The Reverend’s FAILED EFFORT to put a ‘corrective plaque’ on the statue of Colston to highlight the dodgy merchant’s leadership role in the slave trade was managed by Peter “Arse” Insole, the council’s architectural officer. Initially Arsehole let local historian Madge “The Doc” Dresser devise some words for the new plaque with the help of children from COTHAM GARDENS PRIMARY SCHOOL (formerly Colston’s Primary).
However, left entirely UNSUPERVISED to do what the hell he liked, Arsehole soon went over to the dark side and allowed the Merchant Venturers and their arselicking friends in Clifton to DRASTICALLY REWRITE The Doc’s plaque until it became a MEANINGLESS PIECE OF MUMBO JUMBO that the Reverend finally had to bin as not fit-for-purpose.
Now it’s come to our attention, that in order to assist the Doc with her pointless work with local children, Arsehole PERSONALLY PROCURED a specialist private education firm, MYERS-INSOLE LOCAL LEARNING COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY. And, by amazing coincidence, the SECRETARY and DIRECTOR of the firm, according to Companies House, just happens to be, er, Peter Insole while the only other director is one Ruth Myers, Arseholes partner! How convenient for his personal bank account that Arsehole’s RIGOROUS PROCUREMENT PROCESS should throw up his own firm as best placed to do the job.
Although it’s a shame that it’s not only against all known council rules for Arsehole to procure his own company for his own financial benefit but also against the law.
Tag Archives: Procurement
COUNCIL CORRUPTION – OUT OF CONTROL?

Paul Arrogant: “procurement rules are for the little people”
Big shout out to PERFORM GREEN LTD, the lucky recipient of a number of lucrative IT contracts with Bristol City Council. The main one being a contract with the council’s brand spanking new snooping operation (surely state-of-the-art CCTV Traffic Control Centre? Ed.).
This lucky company have scooped £248k so far this year for their selfless public service efforts. Big shout out too to PAUL ARRIGONI, appointed a director of Perform Green Ltd last November, just six months after starting work with the firm in May 2016.
And what remarkable progress this star employee’s made. Unbelievably, since he began employment with the firm, their earnings from the city council have LEAPED from around £5k a month to £28k a month!
But hang on, Paul “Arrogant” Arrigoni? Wasn’t he the Service Director, Business Change and ICT at Bristol City Council until April 2016 when he scarpered in DISGRACE? The man at the centre of the Bundred scandal after his useless Business Change department missed their savings target by a cool £30million and then created an UNLAWFUL BUDGET in 2016 to disguise the losses?
Indeed, so perspicacious was Arrogant in covering his tracks while at Bristol City Council, he even went to the effort of REWRITING an Internal Audit Report for councillors in autumn 2015 assuring them all was well with his savings efforts when it wasn’t.
Adding to this sense of OUTRIGHT CORRUPTION at the heart of Bristol City Council and its endless merry-go-round of bent bosses filling their boots, we’re reliably informed that NO procurement process was undertaken before Perform Green Ltd were awarded their six-figure sum control centre deal with the city council.
Shouldn’t someone be calling Inspector Knacker? (He may even be spending some time at Arrigoni’s control centre …)
Councillors procure a buffet
Adding to the sense of surrealism surrounding city council procurement deals, comes the COUNCILLORS of the Business Change and Resources Scrutiny Commission.
While their legal boss Sanjay “Under” Prashar, his lawyers and procurement oafs are running up and down to London spending TENS OF THOUSANDS to justify handing a local contract to an organisation in London, the committee members held an all-important Procurement Scrutiny Enquiry day.
What was that for then? Er, to “look at ways to improve Bristol City Council’s procurement process for local small businesses and social enterprises”!
Obviously this day of mutual backslapping, pompous speeches, empty promises and fluffy PR rounded off with a FREE BUFFET is far more useful to our councillors than doing their jobs and dragging Sanjay and his oafs in front of their committee for a bollocking.
Council officer arses could then get KICKED and loads of money SAVED in relation to an actual unfolding local PROCUREMENT DISASTER that these councillors are directly responsible for overseeing.
Can’t have that can we?
YOUR MONEY NOT SAFE IN THEIR HANDS
Bristol City Council’s quarterly internal audit report into its financial management is out and the news, as usual, is uniformly bad. The council’s own assessment of its management of our money remains ‘of concern’ – as it has been for over two years now. Will it ever end?
Highlights in this dismal report in to serial organisational incompetence include:
“Non-compliance with Procurement Regulations is wide spread”
In other words contacts are dished out to friends, family, acquaintances, former employees, people from the golf club etc.
“Poor contracts monitoring has been identified as the cause of large overspends”
Once they’ve awarded contracts to their mates nobody bothers to enforce the terms of the contracts. Any old crap’s good enough for Bristolians
“Failure to monitor adherence to contracts [means] poor value for money”
Not bothering to enforce the terms of these contracts is costing us all dear except the lucky recipients of these unmonitored anything-goes contract arrangements.
“Inadequate strategic overview of engagement and use of consultants”
Highly paid consultants are employed at the drop of a hat to do the work that the highly paid managers aren’t capable of doing.
“Internal Audit recommendations are not actioned within a reasonable time frame”
When dodgy financial arrangements and deals are uncovered fuck all is done about it.
Bank Reconciliation and Cheque Control – OF CONCERN
The amount of cash and money that should be coming in to the council is not cross checked with the amount of cash and money that is coming in to the council. A free-for-all for embezzlers!
“Markets Operation – OF CONCERN”
Almost one year after £165k ‘disappeared’ without trace from the Markets Service and, still, nobody knows what’s going on with our money in that department; nobody’s doing anything about it and nobody’s responsible.
“Material income misappropriation”
Or theft as it’s generally known. This is thought to be a separate issue to the missing £165k in Markets. More news on this as we get it …
And the response to this theft of our money?
“Action plan under development”
Because that’s what you do when you realise a load of money’s been nicked isn’t it? Obviously you don’t report it to the police and try and catch the culprits …
“Payroll – OF CONCERN”
Yep. You read that correctly. Even the payroll’s fucked.
“Direct Payments – OF CONCERN”
The system of handing money over to health and social care clients to buy their own services is, predictably, in chaos
“Administration of Imprest [ie. cash] Account – Identified areas of noncompliance”
More bent managers running dodgy financial systems open to embezzlement. Now why would they do that?
Significant number of fraud referrals during first quarter is concerning
Yes, it’s actually getting worse folks … Full report here (pdf).