IT'S A TRU (LY) HARROWING STORY IN ALL OUR COUNCILS
Spending watchdog disclaims government’s accounts for the first time
The National Audit Office stated: “Just over 10% (43) of England’s 426 local authorities submitted reliable data to the WGA. Of the near 90% of local authorities that failed to submit reliable data, 46% (196) submitted information that hasn’t been audited, and 44% (187) did not submit any data at all.”
Society in the UK, on the whole, works.
Majority of people that work within UK councils and public services are trying to do something decent, often against the odds.
- They’re underpaid, over-emailed, and juggling legacy software with live crises.
- They know the names of the rough sleepers.
- They remember which pensioner needs their medication dropped off during snow.
- They get shouted at for decisions they didn’t make, and keep going anyway.
- So where, one wonders, does it go wrong?
People make mistakes, it human, it’s when things go wrong and needs correction, that’s when the trouble starts
Every local concern deserves a fair, timely resolution. This site gathers three decades of public evidence showing how unresolved issues are carried forward through fragmented governance, unclear accountability, and weak oversight. Use the paths below to explore the evidence, understand the system, or examine the long-term pattern.
A closer look at the bureaucracy
Standards System Unravelling.
A closer look at the bureaucracy, waste, and accountability inside England’s councils, Government discussions has been going on for 30+ yrs and reveals it’s time to solve the problems with Local Councils. We share 30 Yrs of media calls that helped, but did not go far enough and demand an independent standards committee for England
2001 - 2012 The standards board was active on our behalf
2001 - 2012 Complaints decreased, ability to apply Nolan increased!
2012 The standards board was abolished!
2012 things got worse when The standards board was abolished!
2012 - 2025 Complaints increased, ability to apply Nolan decreased!
2026 - What’s Happening?
30 Years of discussions
For three decades, government reviews, select committees, and white papers have nudged toward the same conclusion: local government standards need independent oversight.
And yet, after the Standards Board for England was abolished in 2012, nothing truly replaced it. Just a procession of consultations and reports—each one inching forward, then getting filed away.
Hidden Drains in Local Councils
Local councils often function in silos. Different departments duplicate work, ignore each other’s efforts, and waste public money.
This isn’t just inefficiency—it’s a design flaw. Reviews flag it.
Reports groan under its weight. But still, no meaningful reform. Without independent scrutiny, dysfunction becomes institutionalised.
Media Outcry → Rhetoric
Scandals erupt.
Reporters swarm. Ministers promise change.
Then? Nothing.
This page tracks the well-rehearsed pantomime: outrage, performative reviews, and a quiet return to business as usual. Meanwhile, ethical failings fester unresolved, unexamined, and unrepentant.
The Investigators tool kit allows you to see Inside YOUR councils paperwork
A closer look at the bureaucracy, waste, inside YOUR council.
This is an investigative lens to help you cut through the “Promises” and find the structural fault lines in your own council.
Evidence is pulled directly from published documents, council’s own words, their audit papers, their peer reviews, and their governance statements.
COUNCILS: The Facts
Waste through Silo Working
The “Tech Mirage.” Councils spend £billions on “Digital Transformation,” yet many still struggle with fragmented systems that can’t find a document “when the moon is full.” See how outdated IT is used as a shield to avoid accountability.
Harrowing Complaints System
Follow the “Hidden Drain.” This tool translates complex financial reports into plain English. Find out where your council tax is actually going—and more importantly, where it’s being lost to “black hole” investments and unmanaged deficits.
Serious + Comical
Where civic dysfunction becomes tragic farce. Councils should be more transparent and not so difficult to navigate.
Have you ever tried to complain? the system is built to protect not solve problems
Central public register of losses
Dedicated to councils that have lost or wasted money due to mistakes, bad decisions, or mismanagement.
The available mechanisms and bodies do track and report on such issues in fragments, and normally the public only become aware when the press get involved.
Harrowing Complaints System
The local council complaints system is a Kafkaesque labyrinth: exhausting, repetitive, and designed to dissuade.
Before the Standards Board was abolished (2001–2012), complaints steadily decreased. Since 2012 complaints have surged.
Coincidence?
