Tag Archives: Legal services

SEND SPYING: WHY DOES A ‘FACT-FINDING’ REPORT CONTAIN LIES?

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Spy medium

Papers for Bristol City Council’s People Scrutiny Commission tomorrow which will look at council legal boss Tim O’Gara’s ludicrous ‘fact-finding’ report into SEND spying have been published. These papers include questions and statements from parents.

Are Bristol’s SEND technocrats conspiring against parents with SEND children? This is part of a statement from a parent to the People Scrutiny Commission on 26 September 2022.

It begins to look very much looks like SEND managers and council legal ‘investigators’ are using their shitty little internal ‘fact finding’ report to councillors to try and stitch up outspoken parents. Will they get away with it?

SENDIASS is the Special Educational Needs & Disability Information Advice & Support Service. In Bristol, this is run by Send and You. The service is funded by Bristol City Council as part of their duties in Chapter 2 of the Send Code of Practice (CoP).  

On 20 January 2022, SENDIASS contacted Bristol City Council to say that an officer of Bristol Parent Carers had posted ‘confidential’ information online regarding a co-production meeting attended by the ‘Alternative Learning Provision Team and the council and other stakeholders’. Unfortunately, no such meeting actually took place involving a BPC officer*. 

The event that did take place on that day was an informal coffee morning hosted by Send and You for any parent carer in Bristol to attend. I attended. Send and You often hold things like Send Surgeries, virtual coffee mornings and information events on topics such as exclusions, transitions, personal budgets and SEN support. I don’t make a habit of attending Send and You parent carer meetings. I did on this occasion because the specific subject of the meeting was for parent carers to find out more about Education Other Than At School (EOTAS). As I was in the process of taking Bristol City Council to tribunal for EOTAS in one of my children’s Education Health Care Plans, I attended the meeting. 

I registered on Eventbrite as a parent carer, under my own name and with my own personal email address. Being part of the Twitter Send community, I posted some of the comments being made during the public parent carer meeting, because they might have been of interest to others. According to Bristol City Council’s report, someone from Send and You saw these quoted comments in some capacity and reported them back to Bristol City Council. 

SENDIASS Staff would have known full well that this was not a co-production meeting and I was not there as part of BPC because they organised it and ran it themselves. In light of this, I went back through my Twitter account and blocked a number of Send and You staff along with some Bristol City Council and Sirona officers who had been following me. 

The service appears to have conspired with the Local Authority to say that a BPC officer had released confidential information from a co-production meeting which did not actually exist. Remembering that Send and You ‘should be impartial, confidential and accessible,’ how can a supposedly vital service heavily replied upon by Bristol families now be trusted with personal information that would be highly beneficial to the council legally at Tribunal? 

How on earth has false information found it’s way into a so-called ‘fact-finding report’ from Bristol City Council’s Head of Legal Services? is this good enough?

Is this report simply another vehicle for bent council managers to attack parents of SEND children with lies?

COUNCILLORS SNUB MAYOR IN SEND SPY STATEMENT

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Spy medium

A holding statement regarding the spying by council education bosses and External Comms officers on parents with SEND children was put in to cabinet today by councillors. 

The statement from senior councillors on the Overview and Scrutiny Commission seemed intent on keeping its powder dry for the People Scrutiny Commission on Monday. When councillors with direct knowledge of SEND issues may have the opportunity to grill some of the moral and mental inadequates directly responsible for the spying as well as the authors of the council’s unreliable fact finding report.

The suspicion is that OSMB councillors know that a cabinet meeting dominated by the Rev Rees, who can talk his personal brand of tedious drivel long as he likes and take any decision he likes, may not be the ideal forum to address the issues at stake. However, the OSMB statement still makes a few useful points.

Firstly, they completely distance themselves from the council’s flawed fact finding report and dump responsibility for that hot mess firmly on the officers:

It is therefore an officers’ report not an OSMB report, and its conclusions are those of Legal Services not of OSMB members.

