Tag Archives: Nicola Yates

SWANKY OFFICE WATCH

George buys 100 Temple Street for a bargain £18 million

The current multi-million pound refurbishment of the Counts Louse will include the THIRD refurbishment of the building’s third floor management suite for profligate twats on six-figure salaries in SIX YEARS!

In 2009 former Chief Exec JAN ORMONDROYD spent a six figure sum refurbishing her office suite in the regal style with purple carpeting, bullet proof glass and the legendary strategic leadership fridge.

Then last year, new Chief Exec Nicola “LADY GAGA” Yates spent a load of money on furniture and IT kit to stamp her personal style on the third floor. Indeed, she even threw a tantrum and fired the council’s Workplace Programme Manager, GRAHAM SKINNER when her new furniture didn’t arrive on time and thus putting a £60m project into chaos!

Now, in this age of austerity, more money is being spent refurbing the management suite all over again! This time to create an ‘AGILE WORKSPACE‘ we’re told.

Let’s just hope when we get a new mayor next year they like the results or, no doubt, we’ll be forking out another six figure sum for new carpets, soft furnishings and an a la mode mayoral cappuccino machine!

GREEN CRAPITAL: YES, IT REALLY IS SHIT!

green cap

MELTDOWN

“IN life you often have to spend money to make money,” guffed SIR GUS HOYTY TOYTY, Uncle George’s pale green footrest, as the former line cook turned finance expert explained to us last November why he was paying a yankee CORPORATE MARKETER with no knowledge of Bristol or green issues a cool £250k to run the Green Capital shambles.

Meanwhile UNCLE GEORGE told us back in December, “European Green Capital is one of Bristol’s greatest opportunities and I wanted to find the best person in the world to run it. I am confident that KRIS DONALDSON is that person.”

George also assured us he had set the well-remunerated yank some tough targets, saying he needed to “raise millions”. Fast forward ten months and despite the tough targets it looks like George and Sir Gus’s brilliant appointment has raised a great big, fat, best-person-in-the-world ZERO for the Green Capital.

Indeed, so utterly hopeless was the yank that he was briefly PULLED from his post last month and then SACKED altogether from running the project he’s been paid a bomb to make a success. City Council Chief Exec NICOLA “LADY GAGA” YATES has now been given the reins for an undisclosed rate on top of her city council £140k pa day job.

Those in the know tell us, “it’s unlikely Gaga will be any more competent. She knows nothing about Bristol having been here about five minutes and her green credentials stretch to a paper recycling box in her office and a tin of organic coffee. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on her to find Sea Mills on a map if her life depended on it.”

Oh, happy days …

THE THICK OF IT

Listeners to John “DARTH” Darvall on Radio Bristol were treated to an entertaining Green Capital car crash last month.

Step forward yankee idiot KRIS DONALDSON “DUCK” – the sacked Green Capital chief exec who creamed a six-figure salary from the public purse – and his partner in slime Green Capital chair, plummy-voiced thicko ANDREW “SPESH” GARRARD from – would you believe? – the Society of the Merchant Venturers,

The undynamic duo were laid low by a series of Bristolians asking SIMPLE QUESTIONS during a phone-in about the Green Capital. For instance, ‘Betty from Westbury on Trym’ wanted to know why the council wasn’t able to keep the streets clear of rubbish and litter. A query way beyond Donaldson Duck and Spesh’s limited abilities.

It makes you wonder how a Merchant Venturer buffoon like Spesh ever landed the gig running our Green Capital? Could it have anything to do with the fact he was the second largest CASH DONOR to “Uncle” George’s election campaign?

Records seen by The BRISTOLIAN show Garrard handed a cool £2,500 of cash over to Ferguson to help get him elected. The biggest donor was Merchant Venturer (are you seeing a pattern here?) ANDREW NISBET who chucked George £6,244.

Other Venturers who splashed out to get George elected included TREVOR SMALLWOOD, former executive chairman of FIRSTGROUP buses and execrable establishment lackey, JAY TIDMARSH.

Indeed, over half of the cash for “Uncle” George’s election expenditure came from Merchant Venturers. What a surprise …

EVENTS DEAR BOY, EVENTS

More fun as what remains of the Green Capital’s team of out-of-town dickheads with masters degrees announced their SCHEDULE OF EVENTS for 2015 straight off the back of a fag packet.

