large numbers of Bristol City Council properties that could have housed the poor and the vulnerable being sold off to the wealthy? Who agreed to this?

HOW HOYTY GOT A HOME

You may recall the council ran a similar house selling scam at COBOURG ROAD in Montpelier in 2013 when the local Green Councillor, SIR GUS HOYTY TOYTY, bagged himself a cheap council home, conveniently situated next door to where he was already living!

On that occasion the Housing Department contacted the local councillor, Sir Gus, to inform him of the sale, which he could have OPPOSED. However, he allegedly FAILED TO READ the email telling him about the sell-off and went on to claim he had been unaware the house was a former council property until he had put in a successful bid for it!

Do the local councillors know about this latest round of council house sell-offs and have they done nothing? And who’ll be the lucky recipients of the cheap housing this time around?

DROOPER PLAYS THE FERRET SHIT GAMBIT

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While homelessness in the city has increased by 40 PER CENT in a year and the housing crisis grips tighter, the council’s useless Tory boy housing boss, NICK “DROOPER” HOOPER seems to have found himself far more important things to do than deal with these … Such as setting up a, er, SPY NETWORK to catch council tenants he dislikes!

Over at Antona Court in Shire, residence of local firebrand and friend of the Bristolian Steve “The Avon Mouth” Norman, Drooper seems to have set up an INTELLIGENCE NETWORK with the sole aim of skewering Steve for er, something or other.

Last year Drooper THREATENED Steve, registered disabled, with EVICTION for parking his car too near a door at Antona Court soon after he had had threatened Steve with an ASBO for delivering a letter to his councillor in Avonmouth Library.

The eviction threat was hastily dropped, however, when Steve instructed Drooper to cease his “FUTILE BULLYING EXERCISE” and take him to court and evict him if he had a case. A course of action Drooper appears to not want to pursue. Wonder why?

Since then, Drooper’s brilliant spy network has uncovered lots of wrongdoing at Antona Court such as an ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS car repair business working from the car park; an ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS drug dealer in the block and an ENTIRELY FICTITIOUS sub letting resident!

However, not one to get deterred by having poor quality fabricated evidence exposed, Drooper simply widened his net across Antona Court to unearth all kinds of entirely NON-CRIMINAL ACTIVITY among the tenants such as a resident who hoards stuff; dog shit on the grass outside the flats and even a woman who keeps ferrets!

Unfortunately we’re unable to confirm, at this stage, whether those ferrets are shitting on the lawn too. Or whether Drooper has launched an expensive HIGH LEVEL INVESTIGATION with a view to issuing the world’s first ferret shit-related eviction threat in the history of social housing? If that doesn’t earn Drooper his £15k a year “uplift band” then what will? (solving the city’s homeless problem? ed.)

But how is Drooper obtaining all this top quality intelligence? Well, a brief saunter around the perimeter of Antona Court reveals that ONE RESIDENT – and one resident only – has taken delivery of a brand new garden box courtesy of Drooper’s housing department. Why would that be?

Is Drooper running a garden furniture for DAFT INFORMATION ring out of Antona Court? And will the council give us all a couple of deckchairs and some pot plants if we phone in our ferret shit-related concerns direct to Drooper? (Call 0117 922 4681 quoting ‘ferret shit emergency’).

We also understand that this lucky Antona Court resident has now been instructed by Drooper’s SHADOWY AGENTS (or Estate Management, Housing Services,North, Temple Street, ed.) to keep a diary of events at Antona Court, which we’re really looking forward to reading. Our own spies tell us that it might feature sensational revelations about residents’ friends visiting during daylight hours and people using the communal laundry after 8.00pm.

Clearly this entirely normal behaviour by council tenants must be stamped out and order restored at Antona Court.

MORE COUNCIL CUTS COMING?

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Sneaked in to the last Cabinet Meeting before the mayoral election was a paper harmlessly entitled ‘Change Board 6 Monthly Monitoring Report’, which just happened to drop in the fact that the council needs to make another £12.9m of CUTS by next April.

The paper meanders over twelve pages, explaining that £33m ‘savings’ have been made and another £18m are in the pipeline before dropping in that “the majority of THE REMAINING £12.9M SAVINGS ARE YET TO BE FORMALLY IDENTIFIED”! It then drifts on to explain that further cuts of £75.3m will be required 2017 – 2020.

But how exactly are these ‘savings’ of £12.9m over the next year going to be made? The main report itself forgets to say. However, on the very last page of the report under the final heading ‘HUMAN RESOURCES IMPLICATIONS’, it says:

“The progress set out in this paper is in line with the Section 188 notice issued in November 2013 … At that time it was estimated that there would be a potential reduction of 971 employees during the three financial years covered bythe MTFS … The organisation restructure that took place during the 2014/15 financial year resulted in workforce reductions of 523 FTE.

“Where further workforce reductions are required we will seek to reach agreement with the recognised Trade Unions on how to mitigate the need to make any further compulsory redundancies.”

No doubt, ENTIRELY COINCIDENTALLY, if you multiply the remaining redundancies available under this three year old notice (448) by an average wage cost at the council (£30,000) you come up with a figure not unadjacent to £12.9m!

With the mayoral election now really taking off, it will be interesting to see how many of the candidates will be committing to these LUDICROUS REDUNDANCIES and how many won’t. It’ll also be interesting to find out how any candidate rejecting these redundancies intends to make these cuts.

Staff at the council, meanwhile, are FLABBERGASTED that their bosses are proposing more redundancies. “The whole place is already overworked, understaffed and in meltdown, “ a worker told The BRISTOLIAN.

“If you want evidence just try phoning us up or accessing any service. It’s an ABSOLUTE FARCE, the public are simply ignored these days as a distraction.

“There’s no staff left to do anything already. Workloads are huge and unmanageable. More staffing cuts are impossible to make. Any incoming mayor who tries more cuts risks CRITICAL DAMAGE to already overstretched services.”

Over to you then mayoral candidates …