OSMB statement to Cabinet – item 6 ,

OSMB also express some serious concerns about the director-level oversight of the spying. The direct responsibility of Education Director Alison “Pervy” Hurley and People Director Hugh “Cares?” Evans, both banking a small fortune in public money to, at least, get the basics right and leave an accountable paper trail behind them for their actions.

OSMB also has strong concerns about the statement in the report that there was “no formal written decision to authorise the gathering of these social media posts”. Although the officers’ report concludes that there was no legal requirement to undertake a DPIA, this has been concluded in retrospect and only after concerns had been raised in the public domain. There does not seem to be any evidence of the officers involved in the collation of social media posts considering whether a DPIA was necessary beforehand. There is also no evidence of any of the officers considering whether the action they were taking, (i.e. searching through personal social media of parent-carers of children with Special Education Needs) was morally or ethically appropriate.

OSMB statement to Cabinet – item 6 ,

The OSMB statement concludes with a snub to the Reverend and his cabinet meeting with councillors not even bothering asking them for a comment or response on the matter:

It is hoped that further inquiry via the People Scrutiny Committee session on September 12th will provide further additional context.

OSMB statement to Cabinet – item 6 ,

Full steam ahead to next Monday then. When some of the dodgy officers responsible for spying might have to show-up and explain themselves.

Book your tickets early.

*******A meeting of Bristol City Council’s People Scrutiny Commission will take place on Monday 12 September at 5.00pm for councillors to discuss this absurd report and next steps. People are encouraged to ask questions, make statements and, if possible, to attend and jeer at any spying director or manager scum in attendance (that’s if they have the balls to attend – look out for last minute sick notes). Details on asking questions and putting in statements are here under ‘Public Forum’.

TODAY IN COURT: STORMIN’ STORMS IT!

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Ecstatic scenes today as Reverend “The Cutter” Rees and his council of useless halfwits who can’t organise opening hours for a laundry badly LOST the first, second and third rounds of the trial of century! The case, which was moved to Bristol Magistrates Court due to flooding at the jerry built Labour-PFI funded Civil Justice Centre, got off to a bad start for Rees and then – Ho! Ho! – got even WORSE!

Rees’s scumbag housing lawyer Robin “Arsehole” Denford – who makes his living getting the poor of the city thrown on to the street by the courts  – set a losing tone for the day when he slimed up to Stormin’ Norman prior to the case begging for an ADJOURNMENT because he needed “MORE TIME“.

Of course he did. Six months to sort out a SIMPLE CONSENSUS on what hours a residential laundry facility is going to be open for is clearly not enough time for Bristol City Council’s management and legal imbeciles is it? Steve was having none of this adjournment crap, however, and told Denford in no uncertain terms to get his SORRY LITTLE ARSE in the court and in front of the judge. ROUND ONE to Norman.

Once in court, Denford marshalled his amazing legal argument that the Housing Act that governs Steve’s tenancy wasn’t at all relevant to a case about, er, Steve’s tenancy and the case should be struck out immediately. Alas, the judge wasn’t having any of this strike out crap and REJECTED the council’s nonsensical argument, leaving Rees’s council’s only defence in tatters at a stroke!  ROUND TWO to Norman.

To finish off a bad day for the Rees and his BENT COUNCIL that thinks it can do what it likes to who it likes, the judge, having seen Steve’s evidence and listened to his straightforward legal argument, instructed Denford to fuck off out of her court and sort out a NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT with the residents in the next two weeks. If not, she would set a TRIAL DATE.

A full trial would be especially interesting as witnesses could include the two ridiculous Avonmouth Labour councillors – Don “Lenin” Alexander and Jo “Stupid Hippy” Sergeant – housing officer Andrew Jester who was happy to restore the laundry’s old opening hours and Jester’s MYSTERY BOSS who overrode that sensible decision and forced the case to court.

