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Tuesday 10 March 2020

INCOMPETENCE REVEALED THANKS TO THINK

This is North Kensington tells it how it IS

Local government does seem to attract some oddities and none more so that this one! 
STRANGE ONE!
It's Kirsty Tobin, she is both Head of content, channels and digital and also Head of Grenfell Communications at RBKC. Some residents referring to Ms Tobin’s particular sense of style, have described her as a “Human League reject circa 1983”! 

But Ms Tobin clearly does not appear to pay as much attention to her duties as she does to her appearance.
On Friday, there was a meeting about Grenfell Soil and Environmental Checks . 
It fell to THINK to publicise this for our council failed to mention it anywhere. Not on social media, and not in the many publications that clutter up our entrances nowadays such as “North Ken News” or “Housing Matters”.
It gets worse than that. Residents looking for details of the meeting on the RBKC website were for some reason redirected to details for a Planning Applications Committee meeting from last February instead.
As for Friday’s Grenfell meeting, some not very bright spark decided that holding the meeting at 10am when most residents are at work, would be a good idea. Furthermore, both the bad timing and the absence of publicity for a meeting of such local importance was not just an insult to the North Kensington community but also was an insult to Professor Paul Nathanial who had turned up there expecting more than just a handful of residents to be there asking questions: his disappointment was palpable!
It is not only residents in North Kensington and visitors however, who are being let down by Kirsty and her colleagues. The webcasts of Full Council meetings do not appear to be working at all – so much for their “improvements”
As for “channels” if that means RBKC’s YouTube page, it is not regularly updated and nor is it easy for users to find what they are looking for.
Also, something ought to be mentioned about that Planning Application Committee meeting from February 4th last month – which had a very packed agenda with several items and several objections so obvious that there would be a very large number of residents attending the Town Hall. Despite this, someone thought it was a good idea to pack them into a little committee room with people crushed against the door, while both the Council Chamber and the Small Hall remained empty.
We have to tell RBKC that particularly after Grenfell, that it does not exactly look good for the council in charge to be breaching health and safety conditions publicly in their own administrative centre.
The RBKC website might, at first sight, look nicer, but it is still clunky, malfunctioning and hard to navigate and just as bad, if not worse than ever.
RBKC residents are now facing a 3.9% increase in council tax and tenants are facing a 5% rent increase partly to pay for such incompetence and we deserve better than people who cannot organise a p*** up in a brewery or just do not care.
We wouldn’t even trust Ms Tobin to get the orders in a cocktail bar right. ….
If RBKC really wants to improve, it is time that they stopped wasting our money on paying huge salaries to people for doing next to nothing and who are not up to the demand of the job..... and here is a venue more suitable and appropriate than Hornton Street, for “Kirsty Hopeless” and her non-skills....



16 comments:

  1. Oh dear me. More vintage Hornton Street. Employees like Strange One are the public face of the Council. When will dizzy learn? Our Leader needs some leadership training. Potty training not enough

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    Replies
    1. There is no evidence that Cllr Campbell was ever potty trained

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  2. Oh no, once Chief Reporter on the Guardian.....says it all.

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    Replies
    1. Not the national newspaper - Kirsty was at the East London Guardian local newspaper!

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    2. Lord Pooter-Cockell11 March 2020 at 19:32

      Hilarious...she is economical about disclosing that it was some local rag

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  3. RBK&C is the sort of client predatory PR people love.
    Knowing little of the wicked ways of the PR industry unworldly councillors fall prey to the nonsensical ideas put forward by deceitful PR's. Looking at Miss Tobin's CV it becomes clear that her work experience has never been outside local government. I assume at some stage in her career she met the good Doctor Quirke and convinced him that she was the answer to the councils' problems.
    The THINK piece shows that the task is well beyond her.
    My entire career has been spent within the PR industry and it is with a degree of guilt that I look back remembering how easy it is to skin clients in panic mode. This lady should never have been given full time employment.

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    Replies
    1. Well there we have it. A PR guy spills the beans.

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    2. Good points and insight from Justin Downes.RBKC is indeed in panic mode and feeling vulnerable. Trouble is we have a council leader who does not possess the intelligence or common sense to see that all they are going to get from someone like Tobin is bad PR and worsening relations with residents at a not inconsiderable financial cost too. This kind of thing would likely not be happening if we had someone smart, observant and knowledgeable in charge like Kim Taylor-Smith.

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  4. It would be interesting to have a full list of all mid/ senior officers and their roles/functions. It would be a real eye opener. No private company would be allowed to be as wasteful as a council.
    RBKC has a 'Wasteful DNA' from fleets of mayoral cars to ladies like Miss Tobin.

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  5. How on earth could PR supremo Kirsty Tobin select such a naff picture to promote herself? Not even a Miss Marple sitcom would entertain such a weird presence.

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  6. Weird Kensington MP Buchan has a rival!

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  7. Clear The Swamp11 March 2020 at 10:24

    Once again, this story comes down to Leadership. Cllr Campbell needs to set the tone and appoint the staff to reflect that tone. She needs to sort herself out and hire one or two key people who can administer in the right way give residents the service that we deserve and pay for.

    Come on dizzy, raise your game!

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  8. More rubbish in the Hornet

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    Replies
    1. Here we go again. The only thing worse than weird Kirsty Tobin would be to replace her with expelled Cllr Mathew Palmer

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  9. Is Palmer now back in the Party

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  10. Big girls blouse12 March 2020 at 21:06

    Looks like Kirsty Tobin has found the perfect platform!

    ReplyDelete

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