Volume 4  Number 11  MARCH 2014  Est. 1827

>> BOTCHEDRESTRUCTURECOULDKILL COUNCIL CORRUPTION? COUNCIL CARE THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT! CRISIS LOOMS For smiting on VIOLENCE IN DAY CENTRES AS MANAGERS IGNORE the move ... ADVICE IN RUSH TO SLASH COSTS TO VULNERABLE The BRISTOLIAN THE council’s residential care At one “supercentre” - the 600 At the last of the new super services for the elderly and day care CLUB in knowle - at least 10 centres in ST GEORGE there is services for adults with learning workers are off sick. This is one no proper kitchen; the toilets are difficulties are In CRISIS after a third of the staff team. Someone too small for staff to help with the botched reorganisation designed to has already been seriously hurt and personal needs of the service users slash costs. had their FROnT TEETH and seating is not fit for the elderly Contrary to all advice, council care kICkED In. Would you want with dementia. An insider told bosses VARETA BRYAn and your granny in this place? the Bristolian, “The whole On 21 January the Care SHEEnA HUGGInS have LOCkLEAZE DAY CEnTRE service is a car crash. Someone will Quality Commission created three “super centres” for day has 17 workers off. That’s nearly die soon. All down to penny (CQC) fined Holmwood care where they bring together 50% of the workforce and pinching.” House boss Ghassan Al-Ji - elderly dementia care patients and managers will not get agency staff Managers, we are told, are now bouri £4k for failing to people with learning difficulties. in to cover the gap because of planning a social enterprise for these have a registered manager Some of the adults with learning budget cuts. Recently a service user under-resourced services so they no in place. difficulties exhibit challenging had a seizure and the keys to the longer have to be responsible for See back page for more behaviour, which can be violent. drug cabinet could not be found. them, nice. Horror House news ... THE CITY COUNCIL CARE SERVICE FROM HELL THE council’s adult care services have been Hundreds of staff were also made redundant staffing quotas, which is unlikely. Many staff “UnDER REVIEW” for nearly two years. and thrown on the dole. But not for long. have le because they do not want to work in e idea behind the reviews is to CUT Clueless boss, nIkkI COLE, soon realised an environment which could be seen as SERVICES TO THE VULnERABLE. Two the slash and burn had gone too far too soon negligent and abusive. services have been drastically affected, and staffing levels were too low even for the Managers have lied and disciplined staff who residential care for the elderly and day services council to tolerate. stood up to them. A worker was so upset by for adults with learning difficulties. Care workers were re-employed at great cost the plans they cried and shouted during a so- Unions have vainly attempted to stop the to the council tax payer. Was nIkkI COLE called consultation. ey were given a worst effects for service users and the care held to account? no. She’ll be handed a huge management warning. Bryan then sacked workers who support them. redundancy package and allowed to retire as him. Although he was handed a LARGE As hard as people have tried, managers have residential care struggles to make ends meet. PAYOUT to buy his silence. continued to slash and burn these services. e situation in day services is worse. is service is dangerous and cruel. One Elderly people’s homes (EPHs) were closed Contrary to all advice, Service Director manager who contacted e Bristolian and day services shrunk and made VARETA BRYAn and sidekick SHEEnA was fighting back tears as he described how he DAnGEROUS by uncaring managers. HUGGInS created three “super centres” for tries to manage services in a crap environment First to close were the EPHs. Residents were day care to bring together elderly dementia with no resources while under-staffed and scattered as they lost their homes and care. care patients and learning difficulties. under the impression that when someone get Many were put in private homes and looking Everyone who works in the service says that sseriously hurt he will get the blame. at Holmwood House (Bristolian this is barking mad and dangerous. Frail Vareta Bryan declined to comment to the passim), we know what that could mean. elderly people are at great risk even with full Bristolian. The BRISTOLIAN : keeping it spiky since 1827! BRISTOLIAN BITES ++ ABANDON SHIP AT ARNOLFINI! ++ DIM TIM IN THIN SPIN DIN! Looks like the council has appointed yet another congenital