No Smoke? £3 MILLION compo for EA bullying victims

Suppressing reports is addictive it would seem.... The corporate culture at the Environment Agency has been a subject of more than passing interest to us here at North Mill from the early days when we used to receive threatening phone calls....

It would seem that some EA officials don't even restrain themselves when it comes to their colleages either... One has to wonder if the bullies get to keep their jobs whilst the victims get the compo... ? If you know more detail please let us know :-)

One might say the cat is out of the bag - just a little.   So, 33 employees at £90,000 each - average... that has to be a smoking gun of sorts as is Smiffy's burying of the report.....

If you want to see the rest of the story - please nip down to your local newstand and purchase a copy of Private Eye - journalists beer doesn't pay for itself you know. You can recognize the March 14 - it's one with Putin on the cover. ISSUE 1361 p6.


In the meantime our request for sight of Andrew Baxendale's report (only done at our insistence) into officials wrongdoing 2009-2012 has been and continues to be aggressively blocked at every turn. We are now going to the top tier of  Freedom of Information - an Information Tribunal...  Nothing to hide - nothing to fear eh?  pull the other one - it's got bells on it :-)  More on the Baxendale report HERE

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EDIT: Private Eye has gone directly to an online story here  (archived here) 

There's just too much of it - where's the Imodium?

Well, if you didn't know - the EA team's latest Avoncliff effort has hit the interwebs - and quite predictably we're not impressed at all. Gone for quantity over quality this time...  

Really - the old adage BS baffles brains ... well, the sheer quantity of it actually beggars belief too - when emanating from Horizon House, Millbank Tower and especially from our friend at Trentside. There's so much - we've had to get mechanical handling and extra staff. In situations like this it's all too easy to loose a sense of proportion - I' m not calling out 'n out lies (yet) - just let's just say pointing at "liberties" taken with interpretation and presentation. 

Take this bold assertion assertion (first of a series that will feature here ) from the EA web page linked above:

In an identical water situation - a turbine that has never been in a river and tested produces  50% more electricity from each ton of water passing through it - than a unit that has been installed and tested in dozens of locations. Did that web page get checked for commercial defamation (malicious falsehood even?) by EA lawyers ?

We are also treated to the assertion that the EA have never said Archimedes turbines are "fish friendly" - which is extraordinary considering...  some of the communications from EA officials over the years...  guys, if you're going to lie - tsk... face meet palm.  Is there some sort of Imodium equivalent for government departments ?  (or NDPBs as the "independent" EA is increasingly styling itself in its assorted and prodigious blurb output)

The toe curling PR centering on the underpaid and overworked operations folk at the EA is serving as a smokescreen and a coat tail riding exercise for much that is going wrong with this organisation - it's like the water in Somerset subsiding and back to "business as usual"...  


Perhaps EA officials (and their pals at AMEC) might try to make more use of  blablameter.com - a score of 0.4 and above guys ... - is not good.- this post comes in at 0.19 by the way :-)

OK it's Half Term

but...
Has Christmas Come Early for Lawyers?

We're told the seasons are getting jumbled up. On behalf of the U.K. administrative law community, we'd like to thank The Environment Agency for moving the 2014 festive season up the calendar and allowing them to have their convention in Barbados this year. We've also had representation from a number of criminal law practitioners who feel they're unjustly being left out of the party.

And...  in a rather strange turn of events the libel boot might well end up on the other foot - or something like that :-)

The Somerset Floods....

Just found this 

(Credit:Public Enquiry YouTube channel)

Sheesh!!! - awful music - the Benny Hill theme tune would be better! More later - it's going to be a busy day - plenty of fine intemperate language being thrown around :-)

It looks like the Twitter hashtag #p45snotpumps might start getting a bit of a workout! try in combination with @DavidJordanEA  ;-)

SkyNews are chewing on David Jordan (Avoncliff link),  as is David Rose in the Daily Mail 

There's two people conspicuously missing in the present kerfuffle - "The Minister" George Eustice and Paul Leinster EA Chief Exec.  Bing!-Bong! Paging Mr George Eustice and Professor Paul Leinster !

