Having promised us all that she would be around for the duration our Borough Commander has decided, in her 40's, to take early retirement. Lovely if you can get away with it!
Ellie O'Connor was pretty hopeless so won't be missed. A
measure of her dimwittedness.....
On a visit to a local police station, she started to lecture fellow officers about being overweight!
Considering that Ellie was built like a tank it caused much sniggering!
Anyway, now she's off with her £50k a year pension....
We seem to be plagued in K&C by the continual chopping and changing of area superintendents. When O'Connor was last absent with leave Tariq Sarwar held the fort. He was excellent and should have replaced her. Similarly, Superintendent Gwilliam was highly regarded but then shunted off to some admin job. The Met is top heavy and an embarrassment to good management.
BEING CANDID ABOUT CANDIDATES
The other day the Dame was disturbed at her Noilly Pratt time by a visit from a Conservative candidate for Hans Town.
Her name was Soph McVey(sic?) and her enthusiasm and energy were in stark contrast to hopeless and lazy Mary Weale. Weale was given a Cabinet job after losing her day job at Lloyd's. Like some 19th C MP, Weale believes in being not seen and not heard. Residents have given up trying to contact her. Weale is famous for saying, dismissively, of residents, " we hear but we do not listen". To try to give herself a connection to Hans Town she gushes in her silly Association biog, " Granny used to live in Cadogan Place. Well, the Dame's Bengal cat was born in a kipper box but it doesn't make it a kipper.
Deposed Paget-Brown and Coleridge had high reputations for always responding to residents.
The Association really should have de-selected Weale: she is not fit for purpose.
THE WISDOM OF MR. STALLWOOD
One of the Dame's gofers was advised by Mr. Stallwood that the Dame should not refer to officers by name in any of her vituperative pieces about Planning favouring 'Big Developer' over little residents. He took particular exception to the reference to Allison 'Flighty' Flight being flighty with DP9.
The Dame does not agree. Officers are fair game if they behave badly. After all, if we followed his dictum we would not be allowed to be nasty about Mr. Black of the TMO.
People in public office MUST be accountable for their actions.
ReplyDeleteThe Dame does an excellent job in constructive criticism and keeps us all up to date in the Rotten Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Yes, Mary Weale has to be re-educated in to being respectful to residents.
ReplyDeleteShe is known for her idiotic comment....'we hear residents but we don't listen'
Nice!
"Granny lived in Cadogan Place"!!
DeleteAirhead Cllr Weale has moved down market and inhabits Earls Court. There is a place in the Gorbels waiting for her
11.12. If the Tory Councillor Mary Weale needs to re-educated in being respectful to residents then Councillor Emma Dent Coad MP needs the same lesson.
ReplyDeleteHas Weale ever called anyone, or repeated that some Black woman told her that a Black Tory was 'a free loading scumbag" a "token ghetto boy" or "the most hated man in North Kensington?" I don't believe that Weale has been that obnoxious.
Chief Supt Ellie O'Connor was 51 when she took up the post in 2014, now heading towards the grand age of 55.
ReplyDeleteMost people have to wait till they are 65 and others keep working. The police and others paid for by the Gov seem to have a luxurious life with their early retirement. She's only worked for 30 years and now gets a amazing pension.
DeleteAll the newly selected young, eager and keen Tories will be in the public gallery at the next Council meeting. Looking forward to seeing what new dross they have selected.
ReplyDeleteIt is very sad to see someone in senior public office looking so rotund, out of proportion and unfit, the first thing to notice about the Chief Supt.
ReplyDeleteSurely there are health checks, criteria and advice to a role model at this senior level?
A few years ago, the Metropolitan Police introduced a physical exercise for all serving officers once a year. It involved shinnying over a wall and running after someone. Did Ellie pass or fail.
ReplyDeleteAt least Robert Black has now gone, allegedly without a redundancy package and enhanced pension pot. If we are to believe anything that comes out of the TMO now. The housing scrutiny committee members on Monday highlighted how the TMO executives had misled (lied?) to both its board and the council about fire safety for many years. Black was kept on supposedly to work on the TMO's response to the police enquiry but we now hear that many TMO board members and staff involved at the time of the Grenfell refurbishment are refusing to be interviewed by the police. So was Black working on a cover up instead?
ReplyDelete08.07 How right you are about the TMO deceiving its Board and the Council about fire safety. A TMO worker deceived Councillor Blakeman about a fire in a bin room that I discovered a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteThank you @08:07 Can you please elaborate on the source of your information, we have not heard this information yet.
ReplyDelete08.07. Robert Black had a policy of not investigating matters that TMO residents brought to his personal attention in writing. Those residents who would not roll over and be beaten by the TMO were put on the Blacklist- no pun intended.