Highlights include the creation of a TIRED CLICHÉ (surely blue whale? Ed.) sculptured out of rubbish, a few WANKY LECTURES featuring the likes of Guardian fruitbat-in-chief George Monbiot; a competition to design a bloody PHONE APP branded as a ‘Green tech festival’ and the opening event, inevitably featuring circus from CIRQUE “BOURGEOISE” BIJOU.

To pad out this total lack of anything much happening, Gaga’s Green Capitalists have chucked information into the programme about random Green stuff that’s already happening anyway.

Hence in February ‘ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING’ is listed as an event alongside ‘METROBUS’.
This is on the basis that “Bristol anticipates approvals from the Department of Transport for the region’s remaining MetroBus route”. And means Lady Gaga’s city council PR team will produce a gushing press release of more lying bollocks about their godawful BRT bus project. What an event! Be sure to tell the kids!

Also featured is Uncle George’s boyfriend and establishment brown-noser, LUKE “GISSA GRANT” JERRAM – the man who created the slowest waterslide in human history on Park Street.

He’s now being paid to put up 200 kids’ swings at an undisclosed cost to “to bring the fun factor to the Green Capital of Europe programme” despite the fact that plenty of us are having plenty of fun at the expense of Gissa Grant & Co’s Green Capital ‘crap factor’ already, thanks.

We say sack the lot of these tossers now and instead divvy up the money and dish it out to the city’s underfunded community groups that are being destroyed by austerity.

MANAGEMENT NEWS UPDATE

ALAS, after just 18 months of ineffectual bureaucratic middle management in the dull style, it’s time to bid farewell to the city council’s apprentice of the dark arts, babyfaced chief lawyer, LIAM “MALFOY” NEVIN.

This is a very quick exit indeed for the Warwickshire country boy as he becomes the first of Chief Exec LADY GAGA’S expensively assembled senior management team, just launched in the new year, to head for the door.

But why? Did Malfoy JUMP or was he PUSHED? Well, while it’s virtually impossible for a chief legal officer to be fired, rumours persist that Lady Gaga’s dark lord – ‘He Who Will Not Put Anything In Writing’ – private sector-friendly Business Change director MAX WIDE “BOY” was less than impressed with Malfoy’s style in general and his outmoded insistence on adhering to the law in particular.

Clearly such a dated attitude to government isn’t suited to ‘Uncle’ George’s ‘whacky’ buccaneering style of politics where nothing can stand in the way of getting jugglers on street corners to replace traditional public services.

Meanwhile we’re starting to get an insight into WIDEBOY. Trousering a healthy six-figure bung every year to take responsibility for ‘business change’, ‘efficiency’ and other euphemisms for the destruction of public services, Wideboy – a former outsourcing salesman for BT – isn’t one for explaining to the electorate exactly how he’s slicing £80m out of the council’s budget.

At a recent meeting – conveniently arranged in the MIDDLE OF AUGUST – of the new Business Change and Resources Scrutiny Commission of councillors, Wideboy had to deliver THREE reports to councillors detailing his various cuts packages.

However, no written reports were forthcoming from Wideboy. Instead councillors were treated to VERBAL PRESENTATIONS, allowing Wideboy to dodge any accountability whatsoever for what he’s up to.

This characteristic brew of arrogance, idleness and mendacity from a senior boss, being paid a fortune, didn’t seem to trouble our gormless councillors, however, who all seemed happy enough with the dodgy arrangement.

GAGA’S GAG SENSATION

Nicola Yates: Well, you'd smile too, if you'd been paid off like she has!

“LADY GAGA” DISHING OUT THE GAGS

Looks like council Chief Exec NICOLA “LADY GAGA” YATES has been living up to her name. The BRISTOLIAN can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that over the last year the city council has gagged at least TWELVE departing members of staff, preventing them discussing any aspect of their employment with the council in exchange for CASH.

The total amount of our money spent removing former employees’ human rights is not clear.
However we’ve tracked down a few payments.

One recipient was former finance boss PETER “ROBBIN-US” ROBINSON. Despite resigning last autumn to take up a post in Herefordshire, the sleazy Freemason, notorious at the Council House for corruption COVER-UPS and BULLYING of honest internal audit investigators, was handed £52k in exchange for his silence.