idiot to run its press operation. Step forward ‘DIM’ TIM BORRETT, previously a lowly press assistant who ‘PHONEY WAR stepped into the hot seat a few months ago when his chum Peter ‘Claudia Jean’ Holt was finally shipped out by the all- new council management when they instantly discovered he was a useless twat. Anyway, it seems Dim Tim, yet another chancer who fancies himself as spin doc- CONTINUES!Never knowingly more than one over-priced, herself ‘disappeared’ from the organisation tor, is already briefing theNazi Post ‘OFF THE RECORD’. underperforming art installation away from without explanation last August. self-inflicted disaster, the elitist arty-farties Brenda, you may recall, is currently vice- Oh dear. Does Tim not realise that any statement released by the council to the of Harbourside’s ‘contemporary art’ gallery chair of Bristol City Council’s financial press can be attributed to him as the man ARNOLFINI really have been surpassing watchdog, the Audit Committee. So despite in charge of the Press Office? themselves over the last year or so. an organisation apparently sinking faster Isn’t the whole point of him earning a Not only did they manage to lose an entire than the Titanic on her watch, she got a job large wedge as media boss that he take ‘Executive Team’ in the space of a month, but overseeing sound financial practice at the responsibility for what appears in the their tenants - spread over three voluminous council! press on behalf of the council? The idea floors of their prestigious, cash-generating Brenda, you also may recall, was a candi- he can shirk his responsibility and avoid Bush House headquarters - all quit. If that date at the last election for George Ferguson’s accountability by describing himself as wasn’t enough, they then uncovered a large IndyRedpants Party - promising that she was “a City Council source” or some other black hole in the finances of around £360K going “to shake things up” at the Council ridiculous fabrication is patently absurd. - and promptly fired their own auditors, House. Well, she’s certainly managed to We all know it’s you, Borrett, you silly, Grant Thornton! shake things up at the ‘Phoney! silly boy. Meanwhile, a deranged “recovery plan” Other victims of the mass clearout include We’ve also been reliably informed that to convert the top three floors of the Bush colourfully-named former chair LOVEDAY at the time of his appointment last year, House bunker – at public expense! - into an SHEWELL. She quietly left after six years Borrett was very friendly with former press boss, Claudia Jean Holt and he “art hotel” predictably flopped. in the post in July 2012. Although oddly, appears to have got his break in Bristol At the height of last autumn’s crisis, the despite the UK’s arty-fartie-bore-in-chief as Claudia Jean’s right hand man after place had to be run by a sub-committee of Sir Nicolas Serota describing the ‘Phoney regularly visiting the bellyflopping press posh twits from the Analphoney board of as “one of a handful of the most significant boss in Bristol so they could play zombie trustees. That was because centre director cultural centres in Europe,” Ms Shewell has games together!! How cosy. TOM TREVOR was frogmarched off the mysteriously left her time with the gallery off Prior to pitching up in Bristol, Borrett premises in October so that he could, er, her extensive CV. Why could that be? was something of a BIG TIME MEDIA “pursue a number of international curatorial Meanwhile, that renowned patron of the OPERATOR in the sleepy Devon town projects”! Presumably he didn’t have a family arts, business genius and financial whiz – resort of Budleigh Salterton, where he to “spend more time with”, then? MAYOR FERGO - hastily quit his post on kept local farmers and assorted yokels up- Trevor was escorted out the door right the board of trustees in December 2012. to-date on various muckspreading issues after the other half of the “executive team”, on behalf of East Devon Council. Demonstrating, yet again, that George’s finance chief and our old friend BRENDA instinct for survival outstrips his business How times don’t change … ‘WISE MONKEY’ MCLENNAN, was acumen by some way. KNOW YOUR ENEMY #1: MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ NAMING THE NAMES AND FLASHING THE FACES OF THOSE DESTROYING OUR CITY... A visit to Bristol from Julian Silverman of GOOD CRISIS” - and Julian explained the Barnet Alliance For Public Services has how Wide Boy’s weirdo statements seem shone some light on Mayor Fergo’s recent to have come straight out of the pages