Tag Archives: Sanjay Prashar

DIM DAYA: WHAT DO WE PAY HER?

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.

Cold Comfort Farm

A massive SCANDAL is brewing over Bristol City Council’s commissioning process for their latest adult social care contract.

As usual, local organisations and charities have been FORCED OUT and a national company, based in the north – ‘Cold’ Comfort Call – have been awarded the lucrative contract by council boss LEON GODDARD. A right little wanker masquerading under the overblown title of “Strategic Commissioning Manager”.

Although a better title for Wanker Goddard might be “typical Bristol City Council bent boss” as a WHISTLEBLOWER has now stepped forward to blow the lid on Goddard’s DODGY procurement process and the “high levels of corruption involved”.

According to the whistleblower, an employee of ‘Cold’ Comfort Call, the company had PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of the commissioning process and a director of the firm even confidently asserted that they would WIN the tender before the  process even started!

The same director also told his staff that sensitive little soul, Wanker Goddard, wanted to “make a point” and not commission any LOCAL PROVIDERS in Bristol as he didn’t like them as they gave him “a hard time”.

An impressive and mature way to run a public sector procurement process for a vital service don’t you think?

Even worse, despite Wanker Goddard’s claim that Cold Comfort will deliver “the best possible service”, their record suggests something different.

In Sheffield and Nottingham, Cold Comfort were placed on safeguarding and barring lists after miserably FAILING Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections. While the care they’re providing in those cities is described as “BARBARIC” by Cold Comfort’s whistleblower.

In Sheffield alone, the CQC had concerns relating to the management of medicines, requirements relating to workers, safeguarding people who use services from abuse, the care and welfare of people who used services, staffing and complaints.

Which makes you wonder how Cold Comfort were even allowed to be part of Goddard’s procurement process in the first place when one of his opening questions to bidders was “Have you ever failed a CQC inspection?”

Then there’s the question as to why Wanker Goddard didn’t obtain REFERENCES from Sheffield and Nottingham before awarding a multi-million pound contract on our behalf to Cold Comfort.

Questions, no doubt, Bristol City Council will simply NEVER BOTHER to answer as they move into cover-up mode.

George’s dickhead shit-for-brains legal boss Sanjay “Under” Pressure has already told the whistleblower, “We will be auditing the process before contracts are entered into in order to satisfy ourselves that our usual procurement process has been fully adhered too.”

Well, if that “auditing process” is anything  like the one in their Markets Service that’ll be at least three years of waiting and cover-ups before they get going then.

Next Link give council a good shafting!

The city council’s legal department continues to excel.

Now under the bizarre management of congenital idiot and secrecy obsessive Sanjay “UNDER” Prashar, who learned his public law in er, Torquay, they’re once again, embroiled in an expensive Judicial Review farce.

This time around Prashar is trying to justify a DEFECTIVE TENDER PROCESS run by the city council. This resulted in local domestic violence organisation NEXT LINK losing their contract to a national organisation based in London with no presence in Bristol whatsoever.

Next Link immediately went to the High Court with their concerns over Prashar’s dodgy tender process and got a ‘stay’, which meant they could carry on delivering their service until the legal case was resolved.

A potentially costly matter for the council, a team of lawyers immediately legged it up to London to the High Court at great expense to apply to get this stay overturned arguing there was “NO SERIOUS ISSUE TO BE TRIED”.

Unfortunately their application was LAUGHED OUT OF COURT by judges when they discovered Bristol City Council was refusing to disclose the successful tender and evaluation documents they were using as evidence in their application to the court!

In other words, arrogant prat Sanjay and his minions thought they could get away with using secret, un-cross-examined evidence to NOBBLE a local charity!

Does Prashar understand how the British justice system works? Perhaps there’s someone down the council who can explain it to him and then explain he’s not working in bent Tory Devon now please?

With a FULL JUDICIAL REVIEW already granted to Next Link and, now, Sanjay’s miserable failure to get the stay removed, it’s beginning to look like another expensive legal flop will be coming Sanjay’s way very soon indeed.

Watch this space.

#walrustrial: PRASHAR HAS 48 HOURS TO COMPLY!

City council legal boss, SANJAY “UNDER” PRASHAR wants to threaten local people does he? That’s a two way street isn’t it? So let’s see how the dodgy little lawyer likes it up him.

According to the letter below, he’s got 48 hours to explain his legal threats before the material he’s desperately trying to conceal from the public to cover-up corruption, crime and wrongdoing at Bristol City Council goes into the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

Such an outcome will be another personal humiliation for Sanjay. It would be the second time he’s issued EMPTY THREATS based on pseudo-legal lies to try and gag the public only to be ignored and ridiculed. Is anyone ever likely to believe a word he ever says if his gagging efforts flop again?

 The soppy little wimp isn’t exactly projecting power and authority is he?

Request for clarification letter to Sanjay Prashar legal

#walrustrial: PRASHAR UNDER PRESSURE

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

ARENA: BREAKING THE BANK?

IS THERE A BLACK HOLE IN THE WHITE ELEPHANT?

Bristol Arena - white elephant - Dru Marland

The budget for mayor “Uncle” George Ferguson’s major VANITY PROJECT and RE-ELECTION STRATEGY is spiralling dangerously out of control.

