A statement on the SEND spy scandal has emerged from the Green group at Bristol City Council. They’re the first party to go on the record. We anticipate seeing more statements on the matter in the coming week:
“The recent reports in the local media about leaked information showing that parents/carers of children and young people with SEND have had their on-line social media communications monitored by senior council officers and then shared with an external agency, have raised serious concerns for councillors across the council.
“The administration have confirmed that this happened but claimed it was at the request of the parent carers forum, a claim that organisation denied in a statement released on Thursday.
“This area of work falls within the People Scrutiny remit, the vice-chair of which is Green Party Councillor for Southville Christine Townsend. She is working with other elected representatives in trying to get to the bottom of exactly what has happened as the media reports are confusing and contradictory.
“Greens, and councillors from other parties, believe that these accusations are so serious that an external investigation is required in order to ensure full transparency. Only this will help to restore the trust of our residents in this area of the statutory education service.”
We broadly agree that an independent inquiry would be helpful. However, chances of the Reverend launching such an inquiry into his own administration are near zero. We also believe that any inquiry needs to be run by an independent QC, not by some ex-local authority time-server in a pin-stripe suit on a fat consultancy fee. We need someone who knows how to nail the guilty, not cover-up for bent council bosses.
Yesterday, the Nazi Post and others ran with our story about the council spying on SEND parents.Naturally, Bristol City Council had a totally bizarre explanation for their actions.
An unnamed spokesperson from the council’s External Communications team – who are at the heart of the scandal after covertly collecting parents’ sensitive personal data from the internet and distributing it to Council House managers – explained:
“At the request of the Bristol Parents Carer Forum, we reviewed our own social media and passed onto the forum information relating to claims made about SEND services which included comments left by members. The forum had specifically requested this information to conduct an internal investigation into the conduct of some of its members.”
This is a bizarre excuse, which seems to be saying that a small, local voluntary group made the council do it. It also fails to address public concern that the council acted unlawfully in terms of data protection law (GDPR) and in terms of tight legislation around covert investigations by the state (RIPA).
It now appears the council statement was also a total lie. The Bristol Parent Carer Forum this morning issued the following statement:
This is a pretty categorical statement that the forum did not ask the council to collect data about parents. What have the council got to say now? What’s gonna be their next excuse for their unlawful conduct?
Our postbag has been bulging since our shocking revelation yesterday about education managers at Bristol City Council circulating wedding photos of SEND parents around the Council House and beyond
Dear Bristolian,
I went round Alison Hurley’s house once and she showed me her attic. It is indeed covered in wedding photos skewered with pins and there’s a great big purple pentagon painted on the floor. She told me that she and her partner regularly perform sex magick rituals up there.
I thought the whole thing was a bit weird to be honest but at least I know where she got all the wedding photos from now.
Many thanks for all the hard work.
Hurley: sex magick rituals in the attic?
Dear Bristolian,
I went up to Alison Hurley’s attic the other day and imagine my surprise when I discovered Bristol City Council’s Executive Director for People, Hugh Evans, chained up there in a crotchless gimp suit masturbating over a photograph of a young woman in a wedding dress! Not a pretty sight I can tell you.
Unfortunately I didn’t have a camera with me, otherwise I’d have got a photo and circulated it around work.
Maybe next time? Keep up the good work.
Evans: naked below the waist again?
Dear Bristolian,
I walked into Executive Director Hugh Evans’ office last week and he was on a Zoom meeting with Education Director Alison Hurley from her attic.
Imagine my surprise when I noticed he was completely naked below the waist and was aggressively stabbing pins into a wedding photo of a young woman that clearly wasn’t his wife!
I was so surprised I forgot to take a photo. If I had I would have circulated it among my colleagues
Why has Bristol City Council’s External Comms Team been supplying wedding photos of SEND parents to Education Director, Alison “Pervy” Hurley? Is this normal?
We told you so. Now here’s the evidence. Bristol City Council’s SEND department has been systematically spying on SEND parents on the internet and social media. Then collating and cataloguing the results and sharing them with senior Bristol City Council education managers, including that useless oaf and third class human being, Education Director, Alison “Pervy” Hurley, as well as various third party organisations. Who the fuck are these people? Bristol’s own Stasi?
The first document we can reveal is an email to Hurley and her freakish gang of unethical education bosses outlining the people spied on and the methods deployed to gather the information. A table of information and PERSONAL PHOTOGRAPHS of the parents in question were attached to this email.
