Bristol City Council Buries Audit Report: Democracy as Performance Art.
Grant Thornton findings withheld until days before scrutiny meeting - ICO enforcement notice for FOI failures on same agenda.
Bristol City Council has achieved something genuinely impressive: hosting a meeting about accountability whilst ensuring nobody can actually hold them accountable.
The Audit Committee meets on Tuesday, 25th November at 2 pm. Five days beforehand, Grant Thornton’s 2MB technical audit report still hasn’t been published. “To follow,” says the agenda, as if this were normal rather than democratic sabotage dressed as procedure.
The Timeline Scam.
Standard public forum deadlines: 19th November (questions), 21st November (statements). The council helpfully extended the Grant Thornton deadline to Monday, 24th November.
How magnanimous. How transparent.
Residents get perhaps 72 hours - including a weekend - to read, understand, and challenge a complex financial audit covering institutional failures, value-for-money assessments, and the first independent assessment of Green administration governance.
You can’t formulate evidence-based challenges to institutional failures in three days. That’s the point.
What They’re Hiding.
Grant Thornton’s most recent value-for-money assessment identified significant weaknesses in Bristol City Council’s arrangements. From the ISA 260 report you provided:
“Significant weaknesses in arrangements for financial sustainability and the management of demand-led services and for arrangements to effectively reduce the DSG deficit were identified.”
“Significant weaknesses in arrangements for social housing standards and non-major planning applications were identified.”
In plain English: The council is institutionally failing at managing its finances, fixing its schools budget crisis (£58m deficit heading to £128m), maintaining social housing properly, and processing planning applications.
The current audit covers April 2024-March 2025: eleven months of Green Party governance. What progress has been made? What new problems have emerged? You’d need time to read the findings to know.
They’re ensuring you don’t have that time.
The Delicious Irony.
Item 13 on the same agenda: Freedom of Information failures
The Information Commissioner’s Office has issued an enforcement notice against Bristol City Council for systematic FOI failures - not providing information to people in a timely manner.
They’re discussing this regulatory bollocking at the same meeting where they’ve failed to provide the audit report in a timely manner for public scrutiny.
The enforcement notice sits beside the demonstration of continued failure. It’s transparency about lack of transparency. Meta-incompetence.
The Pattern of Advanced Incompetence.
This follows the perfected Green administration template:
Eagle House Youth Club: Promised to reopen as a community space. Planning demolition instead.
Climate Emergency: Declared in 2018, target 2030. Seven years later, high risk of failure. Claiming victory anyway.
Housing Promises: 1,000 new council homes annually. Sold 1,222 existing homes instead.
Democratic Accountability: Significant weaknesses in multiple areas identified. Published report too late for meaningful scrutiny.
The formula is flawless:
Promise everything
Deliver nothing
Blame someone else
Maintain moral superiority throughout
The Public Forum Gaming.
If you think you might want to question the Grant Thornton report, you must hold a public forum slot “in reserve” - preventing you from questioning other agenda items you’ve actually had time to read.
Restriction through anticipation. Democratic engagement as Schrödinger’s participation - simultaneously available and impossible.
What Proper Process Looks Like.
Democratic accountability requires:
Publish audit reports minimum two weeks beforehand
Give residents time to read, understand, consult
Allow informed questions based on evidence
Committee members get adequate preparation
Meaningful scrutiny happens
Bristol City Council provides:
Publish days (possibly hours) before meeting
“Extend” deadline as if this constitutes accommodation
Officers dismiss challenges as “uninformed”
Box ticked, accountability theatre complete
Intent vs Outcome.
Is this deliberate obstruction or monumental incompetence?
Irrelevant.
Your statutory auditor has identified significant institutional failures and you can’t publish the follow-up report with adequate notice. You’re demonstrating exactly the inadequate arrangements they’ve already formally identified.
Whether Machiavellian genius or bumbling dysfunction, the result is identical: democratic accountability rendered meaningless whilst maintaining correct procedural forms.
Bristol City Council has doubled spending on senior management whilst simultaneously demonstrating an inability to perform basic administrative functions to deadline. The Audit Committee date was set months ago. The audit timeline is predictable. Getting documents published with adequate notice isn’t quantum physics - it’s Administration 101.
What Happens Tuesday?
Grant Thornton presents findings. Committee members ask questions they’ve not prepared. Officers will say:
“Challenging circumstances”
“Making progress”
“Complex issues”
What they won’t say:
“Here’s exactly what we’ve done about each institutional failure”
“Here’s measurable progress on specific metrics”
“Here’s why you should trust us”
Because you can’t be held accountable for specific failures if nobody’s had time to identify and challenge them.
The Performance.
Let’s be clear about what’s happening here:
You’re SO committed to transparency, you publish reports nobody has time to read. You’re SO committed to democratic accountability, you’re discussing an ICO enforcement notice for information failures whilst simultaneously demonstrating those exact failures.
That’s not governing - that’s PERFORMANCE ART.
The Bristol Greens have perfected advanced incompetence - systematically good at being bad whilst maintaining all correct procedural forms.
The Bottom Line.
Bristol City Council’s external auditor has formally declared the institution inadequate at managing finances, fixing the schools budget crisis, maintaining social housing, and processing planning applications.
These failures affect whether children with special needs get proper education, whether vulnerable tenants live in safe homes, and whether the council remains solvent.
They deserve proper scrutiny.
Instead: transparency theatre. All correct democratic forms with none of the actual substance. Reports published too late, deadlines “extended” inadequately, processes designed to prevent rather than facilitate accountability.
Bristol City Council has created a system that LOOKS like accountability whilst being specifically designed to PREVENT accountability. They’re not hiding failures - they’re performing transparency about them.
Welcome to Bristol - where Greens promise everything, deliver nothing, blame everyone else, and somehow still think they’re the good guys.
You couldn’t make it up. But you don’t have to - they’re doing it for you.
The Almighty Gob | Bristol Blogger| Local Politics & More.
Subscribe at thealmightygob.com for investigative journalism that cuts through political rhetoric with sardonic analysis.
Key Facts:
Audit Committee: Tuesday 25th November 2025, 2pm
Grant Thornton Report: Unpublished as of 20th November
Public Forum Deadline: Extended to 24th November midday
Significant Weaknesses: Identified in financial sustainability, DSG deficit reduction, social housing standards, and planning applications
Current Audit Period: April 2024-March 2025 (11 months Green governance)
ICO Enforcement Notice: Formal action for FOI failures on same agenda.
Further Reference
Audit Committee Meeting Agenda (25th November 2025):
https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=11921&x=1
Grant Thornton ISA 260 Audit Findings Report 2024-25 (Appendix 1):
https://democracy.bristol.gov.uk/documents/s119877/9%20Appendix%201%20Grant%20Thornton%20ISA%20260%20Audit%20Findings%20Report%202024-25.pdf
Note: At the time of publication (21st November 2025), the Grant Thornton report may not yet be available. Check the agenda page for updates.