This is someone who resigned. Why are council bosses being paid for resigning? What happened to efficiency and austerity? or is that only for the little people?

The BRISTOLIAN also has traced a further THREE leaving payments to senior bosses last year totalling £389k, only one of which can be identified as a redundancy payment. That’s two more payments of over £100k each.

Senior bosses who have scarpered in the last year include village idiot and (mis)communications expert PETER ‘CLAUDIA-JEAN’ HOLT and belly-flopping major projects manager ALUN ‘IT’S A FUCK UP’ OWEN. Did they receive six-figure payouts? Funny, ‘cause last we heard there were STRICT LIMITS on leaving payments to senior managers ensuring all payments were capped at a maximum of £42,000.

What has Lady Gaga got to hide then? And how much is it costing us?

GAGA’S ‘ENTERPRISING’ RE-RELOCATION SEES HENGROVE SNUBBED!

Looks like Mayor Fergo’s increasingly isolated and absurd Chief Exec NICOLA ‘LADY GAGA’ YATES has managed to piss of a lot of her staff who’ve been dispatched to ABU GHRAIB, her ugly new City Council headquarters on Temple Street.

Now Gaga has announced that 155 of these staff, having been forcibly removed from the so-called Park View Campus in Hengrove to this new hellhole HQ, are to be MOVED BACK AGAIN after just a few months to make way for Gaga and her entourage who’ve decided they want the space temporarily while the Council House is refurbished.

The BRISTOLIAN understands that horrifying snob Gaga rejected out of hand a temporary move to Hengrove, insisting she needed to be near the ‘Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone’ (see issue #4.5) and what she calls the “business community”. Although an insider told us, “to be honest, I think she just likes hanging around wealthy people, and there’s not many of them in Hengrove.”

Staff who are being forced to make way for Gaga and her growing gang of OVERPAID HANGERS-ON are said to be fuming. We’ve heard of at least two who sold their cars once they no longer needed to travel to south Bristol every day. What happens to them now? Will Gaga compensate them?

And how much has this pointless escapade cost the council taxpayer?

YATES’ WHINE BODGE: BRISTOL COUNCIL SUPREMO LADY GAGA READIES HERSELF TO SACK UP TO 1,000 STAFF BUT PROTECTS HER OWN PERKS

Already stinging us for £160,000 a year - and STILL second-choice City Director Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates thinks she ought to be costing us more!

Already stinging us for £160,000 a year – and STILL second-choice City Director Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates thinks she ought to be costing us more!

Web ExclusiveAs the dust now settles following Tuesday’s annual budget pantomime in Shitty Hall (short version: MASSIVE CUTS! HUGE JOB LOSSES! OUR CITY RUN BY MORONS!), it looks like fun times are ahead.

Meanwhile, as the party barons bicker amongst themselves over exactly who is responsible for precisely which pile of crap we are all going to be forced to bite down on over the coming year, it’s City Director NICOLA ‘LADY GAGA’ YATES – the city’s six-figure salaried second-choice chief executive – who has been selling the shit sandwich diet to staff.

The fact that it took her the best part of two days to dream up anything halfway optimistic does not bode well, but try she did, with a round-robin message to all staff that she sent out today.

Naturally, the grim news that she will be “reducing the number of people who work for the organisation by around 800 [full time positions]” is left till the end, along with what might be a contender for Least Convincing Promise Of The Year: “I want to say again that wherever possible my commitment absolutely remains to avoiding compulsory redundancies.”

As convincingly as any £160,000-a-year career sacker can try, she attempts to project optimism, claiming that “many” of the £83 million-worth of savings that have to be made “will come from doing things more efficiently including – redesigning services, refocusing resources for the areas that need them most, squeezing more from our contracts and raising income.”

In other words: HELP! WHERE THE HELL IS THE MONEY GOING TO COME FROM?!

Certainly if Gaga’s own approach to thrift is anything to go by, we’re all screwed. Look at her published expenses, which totalled around £3,800 for just ten months.

At first glance, nothing spectacularly bad – but when you get into the detail, you realise these are the expenses of the sort of overpaid idiot who thinks .

A Zones 1-2 Underground ticket for one of her trips to London cost us £11.80 – when in fact the TfL fares chart helpfully demonstrates that the cash fare for a single journey is just £4.70 (making it a £9.40 round trip), with electronic ‘Oyster’ fares capped at £8.40 for a whole day of journeys, and One Day Travelcards costing no more than £9.

