Tag Archives: Bristol 2015 Ltd

BOARD NEWS

A home. How many will we get for £160million?

Bristol City Council has very, very quietly released limited membership details of its BRISTOL HOMES BOARD, tasked with spending a headline figure of £160m of our money to resolve the city’s housing crisis.

Naturally the equaliser, the Reverend Rees, has opted for a 75 per cent male, all-white board (except himself) stuffed with incompetent TIME-SERVERS and serial QUANGOCRATS to spend this large wedge of public money.

Alongside the Reverend and his sidekick, Labour housing boss, Paul “Wolfie” Smith, you’ll find Alison “THREE JOBS” Comley, a senior city council boss and direct subordinate of Rees and Smith, hardly best placed to speak truth to power. Especially as she’s up to her neck in the council’s £30m unlawful budget scandal and is yet to be cleared.

Alison is joined by luminaries such as Stephen “What Crisis?”Teagle from Galliford Try Partnerships, a front for the corporate that runs house builders, LINDEN HOMES. Last year, Linden saw profits rise 21 per cent to £74.3m while its average house cost a mere £338,000. The company also boasts to shareholders that it has a LANDBANK of 14,250 plots. Doesn’t sound much like a crisis for them does it?

Also on the board is Knightstone Housing Association boss Nick Horne “Blower”. He was last seen sat on his useless lazy arse as a board member for West of England LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIP (LEP) while, directly under his nose, BAE sold their Filton Airfield land to YTL Homes UK. YTL is run by Colin “Tory Boy” Skellett who also happened to be the Chair of er, the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership! This blatant CONFLICT OF INTEREST clearly passed Nick by, even though the LEP was given a key role in marketing and developing the airfield for sale with the public money he was overseeing!

Nick also waved through TWO PAYMENTS from the LEP to board member George Ferguson’s Beer Factory and Bristol Brewing Company totalling £62k. A further £92k was paid to a company owned by one of Ferguson’s political donors, Alasdair “Sorearse” Sawday. What were these handouts for? Who knows? Because NO MINUTES exist of these board decisions and no documents indicating Ferguson’s interests were ever published by Horne’s LEP!

Also getting rewarded for serial incompetence and moving across from the useless board of the LEP to oversee millions of pounds of our money for housing in Bristol is Business West bigwig James “Licker” Durie. Not only is he unlikely to raise any difficult questions about any handouts to wealthy locals, he’s also a notorious salaried lackey for the MERCHANT VENTURERS.

Making up the numbers on the Rev’s quietly appointed board are a couple of posh public schoolboys turned voluntary sector luvvies – David “HAPPY CAMPER” Ingerslev from multi-million homeless charity St Mungos and the CEO of Elim Housing Association, Alistair “HEAD BOY” Allender. No doubt Head Boy can bring his street-level experience from Birkenhead School, “a top performing independent day school for boys and girls aged 3 months to 18” and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge where he studied Natural Sciences to bear?

Further INEFFECTUAL luvvie input on our Homes Board will be supplied by Bevis Watts “The Fuck”, Managing Director of Triodos Bank. He’s a serial quangocrat who boasts the pie, booze and cash giveaway to the wealthy that was the board of the Green Capital, Bristol 2015 Ltd, on his CV!

Adding a healthy dose of surrealism to the whole affair, the board also has a ‘Head of Multi-Channel Fulfilment’ at the table – Debbie “Fulfil Me” Franklin from the Andrews Property Group, a local LETTINGS AGENCY, no less. Career bureaucrat David “The Loaf” Warburton from the Homes and Community Agency quango is also along for the £160m public money ride

The small amount of hope we can invest in this board lies with the final two members. Geraldine Winkler, a housing solicitor with the Avon & Bristol Law Centre and Tom Renhard, a member of tenants union ACORN. He also sits on the board of the Avon Pension Fund for some random reason and we note with concern that Renhard was funded by local authority bosses’ union UNISON to help him get on to this pension board. It’s unclear, too, whether Renhard was a personal appointment by the Vicar or whether he was chosen directly by Acorn members.

As always, it’s just as interesting to note who ISN’T on the committee – seasoned troublemakers or gobshites known to be prepared to stand up to a committee of pie-munching land dealing wankers who forget to keep minutes. And It’s further worth noting that there was no sign of a competitive application process to join this board disbursing £160m of our cash. Instead membership is entirely courtesy of the political PATRONAGE of the Reverend Mayor Rees well away from any scrutiny by councillors and public.

The last “PUBLIC MEETING” of this board took place on 29 June. Despite being “public”, no reports were issued and the board was, instead, treated to a series of Max Wide “Boy” style verbal briefings and crappy Powerpoint presentations that will never be seen again. Already, we have to ask, are these board members doing their jobs properly?

