Tag Archives: Head of Paid Service

MARVIN’S BITCH ON BORROWED TIME?

mikejackson
“She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene”

Already, less than a year in post and many at the Counts Louse are unhappy with the Reverend’s new Head of Paid Service, MIKE “I’M YOUR BITCH” JACKSON, the £165k a year replacement for the highly costly and abysmally useless, Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski.

Indeed Lib Dem Anthony “Arthur” Negus is already demanding a “FUTURE DISCUSSION ON THE POST OF HEAD OF PAID SERVICE“. This comes after what Negus describes as the “politicising of replies to members’ questions at Full Council that cross the line.”

This is a reference to the Reverend Rees’s increasingly SAD AND BITCHY RESPONSES to any opposition councillor trying to hold him to account at their monthly q&a sessions. These catty political responses, it seems, are often PERSONALLY DRAFTED FOR THE REVEREND WITH GREAT PRIDE BY JACKSON who, despite being a neutral civil servant, appears to enjoy pleasuring the mayor in this way.

The big problem here is that unelected Jackson, having spent a year BITCHING AND SNIPING AT ELECTED COUNCILLORS opposing the Reverend, may find they will not want to work with him if they gain office next year.

Who could blame them? Meanwhile, Green councillor Clive “Shakin” Stevens has also been expressing his RESERVATIONS ABOUT JACKSON and especially the close relationship and strong male bond there appears to be between this objective and independent senior local government officer and the elected Mayor. “IT’S NOT POSSIBLE TO TRUST THIS ARRANGEMENT,” says Shaky darkly.

Shall we start organising Jackson’s leaving party for next May now as few are likely to be prepared to work with a former Mayor’s bitch? And why should they be?

HEAD BOY SALARY SHAME EXPOSED

molton

The Reverend’s next large-sums-of-cash-needlessly-handed-to-bosses SCANDAL stepped up a gear in January when the council’s HR Committee DEMANDED that council boss Mike “Billie Jean” Jackson advertise the post of Executive Director – Growth & Regeneration “WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT”.

The committee also asked that their views “REGARDING THE PROCESSES WHICH HAD BEEN FOLLOWED for the appointment to the role of Interim Executive Director – Growth & Regeneration, be raised with the Chair, Vice-Chair and Independent Member of the Audit Committee.”

This is all about a report requested by Green Councillor Paula “Mickey” O’Rourke and produced by the council’s latest legal boss, “L’il” Tim O’Gara, into the ongoing employment of Colin “Head Boy” Molton on £1,500 A DAY as Interim Executive Director – Growth & Regeneration since September 2017.

Obviously, the contents of this report are A CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET, but we’re happy to tell you what it contains. Basically, Bristol City Council have FAILED to follow their own procedures in relation to Head Boy’s employment and this senior officer appointment has NEVER been authorised by either Full Council or the HR Committee as the council’s constitution requires.

Unfortunately it’s unclear, at present, who agreed the ongoing employment of Head Boy outside the rules and on HIS OWN HIGHLY LUCRATIVE PERSONAL TERMS beyond anything he could earn as an authorised employee of Bristol City Council. Instead the council claim they are UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY DOCUMENT ANYWHERE authorising Molton’s appointment although, “it’s highly likely his £1,500 daily charge is regularly signed off by HR and Workforce twit, John “Bedwetter” Walsh,” says our source.

So far Head Boy and his patron, the Reverend Rees, are kicking the can down the road on this issue and Head Boy’s job is YET TO BE ADVERTISED as it needs to be. Are close friends Head Boy and the Reverend arrogantly digging their heels in, believing SELF-STYLED CITY LEADERS are above the little people’s public sector employment rules?

Watch this space …

Rotten Comrades: “Equalities Champions on the March!”

Human Resources have been in a flap recently. Not only has the issue regarding underpayment of “scores” of staff (see Smiter passim) been reaching boiling point but the fur has been flying regarding racial discrimination as well.

Now, I haven’t written much about racism in The BRISTOLIAN – if at all – but issues regarding race have cropped up from time to time at the council and have been painfully slow to resolve.

The fact that we have a black mayor, that we have a duty to promote equalities, that we have an old and well-organised community of BME citizens and that it is illegal to harass or discriminate on the basis of race should make it pretty unlikely that anyone will get away with doing that sort of thing at Bristol City Council. Or at least, if someone felt like engaging in a spot of racism they would, at least, hide it really well so that they wouldn’t get their arses kicked out of their jobs.

Well, it would seem some of our more dumber managers haven’t given it much thought and have carried out their innately resentful and hate-filled agendas anyway. So much so, they have attracted the attention of Bristol City Council’s equalities ‘self led groups’ who in turn have contacted HR and the Head of Paid Service, Mike “shh-mo” Jackson. “Scores” of incidents have been quoted as having taken place and very little has been done about them.