Similarly, a return train trip to London to a scheduled event was charged to us at £72.50 – when according to the National Rail Enquiries website typically such a journey, booked a fortnight in advance, would cost from around £50-£60, with even bigger savings for earlier booking.

A 1.5 mile taxi journey from City Hall to Portland Square is charged at £7.90, when the Council’s own Final Agreed Tariff Card would have it at £5.30 (plus 20p per 40 seconds of waiting time). Perhaps Gaga got stuck in a ten minute traffic jam and was just TOO POSH TO WALK!

Neither could she be bothered to walk up (or down!) Park Street, so instead she had us fork out £13.60 on a return taxi journey to Bristol Uni for a meeting with well-dodgy Vice Chancellor (and notable Merchant Venturer) Eric Thomas. That’s right – £13.60 for a round trip of BARELY A MILE!

A return trip from Council House to the M-Shed is so obviously taking the piss that it even has its own excuse note: “Not enough time between important meetings to walk”. Well, by foot it’s a mere half-a-mile away – that’s a stroll of five-to-ten minutes. Driving, due to the traffic management around the Centre and the Harbourside, it’s most likely a car journey of approximately two miles, taking about, erm, ten minutes!

And so on, and so on.

And this is the person trusted to find £83 million in savings by “doing things more efficiently”!

What was that old saying? ‘Watch the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves’?

Well, not if Gaga’s in charge of the penny-surveillance!

‘YOU’RE FIRED!’ BRISTOL COUNCIL BOSS GAGA GOES ON CLEANSING-OF-THE-TEMPLE RAMPAGE OVER FURNITURE DELAYS

It’s farewell then to Workplace Programme Manager, GRAHAM SKINNER, Bristol City Council’s man responsible for arranging the big move to the £18m 100 Temple Street building.

A move that will apparently save us millions and make all our services more efficient by ensuring that all council staff use the same branded coffee cups while not having a desk to sit at.

But why has Skinner cleared his desk – a privilege to have these days – in a such a hurry? Well, it seems some office furniture he ordered for council Chief Exec, Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates was late arriving and so she FIRED him!

They don’t have much luck with these buildings managers do they? Peter Walker, Skinner’s predecessor when the project was called ‘NEW WAYS OF WORKING’ was also fired. Although luckily (for him) he sued the council for a tasty six- figure sum.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again!

BRISTOLIAN #4.9 NOW ON THE STREETS!

The BRISTOLIAN #4.9 - hitting the streets NOW!

The BRISTOLIAN #4.9 – hitting the streets NOW!

It’s been another busy month in Bristol, with no shortage of graft, payola or all-round incompetence to cover – but the latest paper (The BRISTOLIAN #4.9) is now on the streets, featuring…

» BRISTOL’S NEW HORROR HOME
Holmwood House care home is like something out of The Munsters. Except it’s really not funny.

» YOU’RE FIRED!
Skinner booted as the Curse of 100 Temple Street claims yet another management victim

» RED-FACED RED PANTS DOESN’T GET THE BIG PICTURE
Mayor ‘Now Fuck Off’ Ferguson loses his cool over The BRISTOLIAN in his Berchtesgarten

» AUDIT LATEST
Financial farrago at City Hall as fraud and non-compliance continues

» MARKET FARCES
They seek it here, they seek it there, they seek that damned elusive £165k everywhere…

» PRIVATE LAND, PRIVATE GAIN?
Why is a corporate property developer calling the shots at Wellington Hill Playing Fields?

» IS CITY OF BRISTOL COLLEGE BROKE?
City’s largest supplier of skills & training to youngsters on the brink

» JUNKET GEORGE UPDATE
Millionaire Mayor signs partnership deal with Chinese Communist Party bosses!

PLUS: BRISTOLIAN BITES!!!

Tantalising titbits including…

  • THINK OF THE CHILDREN!barney between Fergo’s true believers & Labour at charity bash
  • PRIMARY FAIL IndyRedpants election strategy off the rails already?
  • UNIFORMLY BADwhat’s going on at popular Totterdown school?
  • THIEVES IN THE TEMPLE£90 million budget cuts not affecting the consultancy gravy train
  • BEDROOM TAX LATEST – Council prepares to boot poor families onto street for Christmas
  • LEGAL NEWSpanicky BCC misrepresents own consultants’ findings on Mem impact
  • HOYT’S GOURMET JOY‘Assistant Mayor’ fills his face with food & reneges on ‘No Evictions’

…And all that for FREE!

