#Bristol: A Tale of Two Wastes.
While one takes out the rubbish, the other takes out the budget.
The shocking truth behind Bristol City Council's financial crisis, from golden handshakes to failed projects, as seen in the latest Bristol Live reports.
When we talk about Bristol news and current affairs, our minds usually go to one place: the overflowing bins, the litter on the streets, and the general mess that Bristol Waste is, well, allegedly responsible for dealing with. But a new report from the Bristol Live news team suggests our local government has a much bigger problem with a different kind of waste—the kind that comes with jaw-dropping salaries, golden handshakes, and catastrophic financial blunders that make the cost of cleaning our streets look like pocket change.
Let’s break down how the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) and Bristol City Council are spending (and losing) your money.
The Interim Chief Exec: A Six-Figure Stint for 10 Weeks’ Work, Seriously?
Imagine making over £120,000 for less than 10 weeks of work. That's exactly what interim chief executive Richard Ennis did last year for WECA. His salary, combined with a tidy £4,774 for hotel expenses, equates to an annual rate of over £658,000. That's more than double his predecessor's salary and, according to a local councillor, "like winning the lottery." The only catch? The long-suffering taxpayer gets to buy the ticket.
And it gets worse. Because these high-flying interim directors are hired through third-party agencies, the actual cost to the public purse is even higher. The accounts are so opaque that even qualified accountants consulted by Bristol Live couldn't figure out the full picture.
Golden Handshakes Galore: The Cost of Saying Goodbye.
It's not just WECA's chiefs cashing in. Bristol City Council has also been busy spending your money on "golden handshakes." Last year, the cost of paying off disgruntled staff shot up by £300,000, even though the number of staff leaving with a payoff dropped.
The council forked out almost £1.47 million in severance packages, with two individuals walking away with a staggering £157,000 and £122,000 each. The average golden handshake now sits at over £28,000—a far cry from the £15,000 average just a few years ago. One could be forgiven for thinking that it pays to get fired from the council.
The Bristol £50k Club: Austerity, What Austerity?
Kerching, kerching, there's more! While the council claims austerity is the word of the day, there appears to be little evidence of pay restraint for its own employees. New figures reveal that the number of Bristol City Council staff earning a salary of over £50,000 increased by almost a half last year—from 488 to a whopping 722. And it's not just a one-off, as this followed a similar 35% hike the year before. The council’s excuse? A "nationally agreed annual pay award."
So, while residents hear about cuts to services, the number of employees in the highest pay brackets continues to balloon.
A Question of Value for Money: Who Earns Their Keep?
This brings us to the most damning question of all. According to Bristol City Council's own Pay Policy Statement, the lowest-paid employees in the city are on the Real Living Wage, which for 2024/25 works out to just over £23,000 a year.
On the one hand, you have bin collectors, street cleaners, and council administrators earning that modest sum to keep the city functioning. Their work is tangible, visible, and utterly essential.
On the other hand, you have an interim chief executive who got paid £120,664 for less than 10 weeks of work, a council that paid out £1.47 million to employees who left, and a new class of almost 722 high-earning staff on salaries over £50,000 a year. Their role? Managing the "organisational chaos" that landed the council on the brink of administrative measures in the first place.
So, for the long-suffering Bristol council tax payer, who gives better value for money? Is it the street cleaner whose efforts make the city habitable, or the director who gets a six-figure golden handshake because they couldn't get along with the mayor?
The £1.9 Million Question: What Could Have Been?
These eyebrow-raising payouts are happening against a backdrop of wider organisational chaos. Auditors have noted that WECA's high exit costs (over £475,000) were an attempt to "stabilise the organisation," which had been in special measures due to "poor relationships" between senior officers and the former mayor, Dan Norris.
When you add WECA's £475,000+ in exit payoffs to Bristol City Council's £1.47 million in golden handshakes, you get a grand total of £1,945,000. That's almost £2 million of your money that vanished into bureaucratic black holes and severance packages.
It’s little wonder the council finds itself verging on administrative measures with a mounting debt of over £229 million. Yet, as the city teeters on the brink of financial ruin, the ruling Green Party Bristol seems more preoccupied with pretty coloured road painting and oversized floral planters. It's a desperate attempt to plug the gaping hole in the budget, but instead of focusing on what really matters, they’re trying to charge community groups for the audacity of simply enjoying a patch of public grass. When you're busy paying people to leave, you have to find new and inventive ways to squeeze every last penny out of the people who actually want to stay and, you know, live here.
So, what could that money have done for you, the Bristol council tax payer? Here’s my very rough calculation.
Pothole Paradise: At an estimated £50 a pop, that's enough to fill over 38,000 potholes across the city! Imagine smoother commutes, fewer flat tyres, and safer cycling.
Better Buses: That nearly £2 million could have subsidised several key bus routes for an entire year, preventing cuts, increasing frequency, or even lowering your fares.
Playground Power: We could have built over 15 brand-new, modern children's playgrounds across Bristol, giving our kids safe, fun places to play, or maintained hundreds of existing parks for an extended period.
Community Support: The funds could have provided thousands of hours of crucial home care for our elderly and disabled residents or kept several vital community libraries open for years.
A Tiny Thank You: If simply distributed among Bristol's 200,000 households, it would have provided a small but appreciated council tax rebate of almost £10 per household.
The Real Waste: Millions Down the Drain.
While the recent staff payouts are infuriating, they're merely symptoms of a deeper, more systemic problem. Over the past five years, Bristol City Council has mastered the art of losing truly staggering sums of public money on grandiose, failed projects.
Bristol Energy Blunder: The undisputed champion of squandered funds is Bristol Energy, the council's ill-fated venture into the energy market. This catastrophic failure alone cost taxpayers £36.5 million. Auditors didn't mince words, condemning the council’s decision-making as "inadequate."
Bristol Beacon's Budget Black Hole: The refurbishment of the Bristol Beacon has seen costs spiral out of control. What started as an initially promised £10 million project has ballooned to an eye-watering £84 million. That's not a renovation; it's a financial sinkhole.
MetroBus Misery: Millions of pounds have been poured into the MetroBus project, yet some routes still sit conspicuously empty, serving as concrete monuments to questionable planning.
The £229 Million Debt: Let's not forget the colossal £229 million in unpaid debt the council is currently on the hook for, including uncollected council tax, unpaid fines, and unpaid rent. This isn't just "debt"; it's money that should be funding services, not accumulating interest.
It's clear that in Bristol, the real money is made not by working hard, but by leaving, or by simply presiding over colossal failures. And we, the taxpayers, are footing the bill—all while waiting for our bins to be collected and our roads to be fixed. Perhaps the council should be focusing less on pretty paint and more on the kind of waste that actually stinks, both literally and financially, just a thought.