Fw: Contact Campaign for Better Transport

Posted on October 24, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

This was posted to the Bristol Social Forum and might interest some readers:

From: Sian Parry
Email: sian.parry@bristol.gov.uk*<http://sian.parry@bristol.gov.uk>
Phone number: 0117 922 2074
Type of enquiry: i_want_to_find_a_local_group_in_my_area

I support a Physical Environment Scrutiny Commission at Bristol City Council.

Councillors on the Commission want to scrutinise the local bus services (provided by First Group) and I’d like to invite relevant local groups to the meeting (in January).

I’d be grateful if you have any contact details of local people who could comment on bus services in Bristol.

Many thanks in advance for your help,

Sian Parry
Scrutiny Officer, Bristol City Council

Posted by: “julie boston” j.boston@unisonfree.net

Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:00 pm (PST)

Bus campaigners in Bristol seem to have no spokespeople.

FOSBR sent Peter Gould to London for the Campaign for Better Transport event & Radio Bristol asked me to do the response in their news slot to the Bus Commissioner jaunt which is held in Bristol today.

The sooner we make it clear that Bristol’s unreliable, expensive, slow, inconvenient bus services are the cause of congestion the more likelihood there is of finding a solution. First is not a monopoly. Park ‘n’ Ride, South Gloucs, A Bus, 500 Harbour Link; Buglers and Eagle run bus services but as Bristol City Council has not managed to issue Travel cards passengers are restricted to one service.

As long as bus/rail operators have to exploit the public and their work force to make a profit, Bristolians will suffer from congestion, asthma, loss of open spaces for our necklace of P’n’R, road rage and exhaustion.

NB Anyone who asks Travel Line for information on travel between Temple Meads & Redland will be given 2 buses & no bus information!

julie boston

Posted in Bristol, Local government, Transport | Tagged | There is 1 comment

E-democracy conflab joy

Posted on October 24, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Logo

Are they keeping this a secret so that selected council staff can scoff all the tax payer-funded canapés themselves?

An alert reader flags up the forthcoming Bristol E-Democracy Day – ‘Modern Methods of governance – democracy in action or mob rule?’ – taking place on 31 October 2007 at – where else? – the home of the city’s laptoperati, The Watershed.

The full programme of events is listed on the e-democracy pages of the council’s website and very exciting it is too.

What particularly appeals to The Blogger about an event that’s supposed to be concerned with democracy is that it offers two perspectives – ‘From the Council Perspective’ and ‘From the Member Perspective’. No room for us ordinary subjects of the city then? Where exactly is the ‘mob’ in this potential for mob rule?

You’ve got to laugh at these idiots really though haven’t you? Funding and organising themselves some cosy conference in a suitably tasteful and costly environment to talk about self-serving interpretations of internet democracy. Petitions have historically achieved nothing and everyone knows consultation is a pointless farce. Putting this kind of stuff on the net won’t change anything.

Highlights on the day include a welcome from “Mr Digital” himself, Labour’s money-man John Bees who can’t even seem to operate a pocket calculator properly and Green councillor Charlie Bolton talking about blogging, which promises to be a bit like listening to John Terry on ballet.

Places can be booked on the council’s site and it appears to be FREE!

Posted in Blogging, Bristol, Harbourside, Local government, Media | Tagged , , | There are 9 comments

Update: educashion, educashion, educashion

Posted on October 23, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Education dept. ad

A gallant reader has been chasing up The Blogger’s story about the misspelled advert placed in The Evening Cancer by the LEA. Here’s what they say:

[Eventually a] . . . reply, from none other than the Director of Education herself, trying to explain away the situation re: misspelling ‘Brunel’ in a paid-for ad in the Evil Post and also trying to explain the non-response to emails sent to the address they requested we send responses to.

So, you’re on £140k a year as Director, you set up a new email address, advertise it in an expensive brochure that you circulate to your target audience of parents to convince them the schools are worth attending. But you don’t bother to actually make sure the f££££ing email address works and receives emails! So you have to personally reply to people apologising for the mess-up as well as trying explain away why it is that you can’t spell ‘Brunel’.

You even mention that you’re appointing a new Communications Officer (even though you know you already have at least one and that you sacked the last one in a highly dubious, possibly illegal, way because he was set up to take the fall when a Cabinet councillor left his email account access open 24/7 for every council employee to read, write and delete . . .)

