Tag Archives: WECA

BANNED STATEMENT TO TODAY’S FULL COUNCIL

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Evidence of council corruption is against the law claim idiot duo in desperate corruption cover-up

The statement below from a member of the public was banned from being read at Full Council by Green Mayor, Yassin “Lord Haw Haw” Mohamud, on the advice of interim legal boss Nancy “Rollercoaster” Rollason, one of the, er, subjects of the statement. This pair of chumps claim it is “defamatory”.

Please urgently send all legal correspondence to bristoliannews@gmail.com. We are looking forward to receiving it.

STATEMENT:
More or less 4 years ago to the day, I wrote, together with another member of the public (Ms Joanna Booth) to the Council’s external auditors (Grant Thornton) to request a Public Interest Report on matters relating to Stepping Up (a DEI leadership programme founded by then Deputy Mayor, Asher Craig and her associate “Prof” Christine Bamford). We were both concerned at the content of Freedom Of Information requests obtained in respect of the procurement and contractual arrangements for Stepping Up.

A year later in October 2023 I received a response from Jon Roberts, then partner at Grant Thornton. Given my knowledge of the Stepping Up programme, and my own professional experience as an auditor, I felt that this response was wholly inadequate and did not reflect the gravity of the issues affecting Stepping Up. I made a formal complaint to Grant Thornton regarding their work.

Another year passed and in October 2024, Grant Thornton partially upheld my complaint in a number of respects and produced a  few paragraphs to include in their annual audit report for the Council.

It was at this stage that members of Audit Committee voiced their concerns regarding the apparent mismatch between public knowledge (from FOIs, as reported to Audit Committee Public Forum by myself and others) and the scant reporting by the external auditors. This then led to the events mentioned at Agenda Item 8.

A delay of a year in responding to Mr Jo Lloyd’s FOI request means that we are now 4 years down the line from the initial request to Grant Thornton for a Public Interest Report. A request that has been denied and will not be fulfilled.

Para 4.38 of Agenda Item 8 states: “the Council’s external auditors were not provided with a copy of the (26 April 2023 Internal Audit..) report during their investigations in to the programme.”

For clarity, I repeat that I first wrote to the external auditors in 2022. They were carrying out work on Stepping Up in 2023. In other words, contemporaneous with the Internal Audit work and report. Any work carried out in 2024 by external audit was a result of my complaint about their initial work. Grant Thornton worked on my concerns for 2 years and still failed to come across this report. 

In his October 2023 response to me, in which he rejected a Public Interest Report, Mr Roberts concluded: “..the Council has not identified any non-compliance with procurement rules in relation to the Stepping Up programme. Our review of the Council’s procurement register has also not identified any breaches”…

“We have also observed that due diligence was undertaken in relation to the original contract procurement for the programme.”

“The Council’s legal officers were involved in the initial procurement and provided recommendations into the type of agreement and to support clear documentation of the contractual relationship and fee structure. The legal team have confirmed that their advice was accepted and followed.”

“In summary, we have not therefore identified any matters regarding the governance arrangements for the Stepping Up procurement that would warrant consideration for reporting in the public interest.”

We know that these statements are untrue: as demonstrated by Grant Thornton’s later report in 2024 and from the Internal Audit Report itself.

Grant Thornton noted in their 2024 report that key contractual documents were missing. Instead, it appears, that Grant Thornton relied heavily on conversations with officers, including the legal team, to produce their October 2023 rejection of a Public Interest Report.

Who were the “legal officers” misleading Grant Thornton? Why were they doing this? Why were Grant Thornton taking statements made by BCC officers at face value, and not seeking appropriate audit evidence?

In addition, Mr Roberts states that his work was based on “discussions with Council legal officers, including the Monitoring Officer”. If this was the case, then why did the Monitoring Officer at the time (Mr Tim O’Gara) fail to disclose the existence of the Internal Audit report? Mr O’Gara was a recipient of the report, as documented in the FOI copy. This is a very serious matter.

Was the Monitoring Officer seeking to mislead the external auditors by omitting to mention the existence of the Internal Audit report? Grant Thornton were well aware of my concerns about the integrity of the Monitoring Officer (Tim O’Gara ) and Head of Legal Services (Nancy Rollason) regarding a members’ conduct complaint I had made. These concerns were upheld by the Local Government Ombudsman.

In addition I became aware that the Monitoring Officer and Head of Legal Services had unlawfully appointed Independent Person(s) to the complaints process. My complaint was also related to Stepping Up.

We need a wholly independent investigation into Stepping Up to include Bristol City Council, Bristol Waste Company and West of England Combined Authority. The possibility of fraud by the “pass through” payment of invoices by Bristol Waste Company for a private company (Stepping Up development Education Ltd, of which “Prof Christine Bamford is director) has still not been taken seriously by the auditors. 