HR is not happy at this new source of interference in their strategy of keeping a lid on everything. This has been especially galling as they have spent years controlling, diverting, and in some cases “letting go”, the more uncontrollable middle-ranking trade union reps – what I call your experienced barrack-room lawyer. Instead, cultivating the more useless and amenable trade union reps into positions of high influence, where it can all be jolly-hockey-sticks and fluffy kittens.

Anyway, a new form of barrack-room lawyer – the equalities champion – has arisen, as if from nowhere, to pick up the baton the unions have dropped. A bit of competition can only help, don’t you think? The unions don’t like this at all. It is – at least theoretically – their patch. Well, our equalities champions want to know: why have the unions been ignoring desperate people with just grievances begging them for help?

And the answer seems to have come back: well, they didn’t fill in the right form and other such useless excuses. A “frank exchange of views” reportedly broke out after that. And then, when it was asked, why are the unions not supporting staff at stage one of the grievance process, Unison’s reply was: they weren’t sure they should be doing that anymore. The exchange of views got franker.

I’ve been told the equalities people came away with the impression that the unions were in some way compromised, which I think pretty much sums it up. Which is not to say that there aren’t good barrack-room lawyers in the unions – I could count ten or so across all of them – it’s just a waste of time seeking help from the unions if you are given the wrong rep, as sad as that might sound to all of us.

The underpayment scandal update.
I had actually drafted an article announcing that management had seen sense over this and done the right thing. But then it seems a lack of common sense had intervened at the last minute.

I was told that one of our better reps was ambushed in the Count’s Louse by some of our worst reps, on his way to deliver a list of names of people prepared to sue the Council over the underpayment scandal. Our protagonist’s opponents – the three stooges (as I like to call them) – were reported to have staged a Dick Turpin style corridor intervention where they made it clear our protagonist was showing them up and it was their case now.

Our hero cried out: ‘no justice, no peace’ and brushed them aside. But he was not quick enough – the three stooges made their own offer to HR based on the sort of insane formula made up by people who don’t know anything about contract law.

In essence, they screwed it up, making the sort of offer that led to HR leaning back and rolling their eyes into their heads. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, our useless, “rotten comrades” will now no doubt flap their arms about a bit before losing interest, thus letting our hero have another go.

Well, hopefully …

TAX EFFICIENT EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

 Please step forward our favourite bureaucrat, Nicki “Chocolate” Beardmore, the hapless incompetent council boss from Shropshire who bravely fled the county in 2015 just before the local authority company she was running for Shropshire Council COLLAPSED.

Chocolate was originally drafted in to Bristol City Council in 2016 to set up Bristol Energy, the Reverend’s USELESS energy reselling business that’s posted LOSSES of over £10million since Chocolate launched it with £15million of our money. She has subsequently enjoyed a dizzying rise to become the Reverend’s number 2 and Head of Paid Service at Bristol City Council.

Naturally, such dazzling ‘talent’ deserves an EXCEPTIONAL SALARY and the Reverend’s been more than happy to oblige. Indeed we can reveal he was paying this SERIAL FAILURE £1,220 a day throughout the autumn! All conveniently routed through the council’s employment agency, Guidant, to avoid any prying eyes and allow Ms Chocolate to collect her booty tax efficiently through a private company if she so chose.

£1,220 a day works out pro rata as a salary of £317,200 a year. This is over twice the salary of the Prime Minister and puts Ms Chocolate comfortably in the top 30 highest earners in local government in the UK.

And ain’t she worth every penny we’ve been ripped off

FIREGUARD IN TOP JOB JOY

Choco’s last great success

We know how to call it at The BRISTOLIAN. Following our in depth profile of The Reverend’s new Interim Strategic Director of Resources, Nicki “Chocolate” Beardmore, in issue 36, we learn the vicar’s appointed this useless twat HEAD OF PAID SERVICE and, effectively, his new Chief Exec!

The highlight of Chocolate’s CV is a stint as Chief Operating Officer for a loss making local authority company in Shropshire that had to be wound up for CORRUPTION. Just the person to take charge at Bristol City Council as our new “leader” then.

Oddly, Chocolate wasn’t appointed Head of Paid Service until 11 October, which meant another strategic director, John “Braindead” Readman had to fill in between Big Wedge’s low key DEPARTURE at the end of September and Chocolate’s CORONATION on 11 October. Why might this be?

Head of Paid Service is a statutory post that must be filled at all times and by an employee of the local authority. Could it be that Chocolate had to quickly rejig her financial affairs so that she was no longer paid TAX EFFICIENTLY through her own company but through the PAYE system like a NORMAL EMPLOYEE?

I think we should be told …