Despite efforts from the mayor to GAG councillors from revealing the financial shambles, we know that CANCELLATION of any on-site car parking and the LOSS of revenue has smashed a £10m-sized budget black hole into mayor’s £90m Arena project.

Meanwhile a council Scrutiny Committee in August UNCOVERED a further £4m worth of costs for the project, pushing the total budget up to at least £94m.

Now it’s been revealed that the owners of the land, the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), are DEMANDING payment for their land, which the council had originally claimed would be a freebie. The HCA are believed to want around £4m for the land.

So just a year into the project and costs have been already pushed up by around NINE PER CENT to £98m before a shovel’s got anywhere near the site. The total FUNDING GAP for the project is now at least £18m and this will have to be met by council taxpayers and through cuts to services already being hammered by austerity.

Concerns have also been expressed about other aspects of Uncle George’s funding proposals. He claims £53m will come from the City Deal ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND.

A complicated mechanism based on borrowing against any increased receipts from business rates in the TEMPLE QUARTER ENTERPRISE ZONE. At present there’s little sign of much growth in these receipts, which leaves Bristol council taxpayers, as lenders of the last resort, to pick up that tab too.

Uncle George claims a further £38m of funding will come from rental and operating income from the arena. Although this figure has been described to us as “VERY AMBITIOUS” and, again, any shortfall will have to be met by the council taxpayer.

Uncle George, however, remains wedded to his basketcase project, which was one of the few actual promises he made in his election campaign. Delivering an arena, regardless of cost, may also be the only chance this highly unpopular mayor has of getting RE-ELECTED.

So worried is Uncle George about these PRECARIOUS FINANCES being revealed, he got his useless new legal boss SANJAY “UNDER” PRASHAR to invent a so-called ‘BLANKET EXEMPT STATUS’ gag to stop anyone discussing them.

Uncle George now has also removed the responsibility for the arena from the council’s PLACE SCRUTINY COMMISSION who had been asking some tricky questions and given it to the friendlier OVERVIEW AND SCRUTINY COMMISSION.

The commission’s Labour Chair, STEVE PEARCE, has already been quoted as saying “I won’t be pushing the mayor too hard on this.”

Thanks Steve. Nice to know you’re looking after us so well.

LAUGHABLE TAKEDOWN NOTICE FROM INCOMPETENT COUNCIL LAWYERS

We just got this off some third rate interim council lawyer, presumably just out of college?

Disclosure of Exempt information
Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk> 5 November 2014 17:55
To: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>
Cc: Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Dear Sirs,

You have recently published an extract from a report to Bristol City Council’s Cabinet concerning AVTM/Metrobus.

The part of the report you have published is not for publication by virtue of paragraph of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006). This is because the information contained therein is information relating to the financial or business affairs of a particular person (including the authority holding the information) ie it is commercially sensitive information relating to the value of a contract yet to be awarded.

In the circumstances, publication of this information seriously jeopardises the project and the Council’s ability to deal with this matter in the best interests of the people of Bristol.

You are therefore required to remove this document immediately.

Failure to do so may necessitate the Council in having to take further legal proceedings.

To confirm, once the contract has been awarded then information that will assist the public in understanding the decision making process, will be published.

I do hope that you can understand why this information should not be in the public domain at this particular time and will assist us by removing it immediately. Please confirm by return that you will be doing this.

Yours faithfully

Sanjay Prashar
Interim Service Director Legal and Democratic Services
Bristol City Council
Parkview Office Campus
c/o City Hall
College Green
Bristol BS1 5TR
DX: 7827 Bristol
Tel: 0117 92 22839
Mobile: 07775227302
E mail: Sanjay.Prashar@bristol.gov.uk

Here’s our response:

The Bristolian . <bristoliannews@googlemail.com> 5 November 2014 21:47
To: Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk>
Cc: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>, Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Hi Sanjay,

Could you confirm on what basis you will be taking your “further legal proceedings” please?

Obviously it is not by virtue of paragraph of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006) since this is NOT a gagging or confidentiality clause and it does not prohibit us disclosing information in the way you appear to be claiming.

Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by the Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006) is an exemption clause that simply allows the authority not to disclose the information as required under Part VA of the LGA 1972.

What’s that to do with us?

We look forward to your response.

Toodle pip!

And, er, here’s the dickhead lawyer not understanding how to use email and admitting he has to get his boss to write his letters for him!

Re: Disclosure of Exempt information
Sanjay Prashar <sanjay.prashar@bristol.gov.uk> 5 November 2014 21:58
To: “Bristoliannews@gmail.com” <Bristoliannews@gmail.com>
Cc: Shahzia Daya <shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk>

Who is this joker!
Shahzia-Could you draft a response for me to send please. I suspect it won’t make an iota of difference unless we can identify the perpetrators and take them to court.
Thanks
Sanjay

And Sanjay will be taking us to court for what exactly? We await the reply with interest …

***CORRECTION***

After further research it appears that Sanjay Prashar is the Service Director (and monitoring officer!) for Bristol City Council Legal Services and therefore the unfortunate Shahzia Daya’s boss. Yes, this is the oaf now in charge who replaces Liam “Malfoy” Nevin. Perhaps he should focus a little more on making sure the council’s delegated planning decisions are constitutional and a little less time making a fool of himself with crap threats?