But what you forget is that your own email reply (below) will come under close scrutiny so you don’t use a spellchecker – either that or else you genuinely can’t f£££ing well spell ‘occurred’!! Oh, and you don’t bother to punctuate your paragraphs either (see below for all)

You or I would face the music and be held to account. Heather Tomlinson? Pass another canape, luv . . .

And here’s that email exchange in full:

> Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:36:52 +0100
> From: xxxx
> To: parentsandcarers@bristol.gov.uk
> Subject: Academy

I imagine I am exactly the type of parent that you wish to ‘win over’ to send my child to a Bristol state secondary school instead of sending them out of town as so many of my neighbours do.

Misspelling words such as ‘Brunel’ in your recent Evening Post advertisement is hardly going to inspire confidence and I wonder how such a terrible mistake could have happened?

I do really want to support the state system in my home City but find it increasingly hard to do so when I read this type of thing. Nonetheless I plan to attend at least one Open Evening and remain to be won over.

xxxx

> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 08:13
> From: xxxx
> To: nick.gurney@bristol.gov.uk
> Subject: Academy

Dear Mr Gurney

I sent the attached email to the address which is advertised on the front page of the Council’s education web site on 13 September but have yet to receive a reply or even an acknowledgement. I wonder if there is a reason for this and would be grateful if you would look into this for me and, if possible, arrange for a reply to be sent?

xxxx

> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 10:23:37 +0100
> From: nick.gurney@bristol.gov.uk
> To: xxxx
> Subject: Re: FW: Academy

Dear Mr xxxx,

Many thanks.We’ll get back to you soon.

Yours sincerely,
Nick Gurney

————————————————————
N B J Gurney
Chief Executive
Bristol City Council
Room 212, Council House
College Green
Bristol BS1 5TR
Tel: 0117 922 4888
Fax: 0117 922 4877
Email: nick.gurney@bristol.gov.uk

> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:34:12 +0100
> From: xxxx
> To: “Nick Gurney” <nick.gurney@bristol.gov.uk>
> Subject: RE: Academy

Dear Nick Gurney

Thank you for your email [above], in response to mine, further [above]. It is nearly 4 weeks since I wrote my email to the address published in the council’s glossy booklet about schools and despite your assurance as chief executive about getting back to me soon I have still not heard anything back, which is very very disappointing.
When can I expect to get a reply do you think?

xxxx

> Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:21:03 +0100
> From: heather.tomlinson@bristol.gov.uk
> To: xxxx
> Subject: Academy

Dear Mr xxxxxxx

First of all I hope you can accept our sincere apologies for not responding earlier. The new email address we developed during the summer had some initial technical teething problems which resulted in a delay to us receiving emails for some time. I am glad to say that those problems are now resolved and we are now welcoming regular emails from Bristol families

Since receiving your comments regarding the advert in the Evening Post I have been trying to identify how such a spelling mistake could have occured and have found a loophole in our editing processes. The design was put together by the in-house Corporate Design team and, as their customer, it was our responsibility to proof read the document. The proof reading service is an expensive one so we choose to take on that responsibility via the team that are placing the advertisement. In this case the misspelling of such a key ‘Bristol’ word such as Brunel was unfortunately missed by our admissions team and for that we very much apologise. As a result of your justifiable concerns, we are communicating with all managers involved in advertising with a view to ensuring that they ask a colleague who is independent of the writing of the text to proof read and sign off the final draft.

I fully understand the concerns you have raised and wish to assure you that we place a very high emphasis on quality and accuracy in all communications and materials. A new appointment is planned for a Strategic Communications Officer which will further strengthen our practice

I do hope your experience at the Open Evening you planned to attend was a good one and would be very pleased to receive any feedback you feel appropriate

Thank you for taking the time to contact us

Speaks for itself doesn’t it?

Posted in Bristol, Bristol Evening Post, Education, Local government | Tagged , | There are 5 comments

Home care watch

Posted on October 22, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Having less-than-adroitly reneged on one set of ridiculous and uncosted election promises – around waste collection – through the use of a so-called citizen’s jury, a process handily managed by a Labour-friendly organisation in exchange for a fat fee, Helen Holland’s Labour administration can now begin to start reneging on their next ludicrous and uncosted election promise.

This is of course the entirely undeliverable guarantee they made not to privatise any more of the city’s home care service. After a six month silence from social services supremo Peter Hammond – who was presumably hoping we’d all forget about his daft promises in that amount of time – this last week has suddenly seen a mild flurry of activity-like noises around the home care issue.

