£32m of our money squandered in four years and now he’s off to enjoy his gold-plated retirement …
Finally full details are emerging of the parting shot from Carew Reynell, Bristol City Council’s idea of a financial guru .
Reynell, who appears to have been taking home a six figure sum to run the city’s finances in to the ground for some years now, has recently taken voluntary retirement after being offered a massive pay-off and a generous pension to fuck off and not come back.
This generous reward for abject failure caps a performance from a man that the term woeful doesn’t begin to do justice to.
In 2004, our man with the head for figures managed to oversee a social services overspend coming in at £18m. Indeed, so chaotic was the situation that a consultant – John Parrott – had to be called in to gently explain to Reynell – presumably in words of one or two syllables – that, generally, in organisations such as Bristol City Council, finances are monitored on something called a computer spreadsheet.
Whether the Coucil House’s accountancy boffin ever took this on board is debatable because by 2006 Reynell was merrily overspending by millions again. This time on the building of the new Redland Green School where he didn’t even bother to inform anyone like his bosses – the elected councillors who employ him – for years about his financial cock-ups.
The full scale of Reynell’s overspend and cover-up at Redland Green finally became clear last year, as yet more consultants were drafted in to figure out what the twat had been up to. And this time the overspend was identified to be £6m.
Now fast forward to 2008 and what’s this we discover? Why it seems Mr Reynell has been playing the money markets and loaning a bit of our money to international banks. £8m of our money to be precise. To Icelandic banks would you believe?
And what do you know? The banks are now insolvent and our money’s been lost. But fear not because the city council has some typical Reynellisms at hand to explain it all away.
Reynell’s PR apologist at the council huffs,”at the time the loans were made, both banks had satisfactory credit ratings.”
This is, of course, a pathetic excuse. Given what’s been going on over the last year in the international banking system, only an imbecile could possibly believe a word of what these credit rating agencies (in the pay of the banks) were saying about banks’ creditworthiness.
Did financial whizz Reynell ever bother to think why heavily indebted Icelandic banks were offering such sensational rates of return? Did he even begin to consider the considerable risk that must accompany some of the best deposit terms on the planet?
Possibly not. Or he might have got our money out 6 months ago when the state of the Icelandic banking sector was widely reported on the telly and in the financial press.
But surely we’re asking too much to expect a council officer commanding a six figure salary who takes major financial decisions with our money to read and understand the press?
Another way the useless fucks that run this country will try to make ordinary people pay for their crisis.
We’ve got to resist them.
Protest tomorrow (Fri) :
We won’t bail out the banks.
No job loses.
No repossessions.
4pm outside Bradford & Bingley, Colston Street, Bristol Centre.
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/689003
That’s a good start.
I think we also need to be seeking out these tossers like Reynell, Ormondroyd, Tomlinson and that pig from Sheffield with their snouts firmly in the council taxpayers’ trough and snorting up six figure salaries for spouting management jargon.
In the times we’ve got ahead we can’t afford these people and we won’t afford these people.
Why should they get to lead lives of excessive luxury why we stand to lose everything?
To be honest, I think £8m is piss in the wind for BCC, and other local authorities. BCC’s annual expenditure is around £1bn a year.
Most of this goes on salaries and pensions, of course. But I can guarantee most councils spend well over £8m just on “re-branding exercises” whereby they change the name of a department or directorate (whilst keeping the same lazy, inept, sickie-pulling, strike-happy workforce) in the hope that this gives the impression of “making improvements”. They’ll pay for a new logo to be designed as well as new signs, letterheads, etc. Bristol City Council have done it so many times with different departments just over the last decade that I’ve lost count. The money wasted on these renaming exercises is just *huge*.
I’m not sure about attending the march as whilst I don’t agree with the banks being bailed out (and looking at the falling FTSE it appears to have done nothing anyway) I don’t agree with the Trotskyist political standpoint of the organisers either. Decisions, decisions…
Heard a joke today, though the reality means it’s not that funny. What’s the capital of Iceland? About £4.50 at the moment.
…and £8m of THAT belongs to Bristol. I’d like to know if councils deposited their citizens’ money with banks (overseas or otherwise), does that mean the interest belongs to us? If not, where does it go? Any ideas?
A little birdie told me that most of the £8 million that’s been lost is S106 money – this is the money developers have to pay to build in Bristol… rather than use it for the benefit of the community as is supposed to be the case, BCC dithered about what to do with it, put it into an account to be used later… then the Iclelanders went up arse over tit! Anyone know any more about this?
A worrying development, Spectator, as I’ve been involved in a local project that was due s106 money….
Bugger.
This post reminds me of one of my Granny’s favourite sayings – one she quoted when I was leaving school and pondering a career. It went a bit like this:
“Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach. Those that can’t teach become politicians. The rest work for the council”.
It’s apparent that she was spot on.
Actually, Bristol City council’s annual operating budget is around £300 million. The balance sheet is worth about a billion though, or at least was last year.
But, yes £8m is piss in the wind for them. But it’s a minimum of forty quid for every single Bristolian council taxpayer.
Give me a bit more notice for the next march on the banks and I’ll come.
The city’s budget claims to have a tax base for council tax of 131,000 households – that’s £61 per household on our council tax. Western Daily Press said if it’s not recovered then Labour’ll have to raise our council tax by at least 4% just to recover their screwup. nice one, guys.
An open letter to Jandroid (aka Jan Ormondroyd)
Dear Jandroid,
I noticed that public money, harvested from the good citizens of Bristol by way of Council Tax has gone missing under your watch. £8 Million is the sum being reported by the press.
Can you explain to me why this investment was allowed to remain in Iceland when alarm bells have been ringing since August 2007, about the instability of the Icelandic Banks, and again as recently as May 2008 when these banks were being down-graded?
There is little point all the local authorities appealing to central Government for a bailout from us the taxpayer, to replace our money as Ratepayers that your Authority has lost in a reckless investment.
I would like a full and dated explanation from yourself and the Chief Financial Officer within the next seven days as to the following- –
When was this investment made?
Why was it made, on whose recommedation and what independent advice was sought?
What checks were made on the credit worthiness of Landsbanki at the time?
What monitoring was made on this investment considering the warnings that were being put out in August 2007, and the later downgrading to BBB+?
When was the Authority first aware that Landsbanki were in financial trouble and what steps did you take to protect the ratepayers funds?
I do not wish to hear that you are making appeals to Whitehall, the officers and Councillors are legally responsible for this money, not Whitehall. This is an appalling state of affairs considering that the Local Authority has the right to extract this money from our pockets with the sanction of penal action if we do not pay and to find this level of incompetence within your Finance department.
If I do not receive a detailed explanation with seven days, who is responsible and what disciplinary steps are going to be taken, as there most certainly would be in a private enterprise, I will apply for this information with an application under the Freedom of Information Act and ensure that this goes to press.
For far too long have we had to put up with this lack of accountability at all tiers of Government. I look forward to receiving your acknowledgement and your detailed reply.
I will also be registering an official complaint with the Standards Board.
Love and kisses
A tax payer
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