There may be trouble ahead …

COCK UP BRISTOL

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The BRISTOLIAN has been contacted by an angry reader who read about our European Green Crapital and the mysterious holes in its finances.

His family were contacted in 2014 by WARM UP BRISTOL, a green capital initiative to improve homes and cut energy bills. They promised to clad the external house walls of their home and gave a quote for the work. He tells us, “the quote was really good. We were going to get the house cladded and we were convinced that Bristol City Council would do it for us.”

He waited … and waited … and watched … as Bristol was awarded European Green Capital status … and lots of money. Then he realised that the company was going BUST and any money had been spunked up the wall on CORPORATE BACK SLAPPING and JOLLIES.

So far he has paid TWO deposits, had THREE surveys, spent hours on the phone and has sent HUNDREDS of emails while Warm Up Bristol try to ignore him. They are now REFUSING to do the work be claiming there are cracks all over the house and the internal walls are damp.

No shit Sherlock! He knew the house needed work on it but the council had promised to do it and put in an excellent quote. So he waited. Now his kids have got WATER RUNNING DOWN THE WALLS and the Council are telling them to fuck off.

But it’s not a complete disaster. The family got a letter from Warm Up Bristol recently, signed by his Red Trouseredness George Bleeding Ferguson. He THANKED the bemused family for being part of the Warm Up Bristol scheme and sent them a STICKER you could put on your bin and a stupid little Warm Up Bristol PLASTIC FLAG. What’s the family supposed to do with that? Stick it up Ferguson where the sun don’t shine?

Worse, someone, somewhere GOT PAID with Green Capital money and your council tax to sit in a room and decide that it would be a good idea to send stupid little plastic flags to people who have been ripped off. They then PAID to get them made and PAID to get them posted to poor, long-suffering families still waiting for work to be done. What a load of bollox.

The BRISTOLIAN has the contact details of this angry local. If you are experiencing similar shenanigans either phone or email us and he will get in contact. He has some good ideas on how to force them to do the work.

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?

MAYORAL CANDIDATES IN GERBIL SHOCKER

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The two BIG BEASTS of Bristol’s mayoral election campaign have come out of the electoral starting blocks like an especially irritating pair of SMALL FURRY ANIMALS squeaking for their dinner.

Mayor Bullshit launched his CAR CRASH on a windy February night at the former Bridewell Police Station, now a wanky arts venue for the underemployed middle classes, in front of about 20 supporters.

The posh droning bore, naturally, had NOTHING of interest to say but took a long time to say it anyway. Promising more bloody resident parking zones (or taxes as we call them here) and to set up some committee of his WEALTHY BUSINESS FRIENDS to solve poverty in South Bristol, he might as well have ditched the speech altogether and just stood there with ‘LOSER‘ written on his forehead in marker pen instead.

The clueless old buffoon also had a pop at all the people demanding he open up the books of his DODGY Green Capital company – Bristol 2015 Ltd – funded with public money and run in TOP SECRECY by his business mates and council fat cat bosses.

“To fuss about the cost of sandwiches totally misses the point and is an insult to those who have given their time and expertise for Bristol’s good,” blustered the SAD FOOL. Probably sending a few more thousand votes south while failing to understand he needs to account for the £8.5m of public money he’s spent on TROUGHING with his pals.

Marvin “LUTHER” Rees launched his campaign three days later on Valentine’s Day with a bizarre pitch based around ‘Love Bristol: Love Labour’ balloons and a talk from his mum!

Luther Rees then went on to deliver one of his WAFFLING BOILERPLATE speeches on inequality, diversity, “no-one left behind” and how great the Bristol Labour Party is. So dazzling and original was Luther’s speech, it even featured on page 14 of the next day’s Nazi Post!

Luther’s main promise was that he would build 800 homes a year by GIVING our council land to private developers to build ‘AFFORDABLE HOUSING’ we won’t be able to afford.

He also promised that victims of domestic violence and abuse will be given TOP, BAND 1, PRIORITY for rehousing. Missing the point that it’s not the administrative banding exercise that’s the problem, it’s the fact there’s no fucking social housing left to give to anyone anymore!

Oh well, only two more months of this electoral bollocks left before council officers continue running the council the way they want to anyway …

GAGA’S CONFLICT

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Gaga: money grabbing scrote unfit for office?

The revelation that council Chief Exec, Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates earned £18k in wages from the Bristol 2015 Ltd company at the rate of £60 an hour may prove to be very bad news for this beleaguered money-grabbing council boss.

There’s already widespread OUTRAGE that Gaga scooped herself an extra £18k of public money from Bristol 2015 while cheekily trousering £193k from the public purse this year for a job paid at £160k. Now we’ve discovered that her contract of employment specifically PREVENTS her from doing another job or retaining earnings without the “EXPRESS CONSENT” of the council.

