Tag Archives: Shahzia Daya

WEXCIT 2: THE HORROR CONTINUES

dan-norris signing off
Will anyone sign up to work with the WECA Man?

The revolving door at WECA, our regional government basketcase, must be about to come off its hinges.

Head of Infrastructure, David Carter; Section 151 Officer Malcolm Coe; dodgy Monitoring Officer Shahzia “Dim” Daya; Head of Transport Jason Humm and Democratic Services boss, Ian Hird all cleared off over last autumn and winter.

Since then another whole new bunch have headed for the door.

Among them are Mina Davies, Head of Comms; Katherine Vowles who was brought in as an interim Head of Infrastructure; Jack Catkoviv: he scarpered before the end of his probation period as the new Head of Democratic Services; Laura Ambler Head of Planning and Housing and, now, new Interim Comms boss Ruth Wilmshurst has decided WECA ain’t really for her.

This news arrives as WECA’s auditors slam the management and governance of the authority after an investigation that found five “significant weaknesses” at the authority.  They were especially displeased that the Head of Infrastructure, David Carter’s £59k handout for quitting had put the organisation “at the potential risk of committing to an unlawful payment”.

Auditors say the person responsible for the generous gift, notorious Chief Exec Patricia Greer “was acting in good faith” while potentially breaking the law.

Good faith lawbreaking? That’s some USP.

BIG WEDGE’S BULLY SHAME

The Reverend with his Bully-in-Chief

WAS REES RUNNING A BULLYING CULTURE FROM THE TOP AT BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL?

Why has the council’s chief lawyer and Bundred crook, Shahzia “Dim” Daya started threatening councillors with legal action if they discuss the recently departed council Chief Exec Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski with the press?

Total mystery surrounds the sudden RESIGNATION of the Reverend Rees’s representative on Earth and chief bag carrier. Big Wedge, barely six months into a role filling her boots with extraordinary sums of public cash while leading an inane “improvement journey” at the council quit on Monday 4 September for “family reasons” taking a payoff reputedly in the region of £70k. What for?

This, so the story goes, is because Big Wedge suddenly discovered her parents were seriously ill and she needed to to look after them. We can only sympathise with this SUDDEN and SIMULTANEOUS deterioration of these executive parents, both of whose health apparently collapsed in the six months since Big Wedge began her latest well remunerated public sector “improvement journey”.

No doubt Big Wedge watchers are pleased that she’s continued to display her remarkably ordinary intellect and way with a tired old cliche to the very end. Isn’t quitting for “family reasons” a hackneyed old code in political circles for “JUMPING BEFORE I’M PUSHED“? So what has Big Wedge really been up to?

Creating and running a systematic BULLYING CULTURE at the top of the council is what. We understand that in early September a letter began circulating claiming that Big Wedge had personally bullied 14 Service Directors out of Bristol City Council over the last year and had then paid them off to keep them silent.

Intrigued, a local reporter called the council’s PR department where they were greeted with barely-concealed PANIC at the mention of Big Wedge and bullying. The reporter was promised they would receive a call back with a statement. Obviously this never came.

Instead, for the rest of the week, local newspaper editors received regular calls from various senior bosses and PR types at the council BEGGING them not to run any bullying stories in relation to Big Wedge. Then – after a weekend, apparently considering her position – Big Wedge announced the following Monday morning she was quitting “for family reasons”. Coincidence or wot?

What’s even stranger, however, is why the Reverend and Big Wedge ever thought bullying bosses out of the organisation and paying large compensation packages was necessary? (Were they getting a kick out of bullying their staff?) Because didn’t they have a brand new INDEPENDENT REPORT (kept secret from us) into their managers’ conduct around financial management in 2015 – 16 and the unlawful budget set in 2016?

So why wasn’t this report used as the basis for DISCIPLINARY ACTION against these bosses? This would have saved us a fortune and ensured none of these crooks ever worked in local government again. Surely a win-win?

Or maybe this secret report contains some rather more uncomfortable facts that need to remain secret? For example, Klonowski started working in a SENIOR ROLE in finance at Bristol City Council in 2015. What exactly did she know about HIDDEN DEBTS and UNLAWFUL BUDGETS?

Similarly, council lawyer Shahzia “Dim” Daya, who’s still got her feet firmly under the table at the Counts Louse and is now threatening councillors all over again, OVERSAW the council budget meeting in 2016 where an unlawful budget was set with her FULL KNOWLEDGE. Alison “Three Jobs” Comley – still raking in a six figure sum – also knew all about the unlawful budget, according to PUBLISHED MINUTES, and she continues in post trashing parks and unlawfully refusing to house the homeless.

Then there’s the pair of BENT CHIEF INTERNAL AUDITORS who knew lots and lots about unachieved savings and inaccurate reports to councillors. They, too, are still collecting generous salaries for their mendacity and failure.