Of particular note is the comment at point 2 in the email ” … External Comms deduced this is XX as image is the same as wedding photos on XX’s personal Facebook site. Attached”
Yes, you read that right. Members of BCC’s creepy External Communications team, paid to communicate with the press and public, have been hunting through SEND parents’ personal photo collections on Facebook, downloading highly personal pictures (wedding photos FFS!)and sharing them with grateful Council House bosses.
Has Hurley now got wedding photos of SEND parents with large pins stuck in them all over her attic? Or is she up to something really weird and kinky with them?
We’re reliably informed that external comms staff would have had to search for the wedding photo in question. It wasn’t a Facebook profile photo in front of them. It was buried in the user’s photo folder with lots of other personal items.
Leaving aside that this is likely unlawful as it would classify as covert surveillance, it is also vile, anti-social behaviour and a wholly unacceptable way to be treating members of the public who pay your wages. All those responsible should be hanging their heads in shame and considering their positions.
Did no one involved in this think that the material they were accessing was way too personal and intrusive and complain to their bosses that the work was demeaning? What’s wrong with them? Would they want their wedding photos and details of their personal lives collected and randomly circulated, without their knowledge or agreement, to Hurley and her freakshow of Council House bosses to use for god knows what?
The Head of External Comms is, of course, The Reverend’s disgraced personal PR bully Saskia “Hindley” Konynenburg. When not bullying local journalists, it seems this unbalanced individual spends council time secretly rifling through strangers’ personal photo collections on Facebook and gleefully sharing the contents with her colleagues. Lovely stuff. What a wonderful person and exceptional public servant.
The second document is a table listing some harmless social media comments, mainly from just two SEND parents. A further three parents are also identified in the document as “critical commenters”. A number of local SEND campaigning groups are also thrown in and named and shamed for Hurley’s benefit.
The table was circulated to the Hurley education freakshow and to third party organisations. This type of surveillance and sharing of people’s social media activity is unlikely to be lawful. But, again, the critical issue is as much one of basic taste and sensibility.
What the fuck do these Council House freaks think they’re doing with our personal information and why?
There is a statement on this matter from the Bristol City Council and a response from the Bristol Parent Carer Forum here.
It’s farewell, then, to Alison Hurley “Burley” Bristol City Council’s Director for Education and Skills, responsible for SEND in Bristol. Alison arrived at the back end of 2019 and departs with zero improvement in SEND and an expanded bank account. What was the point?
As Alison scarpers, a persistent rumour follows her out of the door. Namely that her department has been collecting information about some SEND parents and activists from the internet and social media. This information has then been shared with council officers and others.
Let’s hope this is an unfounded rumour as such covert surveillance of parents is unlawful! Covert surveillance by councils requires authorisation under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). And, since The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, local authorities can’t authorise the use of RIPA. Instead it requires a magistrate’s approval.
RIPA states that council’s can only collect and record information for ‘the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder’ and other narrow reasons such as ‘in the interests of national security’. How does this apply to parents moaning about the council on social media?
Moreover, the ‘Covert Surveillance and Property Interference Revised Code of Practice 2018′ says, “If the study of an individual’s online presence becomes persistent, or where material obtained from any check is to be extracted and recorded and may engage privacy considerations, RIPA authorisations may need to be considered.”
But, if you can only get RIPA authorisation for ‘the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder’ and Ms Hurley has allowed personal information from parents to be studied, extracted, recorded and distributed, she has probably broken the law.
Well done for protecting SEND parents’ basic freedoms Alison, you revolting Nazi arsehole.
If you’re ever looking for some visceral screen entertainment over the next few years, we suggest you take a look at Bristol City Council’s People Scrutiny Commission on Youtube. Finally, it looks like the gloves might be coming off against the council’s social care and education bosses for failures and evasions stretching back for years.
The Commission is chaired by Tim “Little Asshat” Kent who has a child with special educational needs in Bristol and has the scars on his back to show for it. He’s joined on the committee by Christine “Miss” Townsend, who has been accused in the past of being a ‘terrorist’ by local academy chain The Venturers Trust for complaining about their admission procedures, and Hartcliffe councillor Kerry “Rosie” Bailes.
Kerry has a child with special educational needs who’s been forced out of his primary school for three years now, because, as far as we can tell, his Hartcliffe school is run by some sort of Nazi freak fully backed by the council. Also on the Committee are Tim “The Ripper” Rippington who has family experience with autism and Bristol City Council ‘services’ and Geoff “Cods” Gollop who has a family member drifting around somewhere at the wrong end of the council’s adult care service.