Getting this mystery boss into open court would be something of a coup for Steve. As it would be one of the rare occasions a resident of the city could get up, close and very, very personal with a senior city council boss and EXPOSE them to close CROSS EXAMINATION at length. ROUND THREE to Norman.

Questions for this arsehole money-wasting boss could include: why don’t you think THE LAW applies to you? Why are you deliberately WASTING PUBLIC MONEY on inane court cases? Why do you treat your tenants with ABSOLUTE CONTEMPT? Why does someone quite as obviously THICK and USELESS as you think they know best? Do you regularly MISDIRECT the public money and resources you’re responsible for into pursuing SAD LITTLE VENDETTAS against local residents who assert their legal rights? What’s the success rate like with your sad little vendettas? How did you ever think you would get away with this shit?

Bring on ROUND FOUR! Although, sadly, we suspect that – what with one of Rees’s pampered little senior bosses who must be protected at all costs potentially getting exposed to public cross examination and ridicule on their performance and conduct – a settlement will be miraculously reached in the next two weeks.

That or the Reverend’s legal department is getting St John’s Chambers, Queen Square on speed dial – while housing bosses jump up down screaming in the background – to provide an overpriced public schoolboy barrister at a huge cost to us to take on Stormin’ Norman and impose their will on Antona Court’s laundry.

In the real world, heads would roll for this. However, in the Reverend Rees’s amazing city council world of the stupid we can just look forward to paying for the next self-inflicted fiasco can’t we?

DIM DAYA: WHAT DO WE PAY HER?

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Dim Daya

Congratulations to Bristol City Council legal eagle SHAHZIA “DIM” DAYA. For it seems this time-serving, lower middle ranking public law semi-professional has hit the big time and the BIG CASH and has been appointed permanent Head of Legal and Monitoring Officer at the council on a wedge not unadjacent to £75k a year (plus a potential performance related ‘uplift’).

BRISTOLIAN readers may recall Dim Daya THREATENING The BRISTOLIAN last year on behalf of her then boss, Sanjay “Under” Prashar. One of the FOUR hapless chumps employed by Mayor-No-More Redpants to bodge together dubious legal decisions for his administration.

Daya and Prashar took exception to The BRISTOLIAN publishing some of their self-styled “secret” documents regarding huge overspends on the doomed Metrobust project and they threatened to DRAG US INTO COURT unless we removed the documents from our website forthwith. Ooh-er, missus!

Alas, we immediately pointed out to Dim Daya that The BRISTOLIAN can publish what the fuck it likes as stamping ‘CONFIDENTIAL‘ on embarrassing documents and lying to councillors about their legal status has no meaning whatsoever to the Smiter or in a British court.

Having delivered our succinct lesson in public law, Dim Daya conveniently took our advice to the letter and immediately fucked off never to be heard from again. While her “secret” documents still reside on our website FOR ALL TO VIEW as they please.

Now it’s been brought to our attention that despite handing over a £75k salary to Dim Daya for the last year as their interim legal boss, it seems bosses at the council share our view that Dim Daya is another OVERPAID INCOMPETENT not up to the job.

Because a quick glance through the council’s EXPENDITURE SPREADSHEETS for 2016 reveals that they have paid one Philip McCourt, ‘consultant solicitor and chartered secretary’, £61k last year to “provide support and mentoring to the interim monitoring officer; conduct a review of Bristol City Council’s companies; and enhance the governance arrangements for shared devolution proposals across the West of England.”

In other words we’ve been forking out for someone to do Dim Daya’s bloody job. McCash has also been “retained to provide advice over 2016/17”, which means more of our money will be spent PROPPING UP Dim Daya for a further six months at least.

Yet again at Bristol City Council, it’s austerity for us, the plebs, while huge sums of money are expended on them – the cult of the useless at City Hall.

#walrustrial: COUNCIL’S BENT ASBO SHOCKER!