DeleteMany residents wrote to him personally in desperation about TMO incompetence, the bullying and stupidity of TMO staff. Black was unmoved by these heartfelt, legitimate, representations. His attitude was that he had staff employed (Maddison, Jevans, Birch, and Matthews) to run the place, the very same people responsible for the incompetence, bullying and stupidity.
If Robert Black had done right by residents, instead of looking after the monied interests of a Tory Council, 71 people might be alive today and people would not object to him getting a pension top up.
Well said 10:41 I experienced exactly what you describe.
DeleteYes, he over-delegated and just sat back and relaxed. The intention was that the underlings would do the work. They were not up to it but also concealed all sorts of problems from him that they were not competent to deal with. Like all the problems at Grenfell Tower. Jevans was in overall charge of that, not Maddison.
DeleteBlack was not qualified to do the job - who gave him the job?
Delete12.09 Black "over-delegated" alright; make no bones about it. This hands off approach might work to Black's advantage. The inadequate reporting to him, even the concealment of serious things, by the likes of Jevans, Birch, Maddison, Matthews, Parkes and Wood, gives Black a get out of jail free card. Black might be able to argue, when questioned, that he knew nothing about the wrongdoing inured by his underlings making sure that no sh*t lands on his carpet.
Delete12.09. Please tell us who was responsible for the bullying of Grenfell tenants.
DeleteWas it Jevans? Was it Maddison? Was it the pair of them?
Do you know if the TMO Board agreed to adjourn making a decision about a bung to Black's pension pot to a later date.
12:09 Black has no way out of the mess he oversaw.
DeleteThe role of CEO is to jump into all areas of the business they oversee and direct all areas accordingly. That is the whole point of a CEO, who are fully aware of everything going on for which they take ultimate responsibility. The CEO of any company is relied upon for their ability and experience to orchestrate and keep and eye on what is done to be sure it is done properly.
There is no way out for Black, the buck stops with the CEO.
Barbara Matthews CFO - no way out, buck also stops with CFO.
Delete13.43 a panel chaired by Juliet Rawlings MBE gave Robert Black the job. The proceedings were observed by the then RBK&C Director of Housing, Health & Adult Social and she did not want Black to get the job.
Delete18.51 another bloody thing that Rawlings has to answer for.
DeleteLast night's Evening Standard and at the council housing committee.
ReplyDeletePoor old Anthony Parkes was the chief finance officer in place at the time of the bungled refurbishment. Not sure if he was around when the TMO approved the whitewash report led by Paula Fance (Board member) that told the Council that only seven complaints were made during the refurbishment and the TMO had done a fantastic job.
ReplyDeletePaula Fance was the TMO's replacement for that snake in the grass, Michael Beverley. With the benefit of hindsight, what does Paula think about the "fantastic job" that the TMO did at Grenfell Tower with 71 people dead?
Delete08:26 We were informed Mr Parkes now spends his retirement playing golf in the Ascot area.
ReplyDeleteThey are all in it (Black, Parkes, Matthews, Jevans, Maddison and Birch) up to their necks. I would not be so sure that they will not wriggle out of it and get off scot free. They were all there for long enough periods of time to be held responsible for something to do with Grenfell and the wider mess at the TMO.
ReplyDeleteWe know that Birch got an £ 11, 000 pension top up courtesy of public money given by the Council to the TMO to run the Company.
ReplyDeleteHas the Jevans woman gone from the TMO or is she still on the payroll?
Has any top up to her pension pot been mooted or agreed? She is 48 and won't be employable in social housing ever again.
Is Maddison still there? Has any top up to his pension pot been mooted or agreed?
Peter Maddison is still employed by the TMO and is believed to be involved with the improvement works currently underway at Trellick Tower. You couldn't make this shit up. A man who may potentially be charged with manslaughter by gross negligence is currently responsible for the health and safety of another tower bock after 71 innocent residents perished at Grenfell under his watch.
Delete11.34 am here. I cannot believe my eyes but it seems I was right to suspect that something fishy might be going on.
DeleteIf Maddison is still employed at TMO and involved with the Trellick Tower improvement works (if you can call anything the TMO does an "improvement" or "work") there is something seriously wrong especially.
The Police should be investigating the possibility of bringing charges against him. In any other work place, anyone who might be charged with an offence connected with their performance at work would be suspended pending the outcome of the enquiries of the police.
Black gone, Birch gone.
DeleteIs Maddison going to be transferred to the Council when it takes over from the TMO?
Is Jevans still on the TMO's books?
11.34. They should all leave the TMO with no compensatory payments of any description including pension "top ups." They were money grabbing, self serving, and the most undeserving lot that I have ver come across. They made tenants lives a misery.
ReplyDeleteThe TMO executive directors used to laugh when they got a mention on here before Grenfell. I hope they don’t laugh any more.
ReplyDelete11.16
DeleteIf anyone at the TMO laughed when they got a mention on here before the Grenfell fire then they really were more stupid than I imagined.