The public have been let down by officers at all levels and by both Internal and External auditors. As the ex- Director of Finance said after dealing at length with the tortuous attempts to keep Stepping Up afloat with £700k +runaway costs : “Lessons Must be Learned”.

Those lessons need to be learned and they need to be learned in the full light of public scrutiny.

RIP OFF BRISTOL: PUBLIC ASSETS LEAP TO AMERESCO

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Netting Zeroes

Over £1m of public assets have been quietly transferred to US multinational, Ameresco.

Tucked away in the Statement of Accounts for 2023 – 24 for the City Leap Energy Partnership Ltd joint venture company between Bristol City Council and Ameresco is the following statement:

“During the year, the directors took the decision to transfer the majority of the company’s employees and all of its property, plant and equipment, including its rights-of-use asset and related lease liability, to Ameresco Limited, as it was deemed in the best interests of the company. Ameresco Limited holds a 50% ownership  in the company. This has resulted in significant movement in the company’s financials during the year compared to the period ended 31 March 2023.”

“The company’s employees and all of its property, plant and equipment, including its rights-of-use asset and related lease liability’” are valued at over one million pounds in the same accounts.

City Leap Assets
Section of City Leap Energy Partnership Ltd’s balance sheet revealing a drop in the company assets of £1,145,556

Decisions at the council with a financial value over £500k are major decisions and should be decided by the appropriate committee of elected councillors. In this case, Green leader, “Tory” Tony Dyer’s shambolic Strategy and Resources Committee. Why didn’t this happen?

We’re told, “it was deemed in the best interests of the company” by “directors” to transfer our assets to a US multinational. Who are these directors? According to the council’s draft Statement of Accounts for 2024 – 25 “the Council has two directors on the Board.”

Not accurate. There are no councillors on the board and therefore no democratic oversight whatsoever of the joint venture company. Instead, there is ONE council officer on City Leap Energy Partnership Ltd’s board of directors. 

Until September 2024, this was Bristol City Council’s dubious former Chief Exec, Stephen “Preening” Peacock. He’s currently in all sorts of trouble in his new post at WECA after his former close Bristol colleague, the Labour Party’s ‘Slow Kev’ Slocombe, picked up a £150k contract with WECA outside of all known procurement regulations. 

In Bristol, Peacock is, perhaps, best known for bunging Bristol Energy £1m from City Leap funds in 2020. The handout happened during a cash flow crisis at the failing council energy company in the lead up to the eventually cancelled 2020 election. The City Leap money was paid to Bristol Energy, allegedly, for “services”. 

City Leap employees
Number of City Leap Energy Partnership Ltd’s employees halved since transferring to Ameresco. Many of these were former council employees transferred to the joint venture company in 2023 as part of Peacock’s ‘City Leap Deal’.

However, despite repeated requests, Peacock failed to identify what services he had purchased from Bristol Energy for City Leap. While the contract he had drawn up had a blank page where Bristol Energy’s “services” should have been listed.

Since Peacock scarpered to WECA, his role as director of City Leap Energy Partnership Ltd has been taken by John “Fails Upwards” Smith. He’s currently ineffectually poncing around the Counts Louse calling himself Executive Director of the Growth and Regeneration.

Coincidentally, Ameresco, the latest recipient of Peacock’s quiet generosity with public funds and assets, are the company currently paying Bristol’s new Labour Party Lord-a-Leapin’, former mayor, the Reverend Rees, a retainer for his services.

Murky stuff.

GREEN LOSERS

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Hapless local party blows WECA election after member goes rogue

Page
Quite contrary …

Why was the Green Party WECA mayoral campaign underpowered? Their candidate Mary “Contrary” Page told The Times days before the election that she had no campaign manager and was paying for leaflets from her pension for an election they could win.

The party’s presence on the ground was non-existent. Nothing like the numbers for last year’s horrific ‘Team Carla’ experience in Bristol Central. Their social media campaign was pathetic too.

A few random local party branded Tweets drifted out sporadically while councillors and activists hid away in splendid isolation on the empty Bluesky app for nonces and snowflakes.

According to an insider, the campaign was a car crash because Mary only got the nomination after lodging a formal complaint with the Green Party when original candidate Heather “Hack” Mack put her nomination papers in late. Heather was then disqualified on the technicality by the Greens.

In response, the majority of Bristol Green Party didn’t bother campaigning for Page.

WECA WATCH

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Testing times at WECA:

Stephen Peacock
Confused posh twat with failing memory

With former Mayor Dan “The WECA Man” Norris arrested before the recent election, questions are being asked about who supported the mayor’s shenanigans at WECA and why?