of a appointment of MAX WIDE ‘BOY’ as his Naomi Klein book, The Shock Doctrine. ‘Strategic Director for Business Change’. The book describes an extreme free market Julian is an anti-cuts campaigner who has economic dogma that creates or manipulates been fighting wholesale privatisation at the economic crises to justify the mass transfer of so-called ‘Easy Council’ which runs the public wealth and resources into the hands London Borough of Barnet. Its mass priva- of the private sector. Usually at KNOCK- tisation of local services, named after budget DOWN PRICES and always involving the airline EasyJet, was personally organised by transfer of wealth from us - the poor - to Wide Boy when he was Barnet’s Director of them - the rich. Planning whilst on secondment from BT. It Wideboy will be commuting to Bristol was always unclear whether Wide Boy was daily from LEAFY FROME, where he cam- actually working for BT or the council. paigns in his spare time to get supermarkets Wide Boy quickly became notorious in built, and it is obvious he is being brought in Barnet for coining odd and sinister catch- to deliver Mayor Redpants’ mass privatisa- phrases such as “LEARN TO LOVE A tion agenda for our public services. RECESSION” and “NEVER WASTE A Watch this space … Wide Boy: there’ll be hell toupee Tweet us your juicy titbits! @BristolianNews ++ ARTS FUNDING MELTDOWN! ++ BRISTOLIAN BITES WORKERS REVOLT AGAINST HORSEWORLD BOSSES? After having their ridiculous plan to sell off land to developers (who planned to build more than a hundred high-end houses on the site) turned down by BANES council, in February Horse- ARTS HOLES: World’s bosses threw a HISSY FIT and shuttered the charity’s visitor centre. CUTS CAUSE LUVVIE RAGE Managing Director Mark ‘Not That A rare outbreak of common sense last month One’ Owen and his team also started from Labour’s Southville councillor SEAN doling out redundancy notices to long- ‘DADDY’S BOY’ BEYNON called for a suffering staff - as well as setting the ten per cent cut in the generous handouts for LEGAL ROTTWEILERS onto The the city’s Key Arts Providers (KAP) as part BRISTOLIAN for publishing the truth. of the city’s recent slash-and-burn budget. Yes, just as Pinocchiowen and his clique Naturally there was an explosion of rage were getting down to making some of the from the city’s wealthy and influential luvvie strangest business decisions ever - such as lobby at this small challenge to their large closing down a vital revenue stream and sense of entitlement. the charity’s strongest connection to the The rage was mingled with disbelief at how wider public - they also decided to try anybody could question the overwhelm- and impose a MEDIA BLACKOUT. To achieve this they hired tinpot law firm ing social value of stuff like the BRISTOL BURGES SALMON to try and put the OLD VIC’S latest effort - a five hour, state frighteners on local news sources, threat- subsidised overblown theatrical production Watershed’s big swinging Dick ening all sorts of badness to anyone who of an overwrought Victorian potboiler, Jane dared to report on Owen’s crazy antics. Eyre, organised by a Cambridge graduate hell is “social cohesion” anyway? But whilst this might have worked on with a terrible wardrobe! What he also failed to explain is how this the student hacks of Bristol University’s Legendary local luvvie DICK ‘THE small cut, which would amount to just Epigram paper, it did not on your super DISRUPTOR’ PENNY, soon waded in £100k, would have any effect whatsoever on soaraway ‘Smiter’. We called their bluff with some back-of-the- fag-packet calcula- an industry with a turnover of £55m. Are we and pointed out that in ten months tions to “prove” that this kind of marginal meant to believe that a reduction of just one of HIGHLY ACCURATE, detailed nonsense is in fact an economic powerhouse fifth of one per cent of its turnover is going to reporting on HorseWorld we had heard for the city and that our luvvie legions are not a peep from them claiming anything bring this industry to its knees? we printed was wrong. doing a selfless and remarkable job for the Penny further neglected to point out that masses. one organisation, WATERSHED, receives Since then the legal threats have dried “Combined turnover of not for profit arts city council grants in excess of £300k in up, and a number of other outlets, includ- and museums organisations in the West of ing the Nazi Post, BBC Bristol, ITV West, 2013, which, er … Pays his wages! He also The Week In and the Western Daily Press England last year was £55m,” huffed Penny, neglected to