For our Somerset readers we can reccomend this piece from Autonomous Mind blog detailing Barbara Young's involvement in your present misfortune.


Simultaneously and quite bizarrely Sheila Wheeler has been absent from her post at Somerset Council apparently since November 2013 - at £160,000 a year that's let's say 4 months ....  = £50,000  and no explanation ....   The people of Somerset are paying her exorbitant wages (which of course you have to pay to get people of this calibre who would otherwise get more in the private sector) ,  they are entitled to know why she has not been at her place of work for three months.

As you know I rarely pass up an opportunity to knock Chris Smith so here's a reminder of the Lord's blatherings from 2013 and the floods back then.

Liars - thumbing their noses at you

Yes, we have an axe to grind and return visitors probably have a fair idea why. This is a warning to those who are naive enough to fall for assurances issued by Environment Agency officials - particularly those in senior positions who view them as cheap feints.  

Did WrongTypeofRainMan Chris Smith even go for a paddle/get his feet wet today when he visited Somerset to inspect some Environment Agency handiwork and have a scripted ponce about in front of a selected audience?

Chris Smith is supposedly "in charge" of the EA but actually does nothing of the sort in his part time position trousering in excess of £100K a year as a PR decoy for the antics of out of control and incompetent management. Lord Smith can't even be bothered to respond to letters or emails - far too grand and busy he is with his other interests.

We'll ignore Smiffy and move on to the antics of EA managers and the utterly toxic culture that enables those managers to lie, cheat, walk away from cock-ups, ignore High Court Orders, fiddle their accounts and then presume to be the last, authoritative word on anything that comes into their heads - using eye-watering amounts of public funds to defend toxic arbitrariness and enrich their barrister mates as they go - when challenged.

Liars
There are mistakes and misunderstandings - that's life. There are also deliberate and connived untruths deployed to deflect immediate and extended "problems". EA Operations director David Jordan visited a North Mill owners home in 2012 with another senior manager where he apologised  for the unlawful deception (legal advisers have been more forthright - they've called it criminal)  perpetrated by EA manager John Aldrick and others and said "The EA owes you recompense for the damage inflicted". He then went away and appointed John Sweeney - a man known as a "fixer" who has lied and connived behind the scenes to the point where we have formally requested his removal on three separate occasions with corroborating evidence- obviously higher-ups think him the man for the job - since he's still there...  Oh, and David Jordan still hasn't elaborated on what "recompense" might be... we'd say David Jordan is untrustworthy - we'd actually go further and say along with the other people mentioned in the paragraph above, he's lied to us and lied to our M.P. Duncan Hames.

There are other untruths from EA officials associated with the Avoncliff debacle which prompted Celia to hurl the rattle out of the pram a while back.

David Jordan has overseen the spending of £620,000 (minimum) subverting a High Court Order and delaying the determination of a hydro power licence for Avoncliff for over 6 times the allowed statutory time frame.

 As usual we do not make assertions that we cannot evidence and if EA legal / PR wish to dispute the assertions above - we look forward to a full exposure of the supporting evidence = you know how to contact us. Perhaps the final (not "draft"- we know about EA drafts) Baxendale Report can be put into the public domain?   John Sweeney obviously doesn't want it there "as it could be used to bring criminal proceedings against EA officials" - go figure.

To those involved in the mess in Somerset - we'd say - ignore (it's difficult we know) Lord Smith and start looking at management - we understand Paul Leinster was Operations Director for Barbara Young (who's rather quiet eh?)- you know what that means...

We feel it's worth reminding folk about the antics of EA lawyer Jeremy Graydon gambling that a victim has not the resources to take the EA to Judicial Review . (FoI pdf)  - we did and we "won" (and the EA acted contrary to the Court Order) - the EA are now likely heading back to the High Court yet again as a JR defendant to answer for more administratively toxic antics. Somebody in government needs to get suitable PPE footwear on and apply same to a number of managerial backsides at Millbank Tower and Horizon House.