Gaga’s contractual obligations are contained in the Joint Negotiating Committee for Local Authority Chief Executives Conditions of Service Handbook. And here’s the first thing it says:

3. WHOLE-TIME SERVICE

The chief executive shall devote his or her whole-time service to the work of the council and shall not engage in any other business or take up any other additional appointment without the express consent of the council. He or she shall not subordinate his or her duty as chief executive to his or her private interests or put himself or herself in a position where his or her duty and private interests conflict.

In other words, Gaga should not be taking further employment without the “express consent” of councillors. Where is that consent for her role at Bristol 2015 Ltd? It also says if she does take on any other employment it should not CONFLICT with her role as Chief Exec of the council.

For example, she should not be putting herself in a position where she’s WITHHOLDING accounts and ignoring the Local Government Transparency Code on behalf of Bristol 2015 Ltd, who privately employ her. Because this openly CONFLICTS with her duty as the chief executive of the council where she needs to be robustly upholding this code on our behalf and ensuring all public expenditure is properly accounted for.

The explanation currently emerging from the Mayor’s office over Gaga’s employment and earnings at Bristol 2015 Ltd reeks of BULLSHIT. The Mayors sidekick-in-chief, Deputy Mayor Geoff “” Gollop provided a long-winded explanation of Gaga’s conduct to the council’s Audit Committee last Friday.

The dodgy Tory accountant blustered that Gaga had to be paid a salary in order to demonstrate her role of Chief Exec at Bristol 2015 Ltd was independent of her role as Chief Exec of Bristol City Council. Gollop effectively seemed to claim that paying £1k a month into Gaga’s bank account made any conflict of interest she might have disappear in A PUFF OF SMOKE. Nonsense. Gaga’s conflict of interest cannot just vanish in exchange for cash.

The correct practice should be that at any Bristol 2015 Ltd meetings where business of the council is discussed, Gaga should LEAVE the meeting. Similarly at any meeting of the council where Bristol 2015 Ltd is discussed, Gaga should LEAVE the meeting, which makes it pretty much impossible for Gaga to perform both Chief Exec roles. Any claim by Fergo and Gollop that greasing her palm with cash somehow makes it possible is a load of BENT BOLLOCKS of the highest order.

And it doesn’t stop here. There’s some further dodgy practice around Gaga’s Bristol 2015 job. Gaga’s contract also states:

8. INCLUSIVE SALARIES

Salaries shall be deemed to be inclusive, and all other fees and emoluments, unless they are covered by Paragraph 9 (returning officer, etc.) or the authority expressly agrees that they shall be retainedby the officer, shall be paid by the officer into the council’s accounts.

In other words, any extra salary payable to Gaga for any other work she does SHOULD GO TO THE COUNCIL not to her. Unless “the authority expressly agrees”. Where is this agreement from councillors? Looks like Gaga owes us £18k then.

There it is then. At least two occasions when Gaga’s BREACHED HER CONTRACT plus 18 months of undeclared and unaddressed conflicts of interest between Bristol City Council and Bristol 2015 Ltd she’s done NOTHING about.

Is it time for some disciplinary action down at the Counts Louse?

CITY COUNCIL SALARY WATCH

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Greedy pig: Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates

Anyone got any idea how much city council Chief Exec Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates really earns?

The council’s annual report, which contains audited accounting information, insists she earned £180,617 in 2014 -15. However, the ‘Table of Salaries for City Director and Chief Officer Posts as at 1 April 2015’ published with great fanfare and openness on the council website insists she trousers a mere £160k.

Why the difference? And are either of these figures accurate? Because Nicola actually has FOUR jobs courtesy of Bristol City Council. As well as Chief Exec, she’s the ELECTORAL RETURNING OFFICER for the city; Chief Exec of the disastrous GREEN CAPITAL private limited company and she’s now nabbed a directorship of the brand new ‘BRISTOL WASTE‘ private limited company!

In the case of the last two, Gaga has openly used her influence to ensure the accounts of these publicly owned companies are TOP SECRET and not even subject to the attention of the council’s auditors. This means we have absolutely NO MEANS OF KNOWING if Gaga’s trousering any more of our cash on the sly through these companies.

Ain’t secrecy grand?

Elsewhere, the ‘Table of Salaries for City Director and Chief Officer Posts as at 1 April 2015’ for public consumption lists the salaries of Lady Gaga’s four STRATEGIC DIRECTORS as between £130 – 135k pa each.

Which is odd because the audited annual report says Business Change director MAX WIDE “BOY” earned over £141k in 2014 – 2015. Meanwhile Mayor Pillock’s thicko urbanist mate BARRA MAC “NUGGET” RUAIRI reels in a cool £139,350 pa for wandering aimlessly around ABU GHRAIB – Lady Gaga’s ‘agile’ Temple Street office complex – in brown cords.

Can these two senior bosses not add up? Or have they been treated to a secret pay rise?