Democracy must be. Not perform, not posture.
It must arm itself not with swords but with safeguards: education, empathy, transparency, and fair justice that doesn’t wait for applause.
Otherwise, the curtain rises again on the same tragic farce, and your grandchildren will be paying the bill for these mistakes that are simple to correct.
The Stage – A Tru(LY) Harrowing Story
A bureaucratic tragicomedy.
The Truly Harrowing Story’ illustrates how the Nolan Principles and implementing simple changes could significantly reduce wasted public funds.
This fictional account combines examples from “inside the paperwork” “It’s Harrowing” “Yet Serious comical” sections.
The story focuses on how community disputes (The bane of Councils nationally” can quickly escalate, embroil the local council, councillors and the community.
Meet Roastminster Borough Council
A fictional place where councillors solemnly pledge loyalty to the Nolan Principles before rewriting them in committee.
This is a civic drama, drawing from every part of the campaign:
- The absurd complaints processes
- The digital disasters
- The squandered money
- The ethical void
Community disputes escalate. Accountability collapses. Everyone believes in “standards”… but no one agrees who gets to enforce them.
This is not a satire of one council. It’s a national story. A repeating system failure. And it’s happening again.
The Story That Wrote Itself - We Just Watched and Took Notes
Disclaimer:
A Tru (LY) Harrowing Story could not possibly be based on real-life events, if only because the staggering absurdity, bureaucratic blunders, and theatrical incompetence it depicts would defy belief in any functioning democracy.
A Tru (LY) Harrowing Story is a creation, assembled for dramatic, satirical, and cathartic purposes.
Any resemblance to actual persons, councils, councillors, solicitors, organisations (multinational or otherwise), or public bodies is purely coincidental, unintentional, and entirely the product of parallel absurdities.
Please interpret all events as fictional satire no matter how uncomfortably familiar they may seem.
Roastminster Borough Council
Roastminster Borough Council is a fictional authority used in the Tru (LY) Harrowing Stage.
Any resemblance to a real council is merely the multiverse slipping a line, if this sounds familiar please read the disclaimer.
The play is set in the open-plan offices of RoastMinster, where the WowSize-O-N-I-Meter™ is waiting.
A place where governance struts, frets, vanishes, reappears, and occasionally rewrites itself before your very eyes, based on published and real life evidence.
- Probably the longest and most expensive community dispute ever.
- is it an offence to use the system to for personal gain?
- Does bullying come in different guises
- Is Confirmation bias a real thing?
Satire following the waste
From the past, Shakespeare arrives to find a tragedy more complex than his own: the tragedy of “Council Process.”
From the 80s, Marty McFly crashes in, realising that the problems he thought were fixed decades ago are still happening today.
Moment later Doc Brown turned up, clutching a clipboard and demanding to know who authorised the risk assessment for a billion-pound failure.
They collided en route, scooped up old and newly published documents as gravitational debris, and were spat out into an open-plan office of RoastMinster Council Borough.
A Tru (LY) Harrowing Story - The Story That Wrote Itself
A modern play based on Shakespeare's works
Intertwined, with life in the modern day hustle and bustle, jealously, traditional scull-duggery, and passion for people.Your Grandchildren
if we don’t fix it now, our children and grandchildren will face the consequences.
They’ll inherit a public system. still be fighting the same battles unless independent oversight for Councillors and councils is set up, to help make things fair.
- No one is accountable
- The public can’t afford to challenge injustice
- The complaints system are not fit for purpose, overworked or broken beyond repair.
- Let’s give our future something better than recycled failure.
You Are the Wild Card
Want to make a difference? This page is for action.
- Share this campaign
- Whistleblow safely
- Submit local council stories
- Push for independent standards enforcement
No change comes without pressure. Be the one who pushes.
#FreeNolan
Why this matters—to you, and to future generations
Scandal. Outcry. Rhetoric. Then… silence.
In England, there is no truly independent body overseeing local councillors and councils.
When ethical breaches make headlines, the media descends, ministers murmur about “looking into things,” and the Nolan Principles are briefly name-checked. But when the spotlight fades, so do the promises. We’re left with the same fragile systems—unreformed and unaccountable.