Tuesday 10 June 2025 – Liberty and the Existential Crisis of a Government Officer

The Rhino (“Social Value Manager”) for Related Argent has tried to convince me and the council’s Employment and Skills Steering Group (ESSG) that they are working on an Employment and Skills Action Plan (ESAP) for the next phase of the Brent Cross Town development: an £8bn development of 6,800 new homes and office space being built over the next 15 years.  The ESSG, chaired by the Rhino and represented by the council by the Assistant Director of Brent Cross Cricklewood Regeneration Scheme (AD), was convinced by the initial draft of their tortuous yet vapid plan, but I remain still to be persuaded (see Gaslighting).

As I have explained above, the council owns the land to the south of the North Circular Road (to the north of it being Brent Cross Shopping Centre) and Related Argent, a conglomeration of British and American investors, wants to build flats on it.  They have entered into a “Joint Venture” (JV) whereby Related Argent invests the upfront money for the first phases of construction.  Sales of these flats will be used by the JV to fund the subsequent phases and so the cycle continues for two decades until all of the land is built on.  Another reason for phasing construction is that developers don’t want to flood the housing market with new homes because the increased supply will bring down house prices; the main reason for the Government’s homes-building policy, and that’s no good for anyone (apart from the Government who want people to be able to afford somewhere to live), so they must be rationed and built over a generation to maximise the sales revenue.  And minimising upfront investment and maximising revenue is the prime consideration for the JV led by the council’s Senior Leadership Team.  The AD has been employed and given her instructions accordingly to assist in directing the development to this end.

Money may be the prime motivator but there are other, social policies that the JV must consider.  And they must be considered for two reasons:

1.    Democracy: the councillors want to see that the Barnet residents they represent benefit from their neighbourhood being developed, and

2.    Planning legislation (S106): English law requires the development of the land and the financial benefit of the developers be mitigated by contributions to society such as social infrastructure for those residents who will be living there, environmental sustainability, affordable housing and that local residents and businesses share the economic benefits of the development such as from the new jobs and contracts created.

Friedrich von Hayek, the libertarian economist, would argue that this socialist approach to economic development is the “road to serfdom”.  We are at the mercy of the uninformed diktats of our overlords.  In a critique of central planning, he argued that free markets, driven by individual actions and the tension of competition, were the most efficient way to allocate resources and co-ordinate economic activity.  Otherwise, a load of men in a room can’t possibly have a mastery of the complex web of knowledge of what finite resources are in demand and, only guided by the self-interested actions of the entrepreneur can the best interests of society be achieved. 

As well as being inefficient, economic planning is detrimental to economic liberty: the freedom of man to do as he pleases.  Once, in a Conservative Party policy meeting, Margaret Thatcher removed her copy of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty from her iconic handbag, slammed it down on the table and unilaterally declared, “This is what we believe!”

This makes me in my role as local government S106 monitoring officer an undesirable authoritarian redirecting valuable resources to where they do not maximise utility.  That Hayek was writing in the mid-20^th century as an alarm to the dangers of the influence of Nazism on the right and Stalinism on the left was a bit lost on Thatcher when she was up at Oxford.  Now it is more widely accepted as a Government policy that, of the homes being built in England for an almost infinite and monied international market, some of it should be earmarked for affordable housing and that this policy does not put us in danger of being starved off our land for the greater good of collectivist farming and become serfs of the Communist state.

As such, the Mayor of London says the minimum affordable homes for major developments in London should be 35% of all those built.  The S106 legal agreement for Brent Cross Cricklewood (BXC) has committed 15% with an “aspiration” to achieve the minimum 35% should they raise enough money from the sales of the properties.  I don’t know how they got this past the Mayor but one does wonder if Hayek still has some lasting influence on our elected men in a room doubting their own knowledge and policies when it actually comes to the crunch.

Additionally, the development is planned to be bult in such a way that the buildings generate net-zero carbon emissions.  Schools are to be built.  And 20% of the jobs created on both the construction and end uses of the buildings will be ringfenced for Barnet residents.  These contributions couldn’t be made in the first phases because the money needed for them would be generated from the sales of the initial new homes, not from the upfront investment from Related Argent.  So no affordable homes would be built, and no budget for employment and skills allocated at first.