Specifically, a document has been released, apparently by social services director Annie Hudson, outlining proposals from something called the ‘Home Care Stakeholder Working Group’.

They have basically made five proposals:

  1. That a short term assessment and reablement service be established to deliver care for up to 6 weeks with approximately 70 in-house staff. The argument being that intensive reablement immediately after discharge from hospital or crisis can substantially improve independence (and therefore need for care) in the longer term.
  2. That approximately 300 staff in the HCBU (Home Care Business Unit) should then aim to deliver approximately 6500 hours of service per week. In order to achieve this the HCBU will have to make extensive business efficiencies and aim to have only 15% non contact time.
  3. That the HCBU should only take packages of care which are at least 5 hours in duration per week. And it’s worth noting that the HCBU would not be the sole provider of these types of packages either but rather they’d be a market partner along with the independent sector.
  4. That the HCBU develops an area of growth, above the 6500 hours, delivering VSH (Very Sheltered Housing) care and support.
  5. That domestic only services (i.e. Shopping, cleaning and laundry) should be provided elsewhere and not by the HCBU.

Excellent eh? But what the hell does it all mean? Well, remembering that sage advice of Woodward and Bernstein let’s “follow the money”.

And here’s what Ms Hudson’s report says elsewhere:

13. The Home Care Futures Project Board chaired by the Director is carefully considering and costing these proposals in order to assess their viability, and impact of the wider care market

14. . . . The financial implications of the proposals made by the Home Care Stakeholder Working Group are currently being evaluated.

It is not possible at this stage to provide specific details of the HR implications

What’s happened then, during this last six months of silence, is that idiot Hammond has set up two committees – the ‘Home Care Stakeholder Working Group’ and the ‘The Home Care Futures Project Board’ – despite telling the Cancer:

“I can also state clearly there will not be a select committee to oversee the progress of home care as I feel that would hold things up.”

Presumably his theory being that two committees with the name changed are faster than one then? And in this time idiot Hammond has managed to convert his series of uncosted election promises into a series of uncosted aspirations instead!

Brilliant work Peter. Any idea when we might get a proper costed policy? And how much are you overspending by in the meantime?

Posted in Bristol, Home Care, Labour Party, Local elections 2007, Local government, Politics, Social Care, Trade Unionism | Tagged , , , | There are 6 comments

Fire service: chaotic mess latest

Posted on October 22, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Further EXCLUSIVE news reaches The Blogger that the Kevin Pearson and his fire service may have been economical with the actualité in regards to what they’ve been telling the press, public and now local councillors.

All month Pearson has insisted that a complaint was originally made to the Terrence Higgins Trust by an unknown member of the public who happened to be on the Downs not having any sex with any other men at all – oh no – and then the complaint was “passed on” to the Avon Fire and Rescue Service.

This is possibly not so. Allegations are now surfacing that no member of the public was ever involved and that the original complainant was a member of staff from the Terrence Higgins Trust out working on The Downs distributing free condoms, presumably for reasons entirely unrelated to consenting adult males having sex with each other.

But remember. Pearson’s disciplinary process had nothing to do with men having sex on the Downs and if you say different you are obviously HOMOPHOBIC!!!!!

Posted in Bristol, Local government, The Downs | Tagged , , , | There are 2 comments

One hundred and eightieeeeee!!!!

Posted on October 21, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Another week, another local emergency service performing a 180-degree u-turn. Last week it was the Avon & Somerset Constabulary; this week it’s fire chief Kevin Pearson at Avon Fire & Rescue.

Pearson has now been aimlessly staggering from embarrassing crisis to increasingly weird pronouncement and back again ever since it went public earlier this month that his service had decided to heavily discipline four of its fire fighters for shining a torch on a group of gay men having sex on The Downs one evening.

As this fiasco has unfolded, the public has looked on increasingly appalled and aghast at Pearson’s bizarre and self-serving conduct. Indeed not since Pigfucker Gurney dug a large hole costing £10m in the middle of Portsmouth and then announced to the press it was “a bit of fun” for his bored local government officers has The Blogger seen such an example of entirely fuckwitted leadership in action.

Friday, however, saw Pearson attempting to justify his conduct in front of the only group of people possibly more stupid than him and the rest of his management team – the local councillors that make up the Avon Fire & Rescue Authority. People who are supposed to manage this £150k self-styled chief executive and scrutinise his decisions on our behalf.