Local journalist Andrew Lynch, asked questions before Norris’s arrest at a January scrutiny meeting. He queried why an item on an independent report into Norris’s unlawful efforts to get his image plastered over the region’s buses had disappeared from the agenda?

The question was intercepted by WECA CEO Stephen “Preening” Peacock. Feigning confusion, he bizarrely claimed not to recall which report Lynch could be referring to and would need to go away and think about it.

That was the last the public heard of the report with Lynch’s further questions to WECA knocked back by Monitoring Officer Bob Brown “Nose” as, er, ‘defamatory’. Lynch chased up with scrutiny committee chair Jerome “Unhinged” Thomas, Green councillor for Clifton. Back came the ludicrous claim that Peacock “legitimately needed to refresh his memory on the matter”.

A matter that should stand out like a sore thumb. It’s not everyday an independent report states your mayor has acted unlawfully.

Suspicions of a Peacock cover-up for Norris are strong.

HOW MUCH DID THE WECA MAN SPEND ON HIMSELF?
A July 2024 FoI request to WECA asked for, “full copies of all expenses claims by Mayor
Dan Norris for each year he has been in office”.

The response from WECA was,“no expenses were claimed by the Mayor for that period.”

However, in January Norris explained, “I have not claimed any expenses since being
elected in 2021. The authority organises train tickets etc.”

So he received expenses but he and WECA bosses unlawfully failed to publish them.

Another FoI on the matter in March remains outstanding

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

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WEIRD GUY’S NONCE-SENSE

Kevin-guy-cred-banes
Kevin Guy: will he give a shit if your daughter gets gang raped?

Bath Lib Dem leader Kevin “Weird” Guy has been appointed by new WECA woman, Helen “Oh My” Godwin, as her deputy mayor.

Before pitching up in Bath, Guy was a Labour Councillor and chair of Children and Young People Scrutiny in Telford.

Here, the Crowther Report of 2022 agreed in a ‘measured, reasonable and non sensational assessment’ that more than 1,000 children in Telford were sexually exploited over decades while the failure by authorities to investigate ‘emboldened offenders’.

This report was no thanks to Weird Guy, who, along with nine other men at Telford council, wrote to the, then, Tory Home Secre tary, Amber Rudd, in 2018 telling her there was no need for a child rape inquiry in Telford.

Our children: safe in Guy’s hands?

CRUEL SPORT

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The WECA man with WECA dog

Dan “The WECA Man” Norris is a very busy WECA man indeed. As well as being the Metro Mayor and an MP, Dan is also the Chair of the League Against Cruel Sports where he has been served with legal papers for an Employment Tribunal claim by the charity’s former chief executive, Andy Knott.

Former army officer, Knott, alleges that “Dan Norris asked him to keep quiet if Labour dropped its commitment to close loopholes in existing fox-hunting laws.”

Knott then claims that when he raised concerns about this political interference to the board and senior management, “they refused to investigate”.

GAGGING FOR IT!

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Huge sums of money dished out to ‘disappear’ WECA bosses by clown man regional mayor

It’s been a very busy time down at WECA for tasty payoffs and gagging orders. Since hapless clown man, Dan “The WECA Man” Norris, was elected in May 2021 there’s been the following exits:

June 2021: David Gibson, Director of Infrastructure exited with a pay off and gagging order;

September 2021: the Director of Governance exited with a pay off and gagging order;

February 2022: the Director of Finance exited with a pay off and gagging order. 

And let’s not forget Chief Executive, Patricia “Psycho” Greer disappeared in 2022 too. Later paid off in August 2023 with a £219,000 golden handshake with a gagging order in place.

Into 2024 and we’ve said goodbye to Rachel Musson, Director of Resources, with rumours of sex discrimination circulating. She exited with a pay off and gagging order.

Another Director of Infrastructure exited with a payoff and gagging order and Alex Holly, Director of HR exited with a payoff and gagging order.

The term ‘basketcase’ doesn’t do the Weca Man’s organisation justice.

WECA CAUGHT IN SLASHER’S WEB

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Further institutional confusion emerges around Asher Craig’s Stepping Up (SU) business. We’ve already learned how Bristol City Council senior bosses dodged their own procurement rules to hand public money over to the former Deputy Mayor’s private training company. 

When that scam got uncovered, Bristol Waste became the vehicle for subsidising the Deputy Mayor’s company instead. Including supplying an apparent £53k loan to the Slasher’s company.  A loan that the council waste company now denies making. Claiming, instead, that SU is their “debtor”. But what service was a waste company selling to a management training company? Very pricey waste disposal services?

