Tag Archives: Will Godfrey

WERE COUNCIL BOSSES SPOILING FOR A PUBLIC FIGHT WITH MARKETS WHISTLEBLOWER?

**** DEATH RIDDLE MARKETS BOSS PUT IN LINE OF FIRE BY SENIOR MANAGERS AND COUNCILLORS ****

The BRISTOLIAN has obtained a sensational letter from a Markets Service whistleblower to the council’s former Monitoring Officer, Stephen McNamara sent in July 2012. The letter was also copied to former strategic director Will Godfey and a handful of senior councillors responsible for financial oversight.

The letter is a formal complaint regarding suicide boss, Tony Harvey’s multiple failures in his treatment of a bona fide whistleblower and it particularly focuses on Harvey’s proposed ‘restructure’ of the markets service that he announced, in a remarkable coincidence, just days after the whistleblower came forward in 2012!

The letter explains that Harvey was undertaking this restructure of the department as a blatant means of getting the whistleblower out of their post while an investigation into serious financial irregularities in Harvey’s dodgy service had barely begun.

Remarkably, Harvey was refusing to suspend his dodgy restructure on the basis that “the [audit] investigation will not affect the review[/restructure]”. An absurd opinion. How could an investigation that would conclude with a considerable number of recommendations about the structure and practice of the department’s financial management not affect a review of the department’s structure and practice?

As The BRISTOLIAN has been told by a well-placed source, “Harvey’s restructure always looked like the act of some bent-as-hell management madman intent on sacking a whistleblower to cover up his own dodgy and incompetent management conduct rather than the cool-headed, well thought out professional restructure of a local authority department he was handsomely paid to produce.”

Stephen McNamara – another oafish decision someone else pays the price for?

Indeed, the letter to McNamara highlights a number of major irregularities in Harvey’s restructure plan. Some proven accurate when the council later had to reach an out-of-court settlement with one of the whistleblowers due to the flaws in this very restructure.

The letter goes on to ask that Harvey’s restructure process be suspended until the financial investigation is complete and a proper, comprehensive restructure, including the recommendations from the investigation, could be produced. The whistleblower and his union even offered their wholesale help and support to such a process.

The conclusion of the letter is intriguing. Firstly it states:

You are entirely at liberty to continue on the course selected by Tony Harvey and I am at liberty to reach the conclusion that you’re not taking my complaints at all seriously and take them outside the organisation.

A clear indication that the whistleblower would make things public if necessary. They then go on to say,

My trade union representative and I are more than happy to discuss the issues raised in this letter with either yourself or Will [Godfrey] or another serious management representative that is not Tony Harvey.

A clear indication that the whistleblower was open to dialogue, discussion and negotiation. The letter concludes by saying,

I’m extremely persistent and deeply interested in the proper conduct of public affairs. I’m not going to go away and there’s certainly nobody in your authority capable of scaring me away. I’ve provided a number of reasonable ‘soft’ options worth pursuing in this letter. I would strongly encourage you to take one of them.

Alas, McNamara’s response was short, curt and dismissive. No discussion. No dialogue. No negotiation. Harvey’s dodgy process to remove a whistleblower from their job during a ‘live’ financial investigation would continue.

Unfortunately – for them – The BRISTOLIAN also does short, curt and dismissive. More effectively, many would say, than a jumped-up public sector lawyer like McNamara.

And so the die was cast. Senior council bosses proactively decided upon open conflict and a bruising public row rather than negotiation and compromise.

But did they bother to think through the implications of their decision? Did they consider the potential impact on their staff – such as Tony Harvey – on the frontline of any brutal and very public conflict? Did they consider their duty of care towards Tony Harvey?

Or was this another decision driven by sheer arrogance and the knowledge that someone else’s body could always be thrown in the way to deal with the consequences and to pay any price?

EXCLUSIVE WEB CONTENT: SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH NEWS

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While ordinary Bristol City Council staff who do all the actual work have now gone without a pay rise for over three years and are dealing with the personal consequences of an effective THIRTEEN PER CENT CUT to their wages, no such hardships are happening at senior management level. Up there, it seems, pay rises continue to be dished out willy-nilly to any old passing public sector trougher capable of knocking out a persuasive Power Point presentation to gullible councillors.

