Politics

  • Greenwash Capital news: streets of Bristol to get filthier

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics, Social Media

    In a move that will put yet another black mark against they city’s undeserved year as European Green Capital, the streets of Bristol are set to get even filthier than they are already.

    Today’s Bristol Post reports that the number of street cleaners in Bristol has been cut by nearly a fifth since Bristol City Council took waste management and street cleansing back in-house last month from contractors Kier Group, those well-known supporters of former worker blacklisting outfit The Consulting Association.

    Fly-tipping on Pennywell Road, Easton
    Fly-tipping on Pennywell Road, Easton

    According to the Post, the council-run Bristol Waste Company (BWC) has notified “30 to 40” agency workers at the Hartcliffe depot that they would no longer be required as of yesterday (Monday). This will cut their numbers by about one-fifth. These workers deal with street cleaning and collecting fly-tipping.

    In addition, the Hartcliffe staff claim they have not been consulted on the cuts and accused the council of trying to save money at the expense of cleanliness (Bristol City Council has a long and proud tradition of avoiding and/or messing up consultation. Ed.).

    Furthermore, the Hartcliffe depot staff also claim they been provided with inadequate equipment to do the job. One anonymous worker is quoted by the Post as saying:

    Some of the guys haven’t been given clean gloves or protective gear, and many are still working with Kier equipment. The protective clothing is not adequate, and we have to deal with needles and dog poo and stuff.

    If there are insufficient staff available at BWC for the job in hand, perhaps Bristol City Council could reassign staff from elsewhere: ideal candidates for redployment and kitting out with a fluorescent uniform, safety gloves, boots and a broom would be those working in the local authority’s overstaffed press and PR department.

    In other Greenwash Capital news, it would appear that Bristol Mayor George Ferguson couldn’t really care less about the city’s cleanliness according to the tweet below from Kerry McCarthy MP.

    tweet from Kerry McCarthy stating when I last met George he was particularly unimpressed that people tweet him pics of rubbish

    Synonyms for unimpressed include apathetic, disinterested, unconcerned, undisturbed, untroubled and unmoved.

    If Kerry’s report of her meeting with the Mayor is accurate, that is a most disturbing development in the person whose supposed job is to take care the best interests of the city and its welfare.

  • Tidy BS5’s dancing bin man – full version

    Steve WoodsBristol, Oddities, Politics

    The completed full version of the Tidy BS5 bin man video (posts passim) has now been released.

    Many thanks to Andy Reid for his masterful brush strokes and majestic moves for the camera for last Sunday’s Make Sunday Special on Stapleton Road, which looked especially spruced up for the day (the splendid chaps who battle its litter daily must have heard Mayor George Ferguson would be turning up! Ed.).

  • Tidy BS5 – homage to Rio sweeper: the trailer

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    A damp Sunday yesterday saw Make Sunday Special come to Easton’s Stapleton Road.

    The Tidy BS5 crew were there with an information stall inside Easton Leisure Centre with a group of young volunteers giving out advice on how to make the most of the city council’s recycling services, ordering new recycling bins and the like.

    Meanwhile the activists had arranged to do a bit of street theatre. Having persuaded a member of Bristol Samba to get dressed up in a customised Bristol Waste uniform and themselves armed with placards, we set off towards the main stage, filming as we went…

    … ending up storming the main stage!

    Tidy BS5's sweeper on stage at Make Sunday Special
    Tidy BS5’s sweeper on stage at Make Sunday Special

    The final edited video will be posted on YouTube in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled. 🙂

  • Whitehall’s latest open standards consultations

    Steve WoodsOpen Standards, Politics, Tech

    The British government has announced it is now consulting and seeking comments on its latest open standards proposals.

    The standards on which it is inviting comments are:

    Exchange of location point information
    An open standard for the exchange of location information, allowing coordinates to be translated between systems.

    Exchange of property / place address information
    A proposed standard to define and exchange address information between government departments. This is not about changing your postal address, but it could change the way government records information about your location.

    Publishing vacancies online
    A standard to help citizens searching for government jobs and apprenticeships.

    Once the comment period closes, proposals will be assessed by a panel composed of civil servants and industry specialists, which will decide whether the proposal should go forward for consideration by the Open Standards Board. The Open Standards Board will then make a recommendation about the standard’s adoption across government.

  • Tidy BS5 exclusive: Mayor’s office discovers copy & paste

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Tech

    Hannah Crudgington has kindly forwarded to me the reply she received from the office of Bristol Mayor George Ferguson to her video statement to July’s full council meeting. In addition, Hannah has kindly consented to let her response be reproduced in this blog post, as follows:

    Dear Ms Crudgington,

    Thank you for summiting [sic] your statement to Full Council in regards [sic] to the fly-tipping and litter issues you are currently experiencing in Easton.