Now WECA’s joined the party. Information from a member of the public at a WECA Audit Committee meeting reveals that a £150k grant awarded to SU was dependent on a financial guarantee from, er, Bristol Waste! However, any guarantee should have been approved by Bristol Waste shareholder, Bristol City Council and recorded on the Council’s website. There’s no record of this authorisation so any “guarantee” is unlawful under company law. 

Did anyone at WECA think to ask why Bristol Waste was acting as a “parent guarantor” for a company where a Bristol Cabinet member was a director and if it was legal? Where’s the due diligence?

NETTING ZEROES: WHERE’S THE PRIVATE CASH?

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Netting Zeroes (2)

No sign of the private sector cash that’s supposed to pour into the City Leap public-private partnership to decarbonise the city.

One new project is “an £11m programme of energy efficient upgrades for fuel poor homes”, funded by the Department for Energy for just 150 homes across WECA.

Another project will spend £890k on heat decarbonisation plans and designs for council buildings. Funded by the, er, taxpayer through the Department for Energy. The plan is then to grab more government grants to fund the work.

Despite the smalltime public money approach, local journalists breathlessly report that shadowy ‘council bosses’ have told them “City Leap would lead to a massive extra 180 megawatts of renewable energy generation in Bristol.”

Bristol City Council’s wind turbines and solar farm in Avonmouth currently generate about 4.3 megawatts so that’s a 42 fold increase then.

Sounds likely.

THE REAL STATE OF THE CITY ADDRESS

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Last night the Reverend Rees delivered his final State of the City speech from the University of Bristol’s shithouse Wills Building. Here’s a response:

Marvin, your State of the City speech seems to be a list of things that haven’t been delivered or resolved in your time in office. 

Most of the key infrastructure projects that previous Labour council’s failed to invest in remain uninvested in but with a tab left to be picked up by the next administration. 

There’s no funded mass transit proposal. It’s stalemated due to a lack of agreement between two bickering Labour Mayors who have prioritised their own personal animosity and egos above the needs of the city and region. 

The city continues to have deep divisions along race and class lines despite all the talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and tackling the “issues”. Where are the measurable outcomes showing improvement? 

But then you did watch the Colston statue come down and spot a self promotional media opportunity rather than a chance to trigger a real attempt to tackle the city’s long standing divisions. 

Congratulations Marvin, you built some homes (the vast majority at market rates with many being bought by private landlords) and yet still managed to miss every housing target you set yourself. 

The housing waiting list has increased to 20,000 families. The highest it has ever been, despite officers actively discouraging residents from going on the list “because it’s a waste of time”. 

Homelessness remains noticeably present everywhere, except, maybe, in the Bearpit, despite your promise to solve it. 

The vast majority of the 14,000 homes with planning permission are not being built and you try to blame a minority opposition party for this failure to deliver.

Still no arena, public or privately funded, anywhere. And tens of millions in public funds sunk into an elitist city centre cultural venue because of a binding legal contract signed on your watch. All while deprived suburbs lose community/cultural facilities.

City Leap has potential but so far isn’t unlocking any private investment and is falling behind its real investment plan, never mind this unsubstantiated £1bn you constantly quote at the press.

Goram Homes also has some potential but your planning delays means it’s falling massively behind schedule.

Bristol Waste is a basketcase with a revolving door board of directors. A direct result of poor corporate oversight. Your political interference in its business planning, meanwhile, has undermined any efforts to reduce costs. 

Elsewhere, your council is still complicit in developing SNCIs despite declaring an ‘Ecological Emergency’ and creating plenty of photo-ops of Labour politicians standing in fields saying how important green spaces are. 

There’s still no real plan for achieving net zero despite declaring a ‘Climate Emergency’. 

Then there’s the poorly implemented CAZ, almost as if it was designed to fail and disrupt. 

You are creating only one Liveable Neighbourhood and this is being poorly implemented and poorly consulted on with middle class neighbourhoods getting disproportionate input while poorer neighbourhoods are ignored.

Local CiL projects, especially transport and parks, are not being delivered partly because staff are being taken away to work on “headline grabbing” strategic projects.

The budget gap is currently larger than the Bundred one under Ferguson and there’s still no realistic plan to address it beyond service reduction and selling off council property. 

SEND?!?!! Say no more. Your “Deputy” Mayor hasn’t a clue what she is doing just like the chain of useless Labour education leads before her. Our kids and, increasingly, their parents are paying the price of this serial incompetence. 

The Dedicated Schools Grant is effectively in special measures and your administration is just crossing it’s fingers and hoping the government doesn’t pull the plug on this ever growing debt.

Basically Marvin, you have left behind a stinking pile of crap and then have the nerve to lecture the councillors who will have to clear up your shit about how the city should be run!!! 

Get da fuck!