This last legislative obligation is the one that concerns me in my role.  The JV must agree an action plan with the council’s S106 Employment & Skills Monitoring Officer (me) before the final planning permission is granted for the next phase of development; that it convinces me that they have a realistic plan to engage and train unemployed Barnet residents into the construction jobs being created in Phase 5E due to commence this autumn.  Five years in, the JV has now sold the earlier phases of “Build To Rent” (BTR) and “market sale” homes, and residents are starting to move in.  This now means they have the revenue to invest in the social contributions including affordable housing, schools and have available the £1.7m committed for skills training for residents for the jobs being created and some of which to be allocated to this next phase Employment and Skills Action Plan (ESAP).

As a quick recap, Related Argent submitted their draft ESAP for Phase 5E of BXC in February in return, on it being approved, for planning permission, I gave feedback to the ESSG why I wasn’t approving it, the Chair for which aggressively rejected my feedback unopposed by the council’s AD present in the meeting before realising after that they do actually need my approval independent of the ESSG.  Then a few weeks passed with the Rhino convincing my manager that he always accepted that further work was needed on the ESAP and that he and I were working on it.  That it was submitted by RA in February as a final draft, that he shouted down my objective feedback in the ESSG meeting and that I told my manager I wasn’t working on it because RA is not interested in Employment & Skills, he chose to ignore because it was becoming too confusing for him otherwise (see Anarchy, Lawlessness and Being Nice).

The council’s lead planner for BXC decided it was most appropriate he give the feedback where it related to planning obligations, so I sent my feedback notes on the ESAP to him.  However, he inexplicably never got round to sending them despite RA’s planners chasing him for it, most recently on 16 May, and my manager chasing him on 27 May.  On that same day, the Rhino shared with me in passing that, once RA had secured planning permission for Phase 5E, they will be selling two of the three plots to a supported care homes provider to build assisted living housing and that they will be appointing their own developer, Halcyon, who will be employing the contractors and construction workers, and RA will have no involvement whatsoever in this for which they are still waiting for approval for the plan for it.  The Rhino hadn’t seen a problem with this.  On informing my manager of this titbit, he replied to me,

“Not helpful is it?”

 

“It’s not”, I replied, “There is a definite feel that RA is just ticking boxes and not really trying to do E&S and having their nose put a bit out of joint by we [me] asking them to actually do it.”

 

His response was, “We [you] just have to keep pushing!”  He said this to me before in February when we received the disappointing ESAP, pushing me to keep pushing: “We have to keep pushing that rock up the hill and eventually we’ll get over the hump.”

What an uninspiring metaphor to use!  I replied, “Sisyphus didn’t get his rock to the top though?”

Unmoved, he replied, “I will Google Sisyphus this evening.  Have a good one.”

 

Sisyphus was cursed by the Gods, though.  Hades doesn’t have a vendetta against me.  It should be possible to plan to train and employ local residents into these jobs being created.  The Mayor of London has a whole plan written in creating the construction and green skills for Londoners to build the homes he has targeted London boroughs to build.  He has funded The Skills Centre and we have one in the borough in Edgware.  Barnet & Southgate College and West London College have construction courses.  We have a job brokerage service dedicated to S106 jobs we commissioned Barnet Homes to deliver.  And Jobcentre Plus is going through another iteration of state-sponsored cruelty with a new Labour Government to Get Britain Working, this time relabelled Connect to Work.  This shouldn’t be beyond the wit of man. 

But it may be beyond the wit of a senior council officer, especially if she represents the landowner with the diametric remit to maximise the amount of money made from this venture.  The AD intervened after I emailed the lead planner updating him that I have only just learned that the JV intends to sell two plots on the granting of planning permission and this affects the ESAP as well as my feedback of it that he is yet to pass on to RA.

Copying her and my manager in, the email I sent to the lead planner on 28 May was:

“Hi [lead planner for BXC],

“[My manager] and I have a few questions about the Economic Development action-planning and reporting on some of the plots on [BXC].  Could we arrange a quick catch-up to chat about them…

“I had an update from [the Rhino] from RA who mentioned to me in passing last week that, once the [planning permission] had been granted for Phase 5E, plots 22 and 23 will be sold commercially to the assisted living provider, Audley Group, the developer being Halcyon.  As a result, RA will have no line management of these plots’ construction.  However, the [planning permission] is dependent on the Phase 5E ESAP being agreed and my feedback is based largely on there being insufficient detail relating to jobs forecasts and funded actions.  But, if what [the Rhino] told me is correct, RA are not in a position to forecast or action anything on these two plots.