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All facts as heard in open court …

Can anyone explain why Lib Dem councillor for Knowle, Gary “FUCKBUCKET” Hopkins, and the Lib Dem’s chief whip and councillor for Windmill Hill, MARK BAILEY, were invited to attend a confidential ASB (anti-social behaviour) case meeting on 12 November 2013?

A confidential meeting chaired by the boss of the Safer Bristol Partnership, GILLIAN DOUGLAS, and a meeting that another Knowle councillor, CHRIS DAVIES, was invited to but sent his apologies for after being supplied detailed minutes. Avon & Somerset POLICE OFFICERS also attended the meeting along with COUNCIL MANAGERS from Pollution Control, Licensing and Planning as well as a city council lawyer.

Can anyone then explain why a case conference convened to discuss events at 20 Knowle Road in the Windmill Hill Ward was allowed by Ms Douglas and a city council lawyer to discuss various HEARSAY ALLEGATIONS raised by these Lib Dem councillors about an entirely different property – The Gothic Mansion on Redcatch Road in Knowle?

And can anyone further explain why issues to do with the property in Knowle Road that had been agreed as ‘NFA’ (no further action required) at an ASB meeting without councillors, lawyers or Ms Douglas present on 28 May 2013 were inexplicably reopened at this case meeting on 12 November when councillors attended and Ms Douglas appeared in the chair?

Then perhaps someone can explain why SENSITIVE and CONFIDENTIAL information obtained by Bristol City Council’s licensing team using COVERT SURVEILLANCE methods was shared with these councillors? And why sensitive FINANCIAL INFORMATION obtained by city council officers relating to the owners of Knowle Road and Redcatch Road was shared with councillors? And why sensitive POLICE INTELLIGENCE was also shared with these councillors?

Can anybody imagine councillors being invited to attend housing case meetings? Adult care case meetings? Or social services case meetings?  Does anyone believe they’d be invited to sit in on criminal investigations by the police?

What on earth has been going on here? The council’s own guidelines contained in the council’s constitution under the ‘Protocol forMember/Officer Relations’ explains what should happen in very plain and simple language:

 6. COUNCILLOR INVOLVEMENT IN CASEWORK

 CONVENTION

6.1: Officers must implement council policy within agreed procedures. An individual councillor cannot require an officer to vary this and cannot take a decision or instruct an officer to take action. The councillor’s role in relation to case work is:

– to be briefed or consulted where there is a need to know;

– to pursue the interests of individuals by seeking information, testing action taken and asking for the appropriateness of decisions to be reconsidered.

A councillor’s entitlement to be involved is based on the “need to know” and determined in accordance with conventions 2 and 3.

Access to files may need to be denied or restricted if one of the exceptional circumstances in convention 2.1 and 2.2 applied. Any access then allowed may need to be “managed access” (as described in convention 2).

COUNCILLORS

Councillors should avoid becoming unduly involved in individual cases and operational detail, except within clear procedures. Involvement in legal proceedings and audit investigations carries special dangers of prejudicing the case, and of personal embarrassment.

OFFICERS:

Officers should take the lead in pointing out where the boundaries lie in particular areas, recognising that:

– councillors legitimately adopt different approaches;

– councillors may legitimately pursue non-ward issues (for example, a city-wide community of interest);

– the special local knowledge of particular councillors may be useful to a particular case.

Officers should point out to the councillor when a restriction on the need to know may apply, explore entitlement with the councillor and, in cases of doubt, consult the monitoring officer.

Chief officers should ensure that their staff know how to obtain appropriate senior management support (particularly out of hours) when the extent of a councillor’s involvement is an issue that needs to be clarified.

And to avoid any doubt, here’s the relevant sections of Convention 2.1 and 2.2 mentioned above:

 CONVENTION

2.1 Every councillor has the right to information, explanation and advice reasonably required to enable them to perform their duties as a member of council (the “need to know”) but not where:

– there is an over-riding individual right of confidentiality (for example, in a children’s or employment matter)

CONVENTION

2.2 Councillors are normally entitled to be given information on a confidential basis, the exceptions being:

– an over-riding council interest (for example, protecting its legal and financial position); and

– natural justice (for example, giving an individual the chance to respond to allegations).

