The Bristol Blogger

Household fuel bills to rise 40%; food up 5-15% depending on who you believe; mortgage interest payments rising by the month; 10% tax rate gone; petrol prices way up. The list goes on …

Meanwhile at Bristol City Council - a Labour administration, remember, whose boss Gordon Brown promised “to listen” - Chief Executive’s pay is up 20%!!! chief officers’ pay is up 10%!!! And the Leader’s pay is up 100%!!!

So how is this all being paid for? Through increased taxation on us of course. Specifically we’re soon going to have to pay for our rubbish to be collected (Blogger Passim) and to park (or not) outside of our own houses. And in the not too distant future look out for that grandaddy of local government revenue raising scams - the CONgestion charge.

But don’t worry because, we’re assured, all these things will only be introduced after meaningful CONsultation with us. Indeed, someone who used to live in London has kindly written to yesterday’s Cancer to tell us how this CONsultation will work:

Having received the recent council literature about the proposal to introduce residents’ parking in Bristol, I would like to ask that when people fill out their consultation forms to consider this: in London, years ago, we had a similar survey and most people I spoke to were against it, but were concerned about the knock-on effect of streets nearby which did adopt the scheme.

As a result, people said no to the scheme, but yes to the scheme if neighbouring streets did it. That means it only took one street to vote in favour for the whole of London to eventually adopt the scheme. My street was in an area away from any local amenities and parking was tight but manageable, a bit like Bristol today. Residents’ parking was brought in and the result was that friends visiting from outside the area were less likely to stop by, delivery vans were frustrated by the need to pay, which often led to a game of “cat and mouse” with the wardens, and yes, there were parking spaces, but it became complete misery for everyone involved.

In addition although we all paid to park in our zone, the zones were so small that you had to pay again if you wanted to drive to the shops, less than seven streets away.

As with all things, this becomes a tax on the poor, as every house can only receive one permit at a cost of £40, so if you are renting a property and sharing with two or more, the second permit would cost £80 and the third a whopping £500. Is this fair?

It is interesting to see how parking problems arise.

In the last few years there have been a large number of properties that have been granted planning to convert into flats, which is of course fine, as there is a housing shortage, but why should the rest of us pay for a problem created by developers and the planning office?

Conversely, can I suggest that as petrol prices rise and with the advent of the new cycle scheme, that before we rush headlong into enormous costs for all, we wait and see whether we really need to go down this route.

The only real winner is the council, which earns a fortune from charges, parking meters and fines, and definitely not you and me.

Zoe Mack, Southville, Bristol.

The meeting of Bristol City Council’s Audit Committee on Friday to sign off the authority’s accounts for the year 2007-08 will soon be the trigger for a very handy piece of legislation indeed for you dear reader, citizen and voter.

The legislation in question is sections 14, 15 and 16 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 as amended. And here’s roughly what it says:

Your right to inspect the accounts:
The ACA 1998 – section 15(1)

At each audit under this Act, other than an audit of of a health service body, any persons interested may:
(a) inspect the accounts to be audited and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them, and
(b) make copies of all or any part of the accounts and those other documents.

And what this means dear reader, citizen and voter is that for a period of twenty days the city council must release every receipt, invoice and scrap of paper relating to any aspect of their accounts on request.

And, what’s more, dear reader, citizen and voter there are NO LEGAL EXEMPTIONS to this. That means no hiding behind ‘commercial confidentiality’, personal privacy or legal privilege for the city council. Everything must be released!

And what that means dear reader, citizen and voter is that you are entitled to find out in glorious technicolour detail what those profligate jackasses at the Council House have spent our money on.

That’s anything from wages, salaries, expenses, redundancy payments and sickness pay to how much they’ve really handed to First Bus and Sita Services. You can find out the real value of fees paid to their endless merry-go-round of consultants. You can see their receipts for hospitality, catering, hotels, transport and gifts. Or you could enquire how much that glossy leaflet full of lies cost to put through you door.

And of course you can also find out their real income from fees such as parking, library fines, recycling charges, council tax collection charges, care charges or any of the other charges that they now seem to be introducing on a weekly basis.

What an opportunity! Enjoy.

“Bristol City Council still plans to introduce “pay-as-you-throw” rubbish collections - and residents could end up having to buy bags for their waste,” thunders today’s Evening Cancer.

Who’d've thunk it?

Er, anyone who read The Bristol Blogger nine months ago for starters!

In recognition of this, The Bristol Blogger - in a little recycling initiative of our own - will spend the time between now and next February reprinting all its own stories all over again and call it news.