    Easton has historically been an area where greater resources have been needed, and this is still the case today: the Council provides more resources for this area to remove waste and litter than in most other parts of the city. The introduction of communal bins seems to have improved the situation in Easton; prior to their introduction there was more widespread fly tipping [sic] throughout the area. In some cases, however, this measure has led to fly-tipping occurring around the bins, as it has been observed in other parts of the city, from Clifton to St Pauls. The communal bin areas are proactively patrolled by our contractor, who responds to fly-tip and street cleansing reports made through Customer Services or submitted on webforms throughout Bristol. Training has been provided to our contractor’s operatives to search waste for evidence of its potential source & evidence is passed to Streetscene Enforcement Team to investigate.

    We require the support of the public to help us identify offenders and would encourage all residents and visitors to Bristol to report incidents of fly-tipping they observe to Bristol City Council as soon as possible. To take enforcement action against offending individuals or businesses requires evidence and the more information we receive, the more likely we can build a case and target them. Recruitment is currently underway to return the Streetscene Enforcement Team to a full complement of 6 officers. This will allow for the officers to concentrate their activities within smaller areas and allow for more proactive work and operations. For instance, all businesses on Stapleton Road are currently in the process of being visited to check that they have relevant commercial waste contracts and make them aware that we are searching for evidence of commercial waste being deposited in the domestic communal bins. The Streetscene Enforcement Team continues to explore new ways of working with partners, both within the Council and local community, to target environmental crime and support improvements to the local environment. For this reason, we appreciate your efforts in working with us to achieve a cleaner Easton, and thank you for your patience while we effect the necessary improvements.

    Yours sincerely,

    (signed)

    George Ferguson CBE
    Mayor of Bristol

    Having carefully examined the text of Hannah’s reply and the one I received, it can be confirmed that the two responses are identical, even down to the same typographical errors.

    Whilst I am pleased to learn that IT skills in the Mayor’s office have now reached a level equivalent to those of novice computer users, it is disconcerting that the staff in the Mayor’s office still think it appropriate to draft the same response to 2 statements on the same subject that raised different points. This illustrates the continuing contempt by council officers for residents of the inner city – a contempt that should never have been allowed to develop in the first place, let alone persist down the decades.

    Bristol City Council should not be allowed to get away with this.

    At the same full council meeting there were 3 statements from campaigners trying to prevent part of the River Frome flood plain being used for luxury housing by Colston’s School. I wonder if they received identical responses too. If any of those campaigners did, kindly mention it in the comments below.

  • Tidy BS5 in the council chamber: the Mayor responds

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Politics

    Reichsführer Rothosen aka Junket George
    Bristol Mayor George Ferguson
    Following my submission of a statement to last month’s full council meeting (posts passim), at which Hannah Crudgington’s video statement on fly-tipping received a standing ovation from Labour councillors, I’ve now received a written reply to my statement from Bristol’s elected Mayor, George Ferguson. Even though I had no opportunity to present my statement verbally to councillors due to the incompetent and thoroughly dreadful chairing of the full council meeting by Lord Mayor Clare Campion-Smith, all those submitting statements were promised a written response.

    The response to my written statement has now been received and is reproduced in full below for the information and amusement of passing readers.

    Dear Mr Woods,

    Thank you for summiting [sic] your statement to Full Council in regards [sic] to the fly-tipping and litter issues you are currently experiencing in Easton.

    Easton has historically been an area where greater resources have been needed, and this is still the case today: the Council provides more resources for this area to remove waste and litter than in most other parts of the city. The introduction of communal bins seems to have improved the situation in Easton; prior to their introduction there was more widespread fly tipping [sic] throughout the area. In some cases, however, this measure has led to fly-tipping occurring around the bins, as it has been observed in other parts of the city, from Clifton to St Pauls. The communal bin areas are proactively patrolled by our contractor, who responds to fly-tip and street cleansing reports made through Customer Services or submitted on webforms throughout Bristol. Training has been provided to our contractor’s operatives to search waste for evidence of its potential source & evidence is passed to Streetscene Enforcement Team to investigate.

    We require the support of the public to help us identify offenders and would encourage all residents and visitors to Bristol to report incidents of fly-tipping they observe to Bristol City Council as soon as possible. To take enforcement action against offending individuals or businesses requires evidence and the more information we receive, the more likely we can build a case and target them. Recruitment is currently underway to return the Streetscene Enforcement Team to a full complement of 6 officers. This will allow for the officers to concentrate their activities within smaller areas and allow for more proactive work and operations. For instance, all businesses on Stapleton Road are currently in the process of being visited to check that they have relevant commercial waste contracts and make them aware that we are searching for evidence of commercial waste being deposited in the domestic communal bins. The Streetscene Enforcement Team continues to explore new ways of working with partners, both within the Council and local community, to target environmental crime and support improvements to the local environment. For this reason, we appreciate your efforts in working with us to achieve a cleaner Easton, and thank you for your patience while we effect the necessary improvements.

