Tag Archives: Mayor’s Office

LIES, DAMN LIES & FOI RESPONSES …

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This month from the What Do They Know website:

Dear Bristol City Council, I’ve seen evidence that the mayor’s office are using Whatsapp for council business, despite the guidance on doing so.

This information falls under the parameters of the Freedom of Information Act and must be disclosed.

Please provide all Whatsapp messages sent between chief of staff to the Mayor of Bristol as an employee of Bristol City Council and all paid staff of Goram Homes, and directors of Goram Homes. I would like to see all Whatsapp messages for the last two months.

I remind the council that ALL whatsapp messages are subject to the Act whether from Council-owned phones and phone numbers, or personal phones and phone numbers if the business relates to Council.

As I have seen evidence that Whatsapp is being used I don’t expect a reply saying this information isn’t held.

Yours faithfully –

And the response …

Dear –

Freedom of Information Act 2000

This request is being handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Bristol City Council does not hold information falling within the scope of your request.

Your case has been closed as of today’s date.

…

ONE RULE FOR THEM

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Rumours emerge that council staff are less than happy that the Reverend has seized a £900k underspend from last year’s budget to reinstate £400k of funding to his personal office that was scrapped by councillors at this year’s budget meeting. The other £500k will be tucked away in the Reverend’s slush fund (surely ‘Reserves’? Ed).

The £400k will be spent hiring new staff to bow and scrape around the lame duck Reverend so that they can carry on spying on what local residents are saying about them on Twitter and continue bullying the press into complying with the Reverend’s deranged stateside worldview. 

Meanwhile. a memo is doing the rounds at the council telling staff there is a recruitment freeze.This means that any staff not up on the privileged third floor servicing the Reverend’s personal needs will simply have to work harder to make up for a management imposed recruitment freeze.

Sounds really fair and well thought out.

MAYOR’S OFFICE CASH UPDATE

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MAYOR’S OFFICE CASH UPDATE

While Bristol City Council continues to IMPOSE AUSTERITY on the rest of the city, it’s trebles all round in the office of the Mayor.

We’ve already told you about the Reverend’s personally appointed regeneration chief Colin “Head Boy” Molton – responsible for arena non-delivery – trousering £1.5k a day without the bother of having to go through any COMPETITIVE RECRUITMENT PROCESS. Not this side of the 2020 mayoral election, anyway.

Now we learn that the Reverend’s political assistant, Kevin “Don’t mention the private education” Slocombe has been treated to a ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN PER CENT pay rise by the Reverend. The same post under Mayor No More Ferguson attracted a wage of £45k for his glamorous assistant, Zoe “Groupie” Sear. Now the pay is £95K.

£45k isn’t bad money at all for a post managing a PA and a couple of admin assistants. But clearly not enough money for a MIDDLE RANKING PR of Slocombe’s standing. So he’s has bagged a £50k pay rise from his friend, the Reverend.

News is also in, courtesy of the council’s external auditors, that the £100k the Reverend handed to departing Chief Exec Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski last year was a GENEROUS PERSONAL GIFT with public money from the Reverend and not a legally required pay off for her notice period as he claimed.

How much is the Reverend spending on generous and unnecessary payments to his mates? It’s hard to say. Especially now that the paperwork for the senior management reorganisation that the Reverend promised would save £1million a year on senior bosses’ wages has been made ‘EXEMPT‘. This means the public and press are conveniently DENIED access to any final figures.

 Is this because the promised savings haven’t materialised for the council, while large sums of money for a privileged few have materialised in personal bank accounts?