First at the trough we find that not only has the city council created yet another new senior post – Commercial Director for Energy – but that, even before anyone’s in post, it’s been decided that this manager needs too have their pay UPPED from £71k a year to £85k!! A pay rise of twenty per cent for doing nothing!

Then there’s another new post – Strategic Director, Neighbourhoods and City Development – combining the two old posts of Strategic Director, City Development and Strategic Director, Neighbourhoods that used to pay a mere £102k a year for little in return (one postholder came up with the crap £150m Bus Rapid Transit white elephant; the other has overseen the creation of a major housing crisis in the city). But no worries here because the new postholder instead will receive £130K A YEAR!!!

That’s a rise of over 25 per cent for doing absolutely nothing beyond successfully navigating a recruitment process that continually dredges up hopeless deadbeats that have to be quietly pensioned off to Wales at a later date to save the council from further embarrassment. Still, this utterly undeserved pay hike should help ease the pain of austerity for the lucky postholder shouldn’t it?

Next on our troughers list of glory comes our new best friend, ANGIE PAIDWELL, the new Director of Corporate Services who turned up in January to clear up the former-Director, Will Godfrey’s mess and give the long-suffering staff on Shitty Hall’s third floor some respite from the sight of a useless dickhead wandering around the place with trousers flapping around his ankles. Angie started in January on a salary of £120k but lo and behold! Within two months she’s been given an entirely undeserved 25 PER CENT PAY HIKE to £150k to “act up” as City Director.

Now, this is an interesting one because councillors at the recent budget meeting voted to stop all “acting up” payments to council staff. Instead long-suffering staff are expected to do more work and take on more responsibility for nothing!!! Although obviously this new rule applies only to the little people at the council, not wannabe union-busters with top-of-the-range BMWs to keep on the road and KPMG on their CVs.

The Bristolian also learns that a post of Service Director for Strategic Property has been created recently with the job of selling off the council’s property portfolio. The plum job has been awarded to a very posh glorified estate agent called Orrett who used to work for corporate property firm BNP Paribas. And it must be said, Orrett’s come up with a very imaginative ruse to top up his £65k a year pittance – he’s simultaneously working as a CONsultant for his old firm BNP Paribas who might just be in the market for buying, er … Bristol City Council property!

The Bristolian will be on the streets later this week …

BUMBLING BUFFOON ‘SIMPLE’ SIMS PAID OFF IN TASTY PENSION SCAM

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Council austerity not a problem for outgoing Chief Executive

One thing not threatened by any cuts is the fat cat pension of Bristol City Council’s interim Chief Executive GRAHAM ‘SIMPLE’ SIMS.

So keen is incoming Mayor GEORGE FERGUSON to be rid of the bumbling timeserver, he’s agreed – despite Sims only having worked 36 years – to sign him off with the equivalent of forty years’ service so he can get a full gold-plated pension when he takes retirement in March. Quite a nice little earner in the age of austerity for the £150k a year bureaucrat.

It’s yet another piece of good fortune for this chronically over-promoted middle manager Sims. When BRADFORD SUN QUEEN Jan Ormondroyd swanned into Bristol in 2008 to become Chief Executive, the first thing she did was get rid of Sims’s Housing Department boss IAN CRAWLEY, whose above average intellect and competence was considered a dangerous threat in the court of the Sun Queen. It was into this vacuum that the hopelessly lightweight yes-man Sims stepped, to hoover up a £120k salary as well as promotion for fawning over Jan and her strategic leadership friends.

Fast forward two years to 2010 and Jan’s sidekick and pathetic wannabe enforcer JON HOUSE, the former cop turned local authority Deputy Chief Executive, had to urgently enforce his own speedy exit to avoid an embarrassing scandal. And who should pop up to pick up the pieces, as well as a tasty pay rise? Yes – Graham Sims!

By mid-2012 Jan finally had to throw in the towel herself after four years of high spending and low achieving. But who should get the top job (solely on the basis of not being weird, provably bent or Finance boss WILL GODFREY)? Yes, it’s our man Graham – once again on hand to collect a nice little salary bump, now boosting him up to £150k a year. Very handy indeed when you’re only fit for retirement and on a final salary pension scheme.

Following this cast of horrors, we can only speculate on the calibre of candidate GORGEOUS GEORGE has in mind for the Chief Operating Officer position he plans to replace the Chief Executive with.

One thing is certain, though – someone will be (red) trousering a pretty penny. Here’s to austerity!