Pearson, in a bit of tight corner since this story he was trying to hush up embarrassingly blew up in the national press, has recently taken to claiming that the disciplinary action his management team took over the four fire fighters was about misuse of equipment and never had anything whatsover to do with gay sex, homophobia or homosexuality. He has then combined this blatant spinning and post-rationalisation with regular accusations of rampant HOMOPHOBIA!!!! toward anybody and everybody daring to criticise him.

Pearson’s performance on Friday was therefore quite predictable. “Hysterical HOMOPHOBIA!!!” was to blame for the criticism he had received after disciplining these four fire fighters he announced to this rapt audience of local councillors. He then went on to attack THE MEDIA!!!! for their reporting of the story, claiming they had made up a link between gay sex and this incident when they had no evidence of this whatsoever.

This story, despite having holes as large as Gurney’s in Portsmouth, seems to have been accepted in its ludicrous entirety by the councillors working on our behalf who, it’s reported, passed a motion at the meeting on Friday expressing their total support for the service and chief fire officer Pearson.

All well and good. But you have to ask how well these councillors have bothered to scrutinise Pearson and his team on our behalf. Here’s a few problems with Pearson’s latest efforts at self-serving spin:

1. If the case was purely about misuse of fire equipment aren’t £1,000 fines and demotion rather steep and excessive punishments for misusing a fire service torch? Did the councillors obtain evidence that this was the usual punishment for such an offence?

2. If the case was purely about misuse of equipment why was the complainant – The Terrence Higgins Trust – consulted after the disciplinary action and allowed to pronounce they were “happy” at the outcome? Is it usual practice for the Avon Fire & Rescue Service to consult the Terrence Higgins Trust on the outcome of their disciplinary actions? Do they usually consult outside bodies on matters of discipline? And why would you be consulting another body on what’s supposed to be an entirely confidential process anyway?

3. Why – if the case was purely about misuse of equipment – was part of the fire fighters’ punishment to attend a LGBT conference and why were they asked to pay their fines to a gay charity? Are these part of the normal tariff of punishments available to the Avon Fire & Rescue Service? Have these ever been used as punishments by the service before for misuse of fire equipment?

Are we really expected to believe that the press just made up a link between gay sex and this incident? I think we should be told. Although it’s unlikely we ever will.

Posted in Bristol, Local government, The Downs | Tagged , , , | There are no comments yet

Quiz night answers

Posted on October 20, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Renouf

Not in her name, eh? The person in the photo is none other than Michele Renouf, a notorious neo-Nazi, anti-semite and supporter of David Irving.

Now, it might be hard for the Stop the War Coalition to prevent anybody who feels like it coming to a public place to protest with them (although in the past the left has easily managed to persuade fascists they are not wanted around them) but surely some of them must be concerned that Stop the War and the far right now seem to be sharing the same agenda? Since when has the far right ever wanted to march with the left?

This new shared agenda appears to involve attitudes to Israel and “Zionism”. The StWC is doing itself few favours by expelling decent, principled Iranian leftists like HOPI while welcoming with open arms the islamists and anti-semites from organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Association of Britain with extremely dubious social and political agendas.

Well done Galloway, Andrew Murray, John Rees and Phoney Benn how much further down can you drag the UK’s anti-war movement? Making anti-semitism on the left respectable again seemed like a low point but the looming possibility of the first far-left/far-right coalition in British history takes us to a whole new low indeed.

Hat tip: Harry’s Place

Posted in Middle East, The British Left | Tagged , , , , | There are 5 comments

Friday night is quiz night: Not in her name either, apparently

Posted on October 19, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

Renouf

Spotted: at the anti-war rally last week just a few days before the protest’s organisers – the Stop the War Coalition – refused affiliation to Hands Off the People of Iran for the crime of openly opposing Iran’s holocaust denying theocratic regime.

All you have to do is use your skill and judgement to guess who this new stop the war protestor is. Here’s a further clue:

Asked whether there was any difference between Blair and Brown in power, she said that both were clearly pro-Zionist rulers, as all British Prime Ministers have been since Disraeli.

“Do you hope that this demonstration will influence Prime Minister Brown?” the reporter asked. “No – I hope that it will influence our servicemen to stay at home. Already in World War II, on both sides, we lost too many brave men and women. Otherwise we would have millions more accompanying us bravely standing firm against pro-Zionist, Biblically aggressive influence. As Bertrand Russell (founder of CND which is the co-sponsor of today’s march) said on his deathbed in 1970: ‘Every [Israeli] expansion is an exercise to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate.'”