“How does this affect the JV in terms of we agreeing an ESAP prior to [granting planning permission]?

“Similarly, plot 25 (I don’t know which ESAP this relates to) I understand has been sold to Fusion Students and the developer is JJ Rhatigan…

“Also, RA is pitching [to my manager] that the ESAP funding [the £1.7m committed to skills development for local residents] is used to fund the fit-out of a property for Brent Cross Recruit…  Obviously spend should be approved by ESSG but we weren’t sure that this budget fits in the context that we don’t have any ESAPs with proposals to otherwise spend the funding on Employment & Skills Actions (what we understood the budget was for).”

“Paul.”

This was me being diplomatic.  The £1.7m was committed to being spent on skills development for local residents so that they could gain some of those jobs being created (the not-insubstantial target being 20% of those jobs).  This investment in local residents benefitting, and to which the Government’s new Get Britain Working policy is dependent to get the ballooning and increasingly unaffordable welfare benefits payments for workless citizens down by giving them the skills to do much needed jobs and not instead relying on immigrants to do them for us, equates to just 0.2% of the budget.  And now RA is pitching to keep that money for themselves to spend on the construction of their own building on the site.  Why they’re pitching it to my manager, the Head of Economy and Skills, is a bit misguided because he has long since been confused about what his role is in affecting how BXC impacts local economy and skills.  But I am clear I am supposed to be ensuring I don’t agree an ESAP if it’s not compliant with the S106 contract.  And this is me giving my assessment to the lead planner and inviting him to talk to me about it.

Instead of the lead planner, the following day, the AD replied:

“Colleagues – the points raised below are pretty fundamental to how we are addressing the employment and skills obligations through the development.  The principle of third party sales has long been established (plot 25 is about to complete!) so I’d like to understand how this principle has been reflected in discussions to date.  The obligations should be passed on to third parties through any sales agreements, as with any other relevant s106 obligations.

“I had also thought the principle of s106 being used for fit out of BXR [Related Argent’s building] was long established.

“Can I please join any call on this as I’d like to understand the current picture more fully so I can assist with next steps.

“Thanks,

“[Assistant Director]”

 

The “points raised below” are mine.  I’m sure we’re all of the understanding that my boss doesn’t quite know whose feet they are at the end of his legs.  The lead planner hasn’t replied yet with his answers to my questions so he may share her understanding of these principles for all she knows.  So, is she addressing me alone as “colleague”?  Can she not bring herself to address such a lowly-ranked officer by my name?  Would she address the Chief Executive as “colleague” or choose a more sycophantic sobriquet?  And is she shouting at me with that exclamation mark!?  Despite the questionable tone, I do agree with her that the points are “pretty fundamental” but they’ve not been addressed by the planning applicant, in this case, represented by her.  These principles are not complicated and are set out in the S106 contract.  It says that the planned approach to deliver the S106 Employment and Skills contributions, including the jobs targets and financial spend, have to be set out in an ESAP and approved by the council’s S106 Employment and Skills Monitoring Officer (me).  They haven’t been.  That I am querying them tells you that they haven’t been.  Therefore, they have not been “established”.  She, in her upper-echelon meetings, might have established they weren’t going to do them, but if that is not agreed in an approved ESAP, she is in breach of the contract, and no-one told me.  My manager might have been told at some stage in the past five years but he certainly hasn’t been paying attention for at least the last eleven months since I started at Barnet.  She is right that the obligations can be passed on in sales agreements when plots are sold, but that doesn’t just include the jobs targets but also the obligation to agree an ESAP to deliver them, including some of the £1.7m that RA has pitched to my boss not to part with.  JJ Rhatigan may have completed plot 25 student accommodation and new students are moving in this September at the start of the new academic year, but they didn’t agree an ESAP, report any job outcomes or she insist RA released any of the £1.7m budget to them for it.  And that RA commissioned Quod to write an ESAP for them to be passed on to Audley Group in a sales agreement to pass on to their appointed developer, Halcyon to manage their supply chain of contractors is so tortuous that it justifies its vapid content because it ain’t getting delivered like it’s a complex game of Telephone anyway.  Luckily, as the S106 contract has it, it’s not just the targets that are passed down sales agreements as the AD implies, but also the obligation to agree an ESAP.  So, according to the principle she herself points out here, there isn’t, and never was, any point in RA drafting the plan in the first place which she sat in the ESSG meeting in February ready and happy to approve had I not kicked up a stink then.