Isn’t it becoming increasingly obvious that Bristol City Council managers are operating a private ASBO service for the benefit of serving councillors?

#walrustrial: PRASHAR UNDER PRESSURE

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Has the useless bent lawyer, Sanjay Prashar, who’s been permanently appointed by Uncle George and Lady Gaga to oversee their bent council, realised he’s a public laughing stock yet?

Well, if not, here’s another letter from a member of the public he’s threatened – entitled ‘I think you should go back to law school’! – to remind him what an oaf he is and that nobody takes him seriously and nobody believes him (with the dishonorable exception of our gormless councillors who seem to believe every word he says!)

From: Phil@pandrews.com
To: sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk
CC:
Subject: Sanjay Prashar – I think you should go back to law school!
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 12:00:46 +0000

Dear Sanjay, firstly, thanks for all the hilarity we had when we read your amateurish scare tactic letter last week, and secondly when the news was out that you sent it to a member of the public in error! I presume this letter was “legally privileged information”, so perhaps you had better send a threatening letter to yourself now, since you are probably in breach of some law or other!

Anyway, I think I would have a case against you for libel and defamation, since you have accused me of a dishonest & criminal act, and you’ve published it by sending it to a member of the public – inadvertently – you are quite simply incompetent!

Anyway, since I actually have a reputation to tarnish, unlike you or Cllr Hopkins, I think I might have a much stronger case against you, than the one you allege against me in one of your missives.

By the way, you identify me merely as “Phil” in your e-mail to Cllrs. – as should have been clear from the signature block at the bottom of the e-mail, I am the Philip Andrews that lives in Bath, that co-owns the Jane Austen Centre, that owns the 35 year old (I started it by the way in 1978) legendary Moles Club, and also the Chapel Arts Centre.

You can call on me (in person) any time you like and I’ll give you a serious piece of my  mind about what a bunch of jerks the council employs in it’s Environmental Health Dept and Legal Services Dept, and exactly why they should be resigning and taking a very long walk off a very short pier!

Re your odious letter – I have done a little checking, and it seems that your letter is wrong, and it’s not covered, but I’m off to see a top QC – (not Errina Foley-Fisher!) to get chapter and verse.

In any case as is clear, in the extract below, 2-4 allows information disclosed or mentioned in  court to be disclosed in any manner the defendant sees fit. As all the key pieces of information were mentioned in court, for the time being I’m going to refer to them in that way.

Oh, and be a good sport and send me the freedom of information forms so in the meantime, I can order the minutes of the secret ASBO meetings please?

 

Section 17 provides as follows.

Confidentiality of disclosed information.

(1)If the accused is given or allowed to inspect a document or other object under—

(a)section 3, 4, [F17A]F1 , 14 or 15, or

(b)an order under section 8,

then, subject to subsections (2) to (4), he must not use or disclose it or any information recorded in it.

(2)The accused may use or disclose the object or information—

(a)in connection with the proceedings for whose purposes he was given the object or allowed to inspect it,

(b)with a view to the taking of further criminal proceedings (for instance, by way of appeal) with regard to the matter giving rise to the proceedings mentioned in paragraph (a), or

(c)in connection with the proceedings first mentioned in paragraph (b).

(3)The accused may use or disclose—

(a)the object to the extent that it has been displayed to the public in open court, or

(b)the information to the extent that it has been communicated to the public in open court;

but the preceding provisions of this subsection do not apply if the object is displayed or the information is communicated in proceedings to deal with a contempt of court under section 18.

(4)If—

(a)the accused applies to the court for an order granting permission to use or disclose the object or information, and

(b)the court makes such an order,

the accused may use or disclose the object or information for the purpose and to the extent specified by the court.

Kind regards Philip