Answer here.

Posted in Middle East, The British Left | | There are no comments yet

Hello mum!

Posted on October 19, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

The Blogger’s inexorable rise continues with our first mention in the council chamber…

Full Council questions

We will, of course, not rest until we have been condemned in the house!

They were actually quite an interesting set of questions from Hopkins, who managed to discover that Labour’s much-publicised claim that the Citizen’s Jury would cost just £45,000 was total bullshit:

When answering questions on the cost of the Citizens Jury previously we were given a figure of £45,000 as the total cost. However further questioning of officers has revealed that this completely missed out officer’s time and internal costs. Was that a legitimate omission given it was said officers average cost was £40 an hour when Councillor Eddy and Councillor Bees were trying to stem the flow of legitimate questions that you had no answers for?

And council leader Helen Holland’s response to a request for details of what the real cost of the jury might be is a real gem:

Requesting that officers spend valuable time detailing actual hours spent on the Citizens Jury process, would not be a valuable use of resource.

Can you come again with that one please Helen? Requesting that officers spend valuable time detailing actual hours spent on their work would not be a valuable use of resources.

We seem to be being told here that our council officers, as a matter of course, are not expected to record or detail in any way the time they spend doing their work! How then do they monitor expenditure at the Council House if they don’t know what anyone’s doing and how long it takes? And how are they monitoring staff performance?

No wonder they’re all unsackable – according to the council boss absolutely basic levels of staff performance management, in defiance of every known principle of mangement, simply do not happen at Bristol City Council. No one knows what the fuck anyone’s actually doing all day because, apparently, it wouldn’t be a valuable use of resources to find out. Honest guv!

Talk about hand your staff an idlers charter to do what they like. Would you run your business like that? Without having a clue what your staff are doing all day? Or whether it was being done competently? Or have any means of finding out? What a fucking joke.

In related news, it’s good to see the Cancer are reading The Blogger regularly. Two days after appearing on here, Tim Kent’s blog get’s a mention today:

On Mr Kent’s Myspace internet blog, he said the gay men were also acting wrongly, and he thought the firefighters’ punishment was harsh.

Posted in Bristol, Labour Party, Lib Dems, Local government, Politics | Tagged , , | There are 6 comments

Is fire chief Pearson telling porkies to politicians?

Posted on October 18, 2007 by The Bristol Blogger

As far as I know they have been sent on no LGBT course. THey were never sent to the conference – which was a pretty stupid idea IMHO.
Councillor Tim Kent, Avon Fire & Rescue Authority member October 18 2007

Chief fire officer Kevin Pearson … confirmed that the men who were disciplined will be attending the event as part of their rehabilitation
The Guardian, October 4 2007

With Avon Fire & Rescue Authority meeting tomorrow it’s questions, questions for fire chief Pearson . . .

Oh dear. Avon Fire & Rescue boss Kevin Pearson can’t get his story straight can he? Were the Avonmouth Blue Watch fire fighters he punished recently disciplined for misusing equipment or for “homophobia” or for both?

Specifically, were these fire fighters made to attend a much talked about LGBT conference by Pearson and his equalities cronies or not? And why has he told the press they were and his elected bosses they weren’t?

Is Pearson telling a different story to our elected representatives on the local fire authority – who are meeting tomorrow to find out what the fuck Pearson and his managers have been up to – to save his own skin?

Who exactly told councillor Kent that the fire fighters weren’t punished in this way? And who told the Guardian they were? And why?

Surely civil servants who deliberately mislead politicians should be disciplined too?

Meanwhile Pearson appears to have gone totally loopy anyway and is having a succession of strange Reggie Perrin-type moments such as making increasingly paranoid and rambling calls to the BBC in Bristol about the problem of “HOMOPHOBIA!!!”. Apparently, according to Kev, it’s like everywhere . . .

Perhaps it’s time for some face-saving gardening leave for Pearson? Surely his position is untenable?

The Blogger says: PEARSON MUST GO! He’s made a laughing stock of the city; he can’t get his story straight; he’s rambling utter nonsense to the press and he’s misleading politicians!!! We don’t pay him £150k a year for this! Pearson – for god’s sake go!

If not; will our politicians give him the boot for misleading them? Or will they wimp out?

Watch this space . . .

Posted in Bristol, Lib Dems, The British Left, The Downs | Tagged , , , , | There are 2 comments