    Yours sincerely,

    (signed)

    George Ferguson CBE
    Mayor of Bristol

    What strikes me about the response – apart from its occasionally abysmal English usage – is firstly its emollient, placatory tone: to begin with, it commiserates with me for the “fly-tipping and litter issues you are currently experiencing in Easton“. It’s not just now that I’m experiencing those so-called issues; I’ve watched the area get filthier for the last 4 decades!

    Secondly, the response manages to duck a couple of major points, namely the disparity between the number of enforcement officers compared with the Council’s excessively large press, PR and communications staff (posts passim), as well as the response (if any) of council officers and Assistant Mayor Daniella Radice to ideas from elsewhere around the UK and world for combating fly-tipping (these have probably been kicked into the long grass by both the Assistant Mayor and officers under time-honoured “not invented here” rules. Ed.).

    As the response was unsatisfactory, I shall be attempting to make another statement to full council in September and will draw the Mayor’s attention to the shortcomings in the response.

    Finally, Hannah Crudgington received a reply to her video statement that was almost identical to mine. Isn’t it good to know that IT skills down the Counts Louse have reached the cut and paste level? 😉

  • Bristol City Council must have a real bullshit crisis

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

    Responses have been received to my recent Freedom of Information Act (FoI) requests requests to Bristol City Council.

    These concerned the relative numbers of staff involved in press, PR, etc. and so-called ‘streetscene (i.e. fly-tipping, litter, dog fouling and the like). This is a subject which this blog has tackled previously. However, I felt it necessary to obtain the most up-to-date figures I could.

    The FoI request re press, PR and communications officers read as follows:

    Dear Bristol City Council,

    This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Kindly disclose the number of press, public relations and communications staff/officers who are employed at present by Bristol City Council and/or have their place of work in Bristol City Council offices.

    Yours etc.

    The response to the request reads:

    The number of press, public relations and communications staff/officers who are employed at present by Bristol City Council and/or have their place of work in Bristol City Council offices:
    (The list below shows the number of full-time equivalent staff)
    Service Manager: Corporate Communications x 1
    Service Manager: Public Relations x 1
    Design Manager x 1
    Senior Designer x 1
    Designer x 4.49
    Assistant Designer x 5
    Senior Communications & Marketing Officer x 5.41
    Senior Communication Officer – Enterprise Zone x 1
    Senior Communication Officer (Corporate Campaigns and Special
    Projects Team) x 0.81
    Marketing & Communications Officer (Level 1 and 2) x 9.51
    Marketing & Communcations Support Officer x 4
    Internal Communications Manager x 1
    Internal Communications Support Officer x 2.39
    Channel Editor (Level 2) x 1
    Digital Public Relations Officer x 2
    Senior Public Relations Officer x 1.2
    Public Relations Officer x 5
    Exhibition Designer x 1
    Apprentice x 1
    Total Full-Time Equivalents: 48.81

    The following request was submitted in respect of streetscene enforcement officers.

    Dear Bristol City Council,

    This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Kindly disclose the total number of streetscene officers who are employed at present by Bristol City Council, as well as the total number employed in the last financial year.

    I would also be grateful if you would inform me whether the said officers are employed full-time or part-time and how many, if any, are on long-term sick leave.

    Yours etc.

    This was duly answered as follows:

    Our reply to your request is:

    In 2014/15 we employed 5.7 full-time equivalent (FTE) Streetscene Enforcement Officers up until November 2014. Since November 2014 we have employed 4.7 FTE. There are four full-time officers and one
    part-time officer. Presently, we plan to recruit an additional 1.5 FTE.

    There are currently no Streetscene Enforcement Officers on long-term sick leave

    The staffing situation is thus more out of kilter than was originally imagined. Bristol City Council is now actually employing more press, PR and communications staff than when examined previously by the Press Gazette in its FoI request.

    screenshot of BCC press release on website
    Bristol City Council priority: weasel words in press releases

    Presumably this is due to the additional quantities of bullshit needing to be shovelled out of the Council House due to Bristol’s unwarranted elevation this year to European Green(wash) Capital.

    On the other hand, council staffing managers have deemed that the city can get by with a maximum of 6 people chasing fly-tippers and litter droppers for the time being.

    fly-tipping in Woodborough Street, BS5
    Not a council priority: fly-tipping in Woodborough Street, BS5

    In my opinion the city would be a tidier and more truthful place if the above numbers were reversed, with the council employing 49 enforcement officers (they’re really needed! Ed.) and under 6 press, PR and communications wonks.

    Whether you agree or disagree with my opinion, please feel free to comment below.