All-in-all it looks like the focus of this committee might be on the human rights of children and service users. Rather than its usual business of blaming parents, covering up abuse and ignoring the systematic management failures of senior bosses and an embedded culture of institutional disability discrimination. An approach that bosses, for years, have tidily wrapped up in complicated bureaucracy and unfathomable technocratic jargon to give their ugly work a veneer of respectability.
The first meeting of People Scrutiny got off to a flying start with Kerry telling Hugh “Hell” Evans, the cheery, chubby Jacqui “Village” Jensen replacement as Executive Director Of Institutional Abuse (surely Executive Director of People? Ed), in relation to his ‘Building Rights: a review of Bristol’s policies and actions for people with learning disabilities and autistic people’ report:
“This all sounds really amazing. A lot of it should already be happening. The law was changed a very long time ago and we just haven’t seen it. As public forum said, there is no accountability. You know that I’ve been in the system nearly four years now and I’ve seen no difference. It’s still very much a you’ll do as you’re told or else system and when I say or else, I mean or ,else. It is awful.”
“My son was thrown into a car park at five years old. He was locked in an office for being autistic. This report talks about abuse in care homes. That’s happening in our schools under our noses. And when we complain about it, we are lied about. There is no accountability. What kind of consequences are there if none of this happens? You know it can’t go on as it is. This is our children, you know? What consequences are there? The people who abused autistic people in care homes went to prison. You know what? When are our children going to get justice. When is there going to be some consequences?”
Evans, unsurprisingly, didn’t offer Kerry a timeline on when council bosses and education ‘leaders’ might suffer any consequences for abusing children and ignoring service user’s rights. Instead a private meeting away from the public eye was offered by Education Director Alison “Burly” Hurley.
Kerry, not one to be easily distracted by useless private meetings with desperate arse-covering council bosses keen to keep a fat salary rolling into their bank account at the expense of abused children, has instead approached the Police and Crime Commissioner requesting a criminal investigation into the abuse of SEND pupils in Bristol schools.
Last week’s meeting is available on Youtube with more set to come
The fatuous twat’s fatuous twat
departed back to Bath as he arrived, wearing a really shit suit and talking
bollocks. Finally, we bid adieu to Alan “Stubby” Stubbersfield,
Bristol City Council’s bizarre interim Director of Education – THE BOSS WHO
COULDN’T SEEM TO COUNT – appointed by council social care exec, Jacqui
“Village” Jensen to sort out the shambles in her SEND department.
Stubby, best known for maintaining a reasonably cheerful disposition while trousering A SIX-FIGURE SUM for overseeing, possibly, the worst run local authority department in the country, had a habit of releasing formal reports regarding Bristol’s SEND department to councillors and the public, only to have to WITHDRAW significant facts and figures in these reports because they were wrong.
As his parting shot to Bristol, Stubby
of the Bailey had a crack at some law. Releasing his final report to a scrutiny
committee meeting, he announced that the decision by the High Court in 2018
that found Bristol City Council had acted unlawfully when it cut £5million from
its SEND budget was INCORRECT and the council had therefore done nothing
WRONG.
This counter-factual nonsense didn’t go
down well with either parents or politicians and left Stubby mumbling inanely
about “legal advice from Bristol lawyers”. After receiving a THOROUGH
BOLLOCKING from virtually everyone present at the meeting, Stubby issued
another one of his grovelling public apologies for getting it all wrong
(again).
Stubby and his AMAZING ACCIDENTAL
REPORTS have now been replaced by new boss Alison Hurley “Burly”.
We don’t know much about Alison yet, but her name provides opportunities for
naff references to Macbeth. And, let’s face it, three witches huddled around a
cauldron in the basement of the Counts Louse incanting “Eye of newt and toe
of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog” HAS AS MUCH CHANCE OF SUCCESS
as any strategy devised by Stubby and the council’s resident village idiot
Jacqui Jensen.
We await Alison’s formal actions on SEND with interest. Can she exceed Stubby’s extraordinary failures?
Parents of Special Educational Needs
and Disability (SEND) kids, royally SHAFTED by useless council social care boss
Jacqui “Village” Jensen and her merry-go-round of clueless and
unaccountable interim education chiefs on BIG MONEY were out in force at the
Counts Louse on Tuesday 2 October. This was after OFSTED inspectors put out a
call to parents to pop in and tell them what they think of SEND provision in
Bristol as part of their statutory inspection of the Bristol City Council’s
SEND disaster area.