Isn’t it time the Reverend published his secret new report into his bent bosses so we can find out what’s been going on inside his useless council and we can sort it out if he can’t?

NB. Any legal threats in relation to this article to the Bristolian’s email please.

BUNDRED: NOTHING GOING IN WRITING FROM REES’S BENT LAWYER

The Reverend Rees’s response to the Bundred Report into the council’s MULTIPLE FINANCIAL FAILINGS, being personally overseen by his chronically underperforming donkey of a new Chief Exec, Anna “Big Wedge” Klonowski, is FALLING APART before it’s even started.

On Tuesday – in the middle of a General Election when politicians are looking the other way – Ms Big Wedge published her SEMI-LITERATE, ‘Response to the Bundred Review’ for the Cabinet to sign-off next week. Page 4 of Big Wedge’s rambling error-strewn drivel tells us:

“S[enior]L[eadership]T[eam] have agreed and the Chief Executive has recently reinforced the need for reports rather than presentations to be used as the basis of discussions and decisions.”

So come Thursday and Ms Klonwoski’s incompetent legal boss and Monitoring Officer, Shahzia “Dim” Daya – who personally oversaw and signed off the UNLAWFUL BUDGET of 2016 at the heart of the controversy – published her own report to councillors, ‘Scrutiny Structures and New Ways of Working – Hothouse Outcomes’.

This report is just one page long and tells councillors, “Full details of the outcomes of the Scrutiny review will be provided by Members VERBALLY at the meeting.”

So much for “the need for REPORTS rather than PRESENTATIONS to be used as the basis of discussions and decisions” then. Do the new rules not apply to lazy and bent Monitoring Officers?

The significance of all this is that councillors simply did not have the necessary ACCESS and INFORMATION they required to scrutinise what their bent managers were up to in 2015 – 17. This new scrutiny review is supposed to correct that.

Although it looks to us like councillors are being blatantly set up to fail all over again by exactly the same council bosses who conned them last time.

CALLING PEOPLE “A DISEASE” IS INCLUSIVE SAY COUNCIL LAWYERS

Members of the public who complained about our idiot Lord Mayor, Jeff “CUNT” Lovell, calling them “a disease” for attending the council budget meeting in February have received a response from a couple of the council’s useless lawyers, Pauline “Cow” Cowley and Nancy “Boy” Rollason. Is this because Lord Mayor Cunt is too much of a PUSSY to respond himself?

Cowley and Rollason – who signs off as ‘Head of Legal’ – explain that they are writing on BEHALF of the Monitoring Officer, Shahzia “DIM” Daya, who “determined the issue” before disappearing on long term SICK LEAVE!

So why’s she off sick all of a sudden? Is Dim Daya’s oversight of last year’s budget and the CRIMINALITY involved finally catching up with her? And why is her colleague now Head of Legal? Has Dim Daya been relieved of some of her duties by any chance?

Naturally Daya’s response is FARCICAL. The dim one explains that “the complaint centres on the interpretation of phrases used by Lord Mayor Jeff Lovell”. No shit Sherlock! Although it’s a pity that Daya then doesn’t bother to identify – let alone interpret – any of Cunt Lovell’s phrases before concluding he used “language that is designed to foster an INCLUSIVE atmosphere”!

The rest of the letter is a load of irrelevant CARPING from the lawyers about conduct in the public gallery at the meeting, which nobody’s complained about.

How do these overpaid fuckers get away with producing this shit?

The full correspondence is below:

Complaint to Monitoring Officer regarding Jouncillor Jeff Lovell

Date of Complaint                           24 February 2017

Name of Complainant

Allegation against                           Councillor Jeff Lovell

Nature of Allegation                        Disgraced the office

 

Outcome: The Monitoring Officer can decide either that

  • no action should be taken (with reasons) or

  • refer the matter for investigation or

  • take other action (including mediation or training).

Details: This complaint relates to the behaviour of the Councillor Jeff Lovell at Full Council meeting on 21 February 2017

Decision: No further action to be taken

Reasons for the decision:

I have viewed the web cast from 20 minutes on. The webcast shows the chair, Lord Mayor Jeff Powell managing the budget presentation by the Mayor. The complaint outlined in the email of 24 February centres on the interpretation of phrases used by Lord Mayor Jeff Lovell, acting as Chair in this meeting.

I note that prior to the alleged incident, there were a number of interruptions from the public gallery, starting at 21 minutes. These last on average half a minute. There are at least 9 interruptions which affect the delivery of the budget by the Mayor. Swearing is audible at times, although this subsided to low level heckling.