In case you missed it - which is highly likely as the only place it’s advertised is buried in a PDF document in an obscure corner of the city council’s website - there’s currently an “ongoing” public consultation for the West of England Partnership’s TiF (Transportation Innovation Fund) bid.

This is the council’s idea of letting you have your say on their BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) proposals, including the Bristol and Bath Railway Path plans (Blogger Passim), and on congestion charging.

If you have an opinion call 0800 0193235 between 9.00am and 5.30pm Monday - Friday.

Wonder why they’re not promoting this to the public at all themselves? No doubt there’s a simple explanation …

A brilliant critique of the Museum of Bristol project and its embarrassing heritage-lite approach to the city’s history has appeared on the Festival of Ideas website.

The piece, by ‘Tetchy Steve’, is a response to a talk at the festival pompously billed as The Second Museum of Bristol Lecture: the Historian and the City , delivered by government Heritage bureaucrat Adrian Tinniswood.

Here’s what Tetchy has to say in full:

The trouble with this talk was that the speaker seemed not to recognise any meaningful distinction between history and heritage. Obsessing about the democracy of ‘memory’ and asserting that the role of the historian is to celebrate the rich diversity of the past is just the sort of meaningless and cosy twaddle that gives history a bad name. The cacophony of past voices Tinniswood urges us to celebrate does not, of itself, constitute a history of anything, although it may have some claim on the term ‘heritage’.

Voices are the raw materials from which histories are constructed, but they come to us mediated by issues of power and agency. Sources are one thing; making history is another. Historians recognise and tackle issues of power and agency and try to interpret events as consequences. They are not simply tools of urban social cohesion, keepers of the keys to progressive shared identity, or facilitators of even-handed generalisations. The historian does not go to work each morning to make us all feel good about ourselves by suggesting that all voices are equally weighted and equally valid.

Tinniswood spent some time showing us pictures of Bristol’s architecture and urging us to consider it not only ‘wonderful’ and something with which to collectively identify, but somehow untainted by past associations with grandiose self-congratulation. To consolidate this ‘Idea’, he introduced a few cheap hits against the architecture of fascist and stalinst authoritarianism. Yes, that’s right; Bristol’s architecture is smaller. Yet to suggest that Charles Dyer’s pompous neo-Grecian Victoria Rooms are somehow unconnected to the promotion of an elite-led civic vision and that they should be read without any reference to the uneven power relations encoded in their design is just plain daft. Or rather, it’s unhistorical.

Rather than introduce a single challenging notion about the relationship between the Historian and the City, Tinniswood’s objective appeared to be the construction of a bland intellectual forum in which legions of happy Bristolians, undivided by class, ethnicity or gender, might cohesiviely celebrate their heritage and identity in a blissful cacophony of unmediated joy. Dare we hope that this is not also the objective of the new Museum planners who sponsored his talk?

tetchy steve
16 May 2008, 08:47

Trebles all round! New city council chief exec, ‘Junket’ Jan Ormondroyd, finally makes her opening gambit down at the Council House with a deckchairs-on-the-Titantic-style senior management reshuffle accompanied by some very generous inflation-busting pay hikes indeed for the same old chosen few.

Shoved very quickly under the noses of the Labour Executive at their next cabinet meeting on May 1 will be Junket Jan’s brilliant new management plan (pdf) for the city council, personally crafted by Jan in fluent Birtspeak.

On the plus side, Jan intends to scrap former Chief Exec Pigfucker Gurney’s pointless Chief Executive’s Department. Set up just four years ago at great cost, this was never anything other than a personal vanity department designed to grab regeneration and central government funds coming into the council and then spend them on marginal vanity projects in the hope they might make Pigfucker look good and look like he was actually doing something important. Needless to say they didn’t.

The second part of Jan’s plans, however, are rather less impressive. In her paper to the cabinet, littered with big, important management-sounding words like “strategy”, “partnership”, “performance” and “delivery”, Jan announces that she is going to give the council’s clapped-out old senior management crew a makeover “based on a strategic portfolio model”.

More waffle explains these “new portfolios are “strategic”, “corporate”, “customer focused”, “performance/value for money orientated” and take into account “future proofing delivery” around forward planning, business transformation, and emerging technologies.”

And in what, no doubt, Jan intends to be a breathtaking PR coup, we learn that the current set of senior officers will even have to apply if they want these posts. Blimey. Is Jan having that long overdue clear out of crap in the Council House?