Terms such as “CARNAGE”
and “BLOODBATH” were liberally supplied to The
BRISTOLIAN to describe the scenes as around 40 stressed and disgusted
parents queued up to BLAST Village’s useless department that has failed
to produce 98 PER CENT of their Education, Health and Social Care Plan
(EHCP) on time. Without one of these plans many of the city’s most vulnerable
children are UNABLE to access any kind of education in the city and
children have been stranded at home with some parents having to give up work to
care for and educate their kids themselves.
Village was clearly expecting trouble
as she was spotted, with a host of her social and education ‘top guns’ fawning
over her, loitering near the parents as they waited to meet the Ofsted
inspectors. One parent commented to us that highly paid council bosses
aimlessly hanging about at the Council House feigning concern, “PERFECTLY
SYMBOLISED THE COUNCIL’S RESPONSE TO THEIR ONGOING SEND CRISIS“.
But the big question is, when the abysmal OFSTED report arrives, will Jensen do the decent thing and do us all a favour and agree to aimlessly hang about at home on her own time on a permanent basis?
During a rambling speech to long suffering parents of SEND children in June, council Education and Social Services boss, Jacqui “Trust Me I’m a Doctor” Jensen, admitted there was “A KIND OF MIX BETWEEN PARALYSIS AND PANIC” in her SEND department. A department that she was paid £150k a year to run with a kind of mix between efficiency and professionalism.
During the same speech she also made the barking mad claim that the humiliating Judicial Review she lost to SEND parents forcing her to reverse the unlawful cuts she had made in her department was, in fact, a “A TECHNICAL PIECE OF CONSULTATION“.
So what is the council’s response to this shambolic performance from their very own VILLAGE IDIOT? Er, a pay rise! At an HR Committee meeting less than a month after this exercise in absurdity by a senior council boss in front of parents, councillors agreed to accept a recommendation from Jensen’s subordinates that “the annual salary for this appointment be set at the maximum of the range for the Executive Director – People role”. The maximum range being £165k. Or a £15K PAY RISE.
What would a council
boss have to do to not get a generous pay rise?
Could confused parishioners with low performing children who lack leadership qualities please note that, while I may be Chair of the St Snoot’s Academy, the parish’s OFSTED ‘outstanding’ high performing religious secondary school, I can in no way be held responsible for any of the entirely unforeseen consequences of the budgetary transformation of SEND resources there. This has been confirmed by Mr Stubbersfield from Bath who was recently appointed at great expense by the school’s executive leadership team on a consultancy basis to develop a convincing alternative narrative for the disaster.
This means blame for the closure of the specialist SEND unit at the school as part of a drive toward improved outcomes efficiency is not something that can be laid at my door. Neither am I in any way responsible for placing SEND children in inappropriate mainstream school settings without support. Nor should I be reproached for any alleged upgrading in so-called ‘off-rolling’ at the school as a result of unavoidable errors. All of this has been confirmed by Mr Stubbersfield deploying various insightful statistics at a variety of illuminating meetings whose minutes are not available for very complicated children’s safeguarding reasons that need not concern us here.
I therefore suggest that Ms Townsend and the ragbag of troublemakers, terrorists and rumour mongers from the parish’s OFSTED ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy who continue to encourage confused parishioners with low performing children at St Snoot’s to blame me for the decline in SEND provision now desist from this nonsense. Instead parishioners need to accept our Parish Committee member for Children’s Worship, Jacqui Jensen from Devon’s vivid explanation, devised with the help of Mr Stubbersfield, that a kind of mix between paralysis and panic has taken hold at St Snoot’s for entirely unforeseen reasons that will never be explained but are clearly not in any way the fault of anyone responsible.
Sometimes strong leadership means accepting that events are not of our making but are part of God’s larger plan. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “If God’s Kingdom you are creating on Earth is looking a bit schlonky then blame the good lord using a vaguely relevant biblical quote”.
Going forward, let me assure unfortunate parishioners with low performing children at St Snoot’s that we will be creating an exciting new SEND strategy to replace our last strategy very soon. The ‘quick wins’ we are urgently developing to placate any especially sharp elbowed parents with access to solicitors may even be implemented as soon as next year. In the meantime any of our children’s suffering needs to be understood in context. Namely that God has created a kind of mix between paralysis and panic at St Snoot’s and for such mysterious work the lord can only be praised and celebrated.