Throughout, the chair demonstrates a desire to run the meeting efficiently and with due process. He uses a tone that is polite firm and fair and uses language that is designed to foster an inclusive atmosphere. He gave repeated warnings and an explanation of the powers of the Chair.

I do appreciate that this was an emotive meeting and that people wished to protest against cuts, the outcome of which would mean changes over which they have little control.

Shahzia Daya, Interim Monitoring Officer, Bristol City Council

27 March 2017

BUNDRED REPORT: PANIC AT THE TOP?

A sense of DISARRAY and PANIC at the top of Bristol City Council is emerging as public anger and a determined effort to rid ourselves of the THIRTY bosses who hid a £30m budget black hole from the Bristolian public and their councillors in 2016 grows by the day.

The latest tactic from Bristol City Council’s CRIMINAL gang of Strategic and Service Directors – who presented a set of bent accounts to the public just prior to thieving a 20 per cent pay rise for themselves on the basis of their ‘talent’ – is to IGNORE their correspondence and AVOID replying to Freedom of Information requests.

A recent Freedom of Information request asking that the council supply the minutes of their CHANGE BOARD – where the £30 million scam was cooked-up – has been deliberately delayed. Because, claim panicking bosses, of the “COMPLEXITY” of the request.

What a load of bollocks. Retrieving files from a computer system and supplying them to the public involves no complexity whatsoever. IT’S A SIMPLE TASK. How can a £3 million a year high talent management team not be able to complete this simple task in a month and, instead, resort to weeping about the complexity of it all?

No wonder they struggle with traffic management and house building if obtaining files off a computer is too difficult for them. They are beyond PATHETIC and useless LIARS to boot.

Meanwhile, why is Shahzia “Dim” Daya – the council’s legal boss and Monitoring Officer right at the centre of the corruption scandal – IGNORING the straightforward request published below? Why’s she so bothered about involving external auditors? What could possibly be her problem with that?

From: steven norman <>
Sent: 17 February 2017 12:04
To: shahzia.daya@bristol.gov.uk
Subject: RE: RIGGING OF 2016 LOCAL & MAYORAL ELECTION BY 30 OFFICERS

Ms Daya

Perhaps someone could confirm whether Bristol City Council will be formally requesting that their external auditors conduct a Public Interest Investigation into the following:

– the 30 senior officers/Change Board that withheld information from councillors and the S151 officer that resulted in a material misstatement in the 2015 – 16 accounts and material misstatements in the budget for 2016 – 17 agreed by Full Council in February 2016.

– The Chief Internal Auditors who, in April 2015, found the Change Programme governance arrangements to be ‘good’. A perverse conclusion entirely at odds with the Bundred Report.

– The Chief Internal Auditors over a further Internal Audit report produced in November 2015 and finally published in December 2015 – ‘Change Programme: Financial Benefits Realisation” – that reported ‘acceptable’ levels of control across all areas of the Change Programme after the report was altered by the following officers – Change Services Manager, Service Director, Business Change & ICT, and Strategic Director, Business Change.

– The Chief Internal Auditors presenting the December 2015 report above to the Audit Committee in summary form and with no indication it had been substantially rewritten by officers/managers running the failing Change Programme.

Only it appears to me that an attempt was being made to rig the election by 30 officers who knowingly withheld vital and important information from elected officials and the general public

Kindest Regards

Mr Stephen Norman

If Bristol City Council’s sleazy management scum are avoiding answering these simple questions to DELIBERATELY avoid bringing in the external auditors as they are legally required to do, then they need to quit now so some bosses can come in who are prepared to OBEY THE LAW.

BUNDRED REPORT: ARE THE WHEELS COMING OFF?

While the rest of the media produced a PERFUNCTORY news report and crawled back under their stone; while councillors acted DUMB and couldn’t even be arsed to demand a debate about it and while the public continue to be UP IN ARMS about it …  The BRISTOLIAN is driving forward the agenda around the Bundred Report.

And the Rev Rees knows it! Following our demands for an investigation into the conduct of his chief officers and managers over their handling of last year’s budget – especially THE CONSPIRACY identified by Steve “Sticky” Bundred to provide councillors with deliberately MISLEADING savings figures – the Reverend has conceded that further investigations are necessary.

Rees agreed to our demands today after he was confronted by protestors in the Council Chamber during his budget meeting.  He promised the protestors a new inquiry into “how the failings actually took place” and admitted his senior bosses knew that the savings they presented in last year’s budget were “UNACHIEVABLE”. Most significantly Rees admitted last year’s budget was “ILLEGAL” just days after his Monitoring Officer told us, “the report does not imply any criminal act”!

Will the Reverend call the cops then? Regardless – we’re winning! But rest assured we’ll keep the pressure up and get this whole current shower of dishonest, disreputable overpaid and underperforming council management crooks and tosspots investigated.

Watch this space …

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.

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?