Unfortunately not. Read the small print and you find that the only people allowed to apply for Jan’s new senior officer posts - with two exceptions - are the current directors! And - in a remarkable coincidence - Jan has devised seven new posts and there’s currently seven senior officers in post.

So what this dismal plan really means is that the bosses who were called “Directors” will now be known as - wait for it … “Strategic Directors” and given a pay rise!

Big deal. The new Strategic Directors will be exactly the same deadbeats that have been failing the city for years.

For instance, the current Director of Central Services, Carew Reynell - who was last seen personally overseeing a £6m overspend on the Redland Green School construction by failing to follow his own financial standing orders and then failing to inform elected members what he was doing - will now become ‘Strategic Director Resources’.

His new job, we’re assured, will be “underpinned by a core set of generic strategic leadership and management competencies [and] will have a formal lead for delivering specified strategic outcomes”.

Fancy sounding shit isn’t it? Although might this be a little beyond someone who can’t even follow a simple set of written financial instructions of their own devising and who needs a consultant to explain to him that budgets are generally monitored on spreadsheets?

Meanwhile Heather Tomlinson, our £125k a year director of children and young people’s services, who has singularly failed to articulate any kind of education strategy or vision for the city whatsoever over the last four years - while squandering millions not doing it - will now become ‘Strategic Director Children, Young People and Skills’.

Why? What for? What’s the point? Is it not patently obvious that Heather’s overpaid, underperforming butt needs to be kicked out of the city? What exactly is achieved by rewriting her job description to include more meaningless management buzz words; handing her a stupid new job title and giving her another unearned fat pay rise?

Of the other posts, Annie Hudson currently called Director of Adult Community Care will become ‘Strategic Director Health and Adult Social Care’.

David “I love a big project, me” Bishop, currently Director of Planning, Transport & Sustainable Development will become ‘Strategic Director City Development’.

And Ian Crawley, the Director of Neighbourhood and Housing Services, who’s currently been seconded to work as New Labour’s PFI accountant friends KPMG’s office boy, tea-maker and yes-man on behalf of the council with the title Director of Business Transformation will return to housing as ‘Strategic Director Neighbourhoods’.

Which conveniently leaves just two management posts and two managers remaining …

One post is Assistant Chief Exec, currently occupied by the personality-free paper shuffling drone Terry Wagstaff. He is, however, being touted to take early retirement, which may free up at least one post for somebody competent.

But the only current manager who may not have a job is Steven Wray. He currently has the laughable title of Director of Culture and Leisure Services. Although his only noticeable contribution to culture in the city so far has consisted of spending £25m on some ludicrous architects from London to ruin our industrial museum when we asked for an arena anyway and demolishing one of the best modernist facades in the city to make way for a yellow tin shed foyer for the Colston Hall.

Will he go too? Or will he be become Jan’s ‘Strategic Director Transformation’, the KPMG tea-making role, where Wray’s destructive urges might find a useful outlet supporting the privatising accountants as they deliver brutal cuts to the lower paid sections of the city council’s workforce over the next few years?

And finally … What’s the cost to us of Jan’s newly titled team then? Er, between six of them - not including the ‘Strategic Director Transformation’ post - they’re going to cost £1,005,000 a year! Or £167,500 each! Even with the 26% cost of employing them, this still means these new strategic directors will be collecting over £120k a year - or a pay increase of between 15-20%.

What a bargain! And what great news for the 35,000 ordinary Bristolian council taxpayers at the bottom of the heap who’ve discovered they’re now out-of-pocket because the government’s scrapped the 10% tax rate.

And no doubt ordinary city council employees and public sector workers will be thrilled at this news too as they get credit crunched into accepting below inflation pay rises of around 2% this year.

Footnote: The Evening Cancer has kindly published the pay rates of the council’s current management team. Here they are:

Assistant chief executive Terry Wagstaff (paid between £87,581 and £95,849).

Heather Tomlinson, director of children and young people’s services (£115,223 to £127,778).

Carew Reynell, director of central support services (£97,850 to £109,904).

Graham Sims, acting director of neighbourhood and housing services (£97,850 to £109,904).

David Bishop, director of planning, transport and sustainable development (£97,850 to £109,904).

Annie Hudson, director of adult community care (£97,850 to £109,904).

Stephen Wray, director of culture and leisure (£87,581 - £95,849).

Ian Crawley, acting director of business transformation (£97,850 to £109,904).

Charlie Bolton writes in the comments:

Hi everyone

I have seen Paul Smith suggest in a couple of places that we pursue the idea of setting up a trust to take ownership/control of the path.