See the Distribution page for your local stockist – and if there isn’t one near you, let us know!

CAN’T WAIT TO GET HOLD OF A PAPER COPY?

Then you can DOWNLOAD a PDF version here:

» The BRISTOLIAN #4.9 – December 2013

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB (IN BRISTOL)?

Bristol City Council Chief Exec Nicola ‘Lady Gaga’ Yates wants to cut £90 million from what little remains of local services. But it’s not only the council that teeters on the BRINK OF BANKRUPTCY unable to provide basic services.

Remember the ‘Private Finance Initiative’ – or PFI – deals that led to all our new schools being built by private companies which then lease them back to local authorities?

Well, the schools have to pay the PFI companies before they are allowed to spend a single penny on books, or anything else. So when schools get their budgets cut – tough. Blacklisting PFI racketeers like Skanska or Carillion get their money before your kids get educated.

And the brand spanking new facilities aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. The Oasis Academy – previously Portway School – now has to pay more for five-a-side pitches, for example. The charge: a WHOPPING £40 an hour. How many kids do you know with that sort of money? So the pitches stay unused and local kids play in the streets.

Even worse, the company charges BREATHTAKING SUMS for basic caretaking. The PFI deal means that a company provides ‘soft services’ like catering, and caretaking. f a light bulb goes, the school staff can’t touch it. They must call ‘caretaking services’ who, when they eventually get there, will charge up to an EXTORTIONATE £60 for changing a light bulb!

Money grabbing bastards are stealing our children’s education – kids should come first. Time to ditch these sick PFI debts!

THE BRISTOLIAN #4.8 – OUT NOW FROM ALL GOOD STOCKISTS!

Bristolian_4.8_coverWell, we have been so busy working on the ‘Ms X’ story these past few days that we have not had the chance to tell you that the latest issue of your favourite local Smiter of the High and Mighty has been on the streets for a week!

November’s edition of The BRISTOLIAN is another PACKED ISSUE, featuring…

» BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL: WE’RE BEING ROBBED!
More cash disappearing from ‘of concern’ authority – this time from cash-in-transit

» MAYOR GRASS FARCE
A right royal game of lawn-acy as Fergo visit gets preferential grass-cutting treatment

» HOYTY-TOYTY’S PORK BARREL POLITICS SCAM
Green Councillor coughs up three times reserve price for allotments that couldn’t be developed on

» COUNTING THE COST OF CITY HALL LIARS
Farcical claptrap from council managers destroys open spaces, runs up massive bills

» CORPORATE FEED-IN FRENZY
China and big business cashing in on city’s solar power bonanza

» CRAP EMPLOYER OF THE MONTH: CLOVER ADVERTISING/APPCO GROUP
The lowdown on why this is one “billion dollar enterprise” you probably don’t want to work for…

» INDYREDPANT’S UNWISE MONKEY’S HORROR NO-SHOW
How the ‘outsider’ who ran in council elections for IfB “shook things up” on audit committee by not turning up

» B-LIME-Y
A merry-go-round of useless managers squanders £100k on lethal play equipment while kids’ education suffers

» HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB?
How PFI deals with the private sector cost us masses more…

PLUS: NEWS IN BRIEF!!!

» BRISTOLIAN BITES
Tantalising titbits including…

  • THE NEW POLITICSLib Dem Stella Hender returns as anti-Green artist Stella Perrett
  • PICKUP PACKS UP! mystery of Labour councillor’s ouster at hands of own party
  • FERGO IN PITTSBURGH CONGRESSHis Redtrouserness continues to rack up those AirMiles
  • HUNGER GAMESstarving kids made to trudge halfway across city to pick up food arcels
  • GASTRO PUB RUN BY IDIOTShard to imagine, we know

…And all that for FREE!

See the Distribution page for your local stockist – and if there isn’t one near you, let us know!

CAN’T WAIT TO GET HOLD OF A PAPER COPY?

Then you can DOWNLOAD a PDF version here:

» The BRISTOLIAN #4.8 – November 2013