  • Tidy BS5 in the council chamber

    Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics

    Today there’s a full meeting of the elected members of Bristol City Council at 6 pm.

    Each council meeting has a slot of 30 minutes allotted to statements from members of the public to raise concerns.

    This evening’s meeting will be treated to 2 statements by Tidy BS5 campaigners, namely Hannah Crudgington and your ‘umble scribe.

    In addition, Hannah will be screening a video of one minute duration to the assembled councillors and officers.

    Hannah will also be making a statement to councillors after her video. This statement reads as follows:

    I have made my home and set up my business in Easton of the last 12 years or so.

    It is extremely sad to report that after an initial improvement and vibrancy, the last five years have seen a huge deterioration and this is largely due to ill thought decisions by people without practical experience of the area at grass roots level.

    Bristol City Council has been made well aware of the issues of waste in BS5 and yet the problems are getting worse. In the last year, it has gone from fly tipping and litter to fly-tipping, litter and a horrendous stench. So it is no longer an annoyance or inconvenience but more a health hazard.

    So what is Bristol City Council doing to resolve this, what are your time scales and finally would you put up with this?

    My statement will be:

    It is with a sense of profound despair and regret that I’ve watched the problem of litter and fly-tipping in the Easton area over the past few decades.

    Given that Bristol is European Green Capital for 2015, it’s an absolute disgrace that scenes such as those in Hannah Crudgington’s video are a daily occurrence in the inner city.

    However, fly-tipping and litter are not just an eyesore; they are a health and safety risk, attract vermin such as rats and gulls, make people feel insecure on the streets and attract anti-social behaviour; residents have observed people urinating on piles of fly-tipped rubbish and using the communal bins installed by the council as a screen for defecating in the streets.

    Would you tolerate this in the area where you live? We refuse to.

    Concerned residents have been raising these matters with local councillors and council officers for well over one year. Given the glacial pace at which Bristol City Council moves, it has taken that long for streetscene enforcement officers to turn their attentions to Easton and Lawrence Hill. Whilst I appreciate the enforcement officers’ efforts I feel that their presence may be a matter of too little, too late.

    Furthermore, the total number of these enforcement officers is very small: there are only 6 of them to cover the whole city, far too few for the size of the city’s problems with litter and fly-tipping, which it must be remembered is not exclusive to the 2 wards in which I and other Tidy BS5 campaigners are working. I regularly receive reports – as I’m sure ward councillors do – of problems with litter and fly-tipping in Ashley, Bedminster, Fishponds, St George, Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston, to name a few more areas of our city blighted by environmental crime.

    Finally, it’s worth noting that the city council employs 43 press and PR officers – more than seven times the number of streetscene enforcement officers. This suggests to me that the city council has a warped sense of priorities: it has a real citywide problem with litter, fly-tipping and other environmental crimes; it does not have a problem with weasel words.

    Communal bin in Villiers Road, Easton attracting dumped furniture
    Communal bin in Villiers Road, Easton attracting dumped furniture

    The one real disappointment is that Bristol’s elected mayor George Ferguson will not be in attendance at the council meeting. Our George has junketed off to Rome, where he has deigned to give the Pope an audience.

  • ODF 1.2 published as international standard

    Steve WoodsOpen Standards, Politics, Tech

    The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) Version 1.2, the native file format of the free and open source LibreOffice productivity suite and many other applications, has been published as International Standard 26300:2015 by ISO/IEC.

    TDF ODF 1.2 bannerODF defines a technical schema for office documents including text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or presentations.

    “ODF 1.2 is the native file format of LibreOffice. Today, ODF is the best choice for interoperability, because it is widely adopted by applications and is respected by applications in every area”, says Thorsten Behrens, Chairman of The Document Foundation. “ODF makes interoperability a reality and transforms the use of proprietary document formats into a relic of the past. In the future, people will tell stories about incompatible document formats between two releases of proprietary office suites as a bygone problem”.

    ODF is developed by the OASIS consortium. The current version of the standard was published in 2011 and then was submitted to ISO/IEC in 2014.

    The standard is available in three parts – schema, formula definition and packages – from the repository of Publicly Available Standards as a free download, as follows:

    1. Schema
    2. Formula Definition
    3. Packages

    The standard is also available from the OASIS ODF TC website.

    ODF 1.2 is supported by all the leading office suites and by a large number of other applications. It has been adopted by the UK Cabinet Office as the reference for all documents exchanged with the UK Government (posts passim) and is currently proposed as the reference standard by the Référentiel Général d’Interopérabilité 1.9.9 of the French Government. In addition, ODF 1.2 has been adopted by many European public sector organisations. Furthermore, in Brazil, ODF is part of the electronic government programme – Progranma do Governo Eletrônico (e-PING).

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