point out that an increase of have all since published critical pieces. “and that’s a pretty major return on BCC just one pound in cinema tickets for the Funny, that! investment.” very well-heeled ABC1 audience his venue Meanwhile, the situation for those who “And none of this takes into account the attracts would make in the region of £100k actually look after animals is looking huge benefit to social cohesion, education, a year! increasingly rocky. Twenty-four workers tourism and inward investment,” he puffed. So that’s what “social cohesion” is all about, face the boot, for no reason other than Although he failed to produce a shred of then: the poorest directly subsidising elitist their bosses made a BALLS-UP of the evidence to back up his claims - and what the entertainment and the wages of the wealthiest. management of the charity. On a positive note, despite Owen & Co trying to keep all of this under wraps, staff are fighting OUR ARTS CORRESPONDENT WRITES... back, with around half those under threat now represented by the GMB union. Any of you readers ever venture into Bristol start sussing out what a con their capitalist Owen might yet lose that prized Audi... Old Vic? Watershed? Arnolfini? No? Didn’t system is and start doing something about it. think so. So they are happy to shut down our pubs (for JUNKET GEORGE JETS OFF Yet you, me and the rest of Bristol’s working example, try and find a boozer in Knowle), YET AGAIN: YES HE CANNES! It’s that time of the year once more - so class are expected to fund these artsy, fartsy raise ticket prices at the football, or unleash our illustrious Mayor Fergo has packed PONCE HOLES every year through our more riot cops in town of a weekend to drive his BUDGIE HAMMOCKS and Council Tax. Not a tenner here or a tenner us out. bronzer and buggered off to Cannes on there, but hundreds of thousands of pounds They don’t want us going out talking to the French Riviera for the annual MIPIM are given each year from our pockets to fund each other; they want us to work for them, Property Conference! these unnecessary, unprofitable middle class fuck off home and slowly rot away watching Yes, just like last year, when we reported cultural centres. moronic zombie TV. Then our rulers can how George and his pals racked up a tab Meanwhile that smug prick the Mayor and sleep in peace with their profits, whilst the of more than £100,000 at an industry get- his arse-licking councillors are more than STREETS ARE EMPTY. Meanwhile we together known as “basically a four-day happy to shut down libraries and day centres pay for fucking middle class arseholes called party with loads of LOBSTER AND and cut back on essential services for Bristol’s Rupert or Tristram to have a jolly good night CHAMPAGNE ON YACHTS”... pensioners and disabled. out at the Old Vic, Wankershed or Analpho- This time, though, he will be part of a According to them if the things we need ney. Well fuck that…it’s time to turn off the “high level delegation” of city bosses from don’t make a profit then they must be TV and go meet these privileged scum who CUBA (that’s the Councils that Used to Be Avon), as well as his close, personal PRIVATISED OR CLOSED DOWN. we’re paying for. MERCHANT VENTURER chum Working class culture is something that If they won’t spread the wealth about Colin Skellett from Wessex Water. scares these arseholes. They don’t want large equally, then maybe it’s about time we spread The icing on the cake? George’s jolly is groups of Bristolians meeting up in case we the violence about. being organised through regional quango Invest Bristol+Bath - and sponsored by [email protected] HorseWorld lawyers Burges Salmon! What a small world... THE WHISTLEBLOWERS AND THE UNRELIABLE UNION REP HORROR HOUSE The BrisTolian has taken delivery of a large bundle of medical documents relating to the management and distribution of controlled drugs in 2013 at Bristol’s house of horrors, hOlmWOOD hOUSe, when the home was briefly managed by an SRN, SimONe SmiTh. e BrisTolian understands the police The whistleblowers at the heart of the city union members and legitimate whistleblowers have investigated these documents and have council's mARkeT SeRviCe SCANDAl is no biggie for local labour Party member, confirmed that a considerable amount of had the misfortune to be represented, for a time Clit Arse, however. he has form for them contain FORGeD SiGNATUReS. At in 2012, by a congenital idiot, Bristol Unison's SCReWiNG OveR hiS OWN UNiON present it’s unclear who was responsible for ClYTUS "CliT ARSe" WilliAmS. An ex- memBeRS – especially the politically active the forgeries as the police appear to have public schoolboy who was around the ones. discontinued their investigation. Council house in a bow tie sucking up to in 2007 when he was chairman of Unison's Also in the bundle is evidence of a DRUG managers, he brushes off the obscure national Standing endless complaints he gets AUDiT ordered by the manager Smith that Orders Committee he formally was conducted by struck off nurse, iSlA from members losing their complained that a satirical jobs by telling them "you meek who was working at the home as a cartoon of the three wise “consultant”. ere’s little doubt meek did the don't understand the monkeys (see no evil - hear no language". work as the audit was produced on the evil - speak no evil) produced headed paper of ‘isla meek Consulting’. Despite being told by his by some le wing activist Obviously, a struck off nurse should not be whistleblowing members in members to take the piss out of involved in any way in the management of markets in July 2012 not to his stupid and obstructive little controlled drugs at a nursing home. sign off on TONY committee was racist and he hARveY'S in a further extraordinary twist, Smith is now inept and encouraged Unison to using these dodgy drug audits as evidence to mendacious restructuring discipline the four members get another former nurse from the home plan for the service because responsible. is subsequently STRUCk OFF by the Nursing and (a) it was a load of bollocks happened and the members midwifery Council. A hearing is expected and (b) its only purpose was to remove them were banned from holding office at the union. later this year. from their jobs, Clit Arse, in a fine example of e farcical case eventually ended up at an trade union democracy in action, signed off the COST UNiSON Smith le holmwood house in the autumn employment Tribunal and of 2013 and is now employed by Four Seasons plan on behalf of the unions anyway! OveR £800k while Clit Arse’s evidence given "NOT CReDiBle" healthcare as a manager at OAkTRee Consequently, two of his members, one of under oath was labelled CARe hOme in Yate. Four Seasons whom was a legally acknowledged by the Chairman of the tribunal. e fall-out lOST TheiR JOBS healthcare reject any claims of wrongdoing whistleblower, ! While it from the case also saw four london Unison regarding Smith and told e BrisTolian has since turned out that the restructure was branches fall apart and go in to special that Bristol City Council’s Safeguarding indeed a load of bollocks that's created a service measures leaving union members unable to FiNANCeS ARe STill 'OF Team have described Smith as “a whose fight local authority bosses and public service whistleblower”. CONCeRN' 18 mONThS lATeR with privatisation. Although, as far as we can tell, the only nobody le in the department who can sort it in comparison a corpse and £165k of public out. What a result! whistleblowing Smith could have done would money unaccounted for is probably no biggie for be in regards to her own managment of Backing bent count bosses over dues paying this one of Unison's finest … controlled drugs! Forged drug records? Bent audits? e holmwood The rain in Spain fallS house affair gets a whole lot murkier ... mainly on The aSTroTurf While politicians and many touchline but inside playing he’s right. A grass pitch can The BRISTOLIAN fans cling to the belief that Playstation with the kids says, hold three games a week. stadiums on the greenbelt for "if a child missed eight weeks Artificial pitches can host 60 Email [email protected] pros are the key to success, a of school, they'd fall behind. teams for training plus Call or text GRASSROOTS FOOTBAll WhAT’S DiFFeReNT matches and they’re usually 07936 427731 CRiSiS unfolds before them. ABOUT FOOTBAll?” floodlit for play at night. Visit TheBristolian.net Over the last two months, Young people have sussed e technically extravagant Write to Box ‘Gurt Shush’, hydra, virtually no competitive youth this. An under-14 at and tactically sophisticated football took place in the city. Rockleaze Rangers FC, told Spaniards will be competing 34 old market Street, Bristol BS2 0eZ Poorly maintained pitches the Guardian recently about for a fourth consecutive major @Bristoliannews with poor drainage were Spains youth, who rarely play title in Brazil this summer. facebook.com/TheBristoliannews waterlogged aer heavy rain. on grass, so "learn from a england have not won a Our man not on the young age to play well". trophy for 48 years. The BRISTOLIAN : “the home of smiteous anger”