(I believe this was the basic idea of John Grimshaw)

Do others see this as an avenue worth pursuing?

by Keren Suchecki

This is my last Double Devolution column – I’ll be leaving HWCP in a few weeks time.

I was the first employee eight years ago in an empty shop without the luxury of a chair, let alone phones, desks, computers, filing cabinets or carpet. It was January 2000 and so cold that I needed to wear a hat, gloves, woolly knickers and a hot water bottle to work. And look at us now, 20 staff in our very own pastel-coloured, eco-friendly, ergonomically designed, high-tech, uber-lovely community building. And just as I got comfy, I got slung out.

I’ve been pondering my leaving do. It’s all a bit complicated, what with so many people losing their jobs here and around the city. There’s a danger of leaving do fatigue as the same crowd of people traipse round the pubs week after week. Choosing a date can get a bit tricky – get in there early before you leave, but when everyone’s still up for it, or go for it a week or two later when everyone’s liver feels like it’s being mentored by Amy Winehouse? The former feels a bit previous, whilst the latter risks not many turning up, which would stay imprinted on your ego as a horrifying illustration of just how unpopular you are. Oh it’s all too difficult.

I must say I was very pleased to get an invite to the leaving do of Bristol’s NRU manager. I think all the staff there are lovely, but I’ve given the department a bit of a rough ride in this column over the years so it was very forgiving of her to invite me.

And that’s the other problem with a leaving do. How wise is it to not invite the people who register low on my how-much-do-I-like-you meter? As I’m going to need another job soon, there’s only so much scorched earth I can risk leaving behind me…

This article first appeared in ‘New Start’ magazine. Keren Suchecki is a regeneration worker in South Bristol.

By Chris Hutt from the Comments

It all started so well, with Charlie Bolton’s original motion getting beefed up by a Lib-Dem amendment which he accepted. Railway Path supporters cheered and clapped. It looked for a few moments like we were finally laying the ghoul of BRT to rest.

But then came Labour’s wrecking amendment which got through with Tory support. The voting was 33 for, 30 against (all Lib-Dems and Charlie Bolton) and 2 abstentions (both Tories I think, presumably the ones who recognised what a sordid business it was).

The Labour amendment is another example of Bradshaw’s weasel words, seeming to be pro walking and cycling but effectively keeping the door open for future bus rapid transit. But instead of using the Evening Post as his gullible mouthpiece this time he used Terry Walker, who almost seemed to believe that he was offering us something better.

The full resolution is as follows -

“Council notes the strength of feeling expressed by the citizens of Bristol against the possible shared use by rapid transit of the much loved Bristol-Bath cycle path.”

“Council further recognises that walking and cycling are vital components of the strategy to encourage more sustainable and healthier travel behaviour in our city.”

“While fully recognising the vital importance of improving public transport, Bristol City Council will oppose route proposals which undermine the current and future expansion of walking and cycling in Bristol, and, in particular, will oppose any threat to the current or future use of the Bristol to Bath cycle path.”

“Council requires further information about the various route options, including those on roads and for these to be the subject of full public consultation.”

“Council fully supports the Executive Member for Access & Environment in making these views known to the West of England Partnership.”

The weasel words are “undermine” and “threat” - who is to say if a route proposal “undermines” walking and cycling or “threatens” the Railway Path? Why, the Council of course. So they simply decide that a route proposal won’t “undermine” cycling and walking and that it isn’t a “threat” to the Railway Path and away they go with BRT on the Path, or anywhere they like.

Please note moderated comments were for 1 April only. 

Get out writes …

I hear that the most serious concern within the leadership of Bristol Labour and Tory Parties right now is not the cycle path at all. By the sound of rumblings in the Council House the uppermost thing on the mind of the Labour Chief Whip Colin Smith, Lord Mayor Royston Griffey, Helen Holland and Richard Eddy is: a fabled photograph of Helen and Eddy looking extra friendly in a break of the Council budget debate. The villain is Lib Dem deputy leader Jon Rogers who apparently tried to take a snap on his mobile phone (despite the fact that meetings are web cast and the press and TV are admitted anyway). Serious threatening letters have been sent, apologies demanded and assurances sought that the photo will be destroyed - if it even exists.

Presumably the thought of the cosy picture being used in political leaflets caused panic! Mind you, considering Labour don’t even bother to use real photos in their leaflets (remember your story here?: http://thebristolblogger.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/bristol-labour-photoshop-horror/) it’s hard to see why they are so worked up by whether the photo exists or not.