When does efficiency-allocating self-interest become random money-grabbing greed?  Both Hayek and Adam Smith would say when there are no tensions from competing forces such as between the interests of the landowner and the local planning authority.   When is there a conflict of interest if the council is the landowner and the planning applicant and the same council is also the local planning authority?  As I have said previously, it isn’t difficult to separate roles to maintain the integrity and objectivity of officers responsible for making planning decisions and officers in the regeneration teams making development decisions that accord with those planning decisions (see Gaslighting).  But what if the AD in the regeneration team is in the line management of those officers making objective planning decisions and emails them using exclamation marks?  Even if she doesn’t use their actual name, could that be a deliberate act to influence and therefore erode the integrity and objectivity needed to make the planning system work?  In theory, I would have to assume not but stand my ground in the meeting with her to say no to her interpretation of what has “long been established” and, exclamation mark or no, remind her of her obligations lest she is not granted planning permission.

Eric Cartman in Southpark: “Respect my authoritah!

Last Wednesday, on one of my enforced sojourns to the office which my boss is starting to regret (see Reform), in an unplanned opportunity to collaborate that I forced upon him in our new physical proximity, I asked him how my predecessor S106 Monitoring Officer had failed to spot that Related Argent had never reported any S106 contributions in the first five years.  “He’s not that dumb”, I observed.

“He was removed from the process” by the then Executive Director he told me candidly.  Integrity is not a strong point of local authorities with competing interests then.  I fear/welcome the same fate/relief for myself on imposing my theoretical authority on the AD/landowner.

The existential crisis I face, though, is, what’s the point in my being in role if I am not afforded the authority to impose the planning obligations for fear of also being sidelined or dismissed like my predecessor for the sake of the AD’s liberty to do as she pleases?  There’s no point to me doing the job if I don’t, or I can’t do the job I’m employed to do.  In the Banshees of Inisherin, Colm no longer likes his former best friend, Padraic, because he is a dull distraction from his life having meaning by composing music.  He gives him an ultimatum, either he leaves him in peace and doesn’t talk to him any more so that he can concentrate on composing and playing or he will chop off his own fiddle-playing fingers.  After Padraic talks to him to challenge him on this “mental” decision, Colm cuts off his index finger with shears and bounces it off Padraic’s front door.  Siobhan, Padraic’s sister, viewing this merely as a petulant act of spite damning her brother to a life of loneliness on what is a small island (the literal translation of the fictional Inisherin being Ireland Island), challenges Colm on his decision:

Siobhan: What do you need from him, Colm?  To end all this?

Colm: Silence, Siobhan.  Just silence.

S: One more silent man in Inisherin, good-oh!  Silence it is, so.

C: This isn’t about Inisherin.  This is about one boring man leaving another man alone, that’s all.

S: “One boring man”!  Ye’re all fecking boring!  With your piddling grievances over nothing!  Ye’re all fecking boring!  I’ll see he doesn’t talk to you no more.

C: Do.  Else it’ll be all four of them the next time… [indicating his left hand]… not just the one.

S: You’re not serious.  Well that won’t help your fecking music.

C: Aye, we’re getting somewhere now.

Siobhan might not be getting somewhere with his thought process and instead, to her, this seemed like an act of pointless spite on a claustrophobic island in the Atlantic but, like with Colm getting somewhere in making the point about his strategy for facing the dilemma of either having a reason to have existed or trading this for having no life achievements at all in order to enforce his authority to choose whether he pursues a legacy, if the AD doesn’t respect the separation of duties in the planning process and my only authority to challenge her, my cause is not going to be helped whether I choose to enforce S106 or not enforce S106 and the banshees may as well portend my demise.  To Siobhan’s frustration, Colm is more gnomic than I am.  But, maybe, I thought, the AD will respect the separation of duties and my subsequent authority over her.  So, it follows a warped kind of logic to proverbially cut off my playing fingers by challenging my Assistant Director’s understanding of what has “long been established” in my meeting with Planning that she intends to police by gatecrashing it under the superficially reasonable guise of “understand[ing] the current picture more fully so I can assist with next steps.”

Today was the meeting with the lead planner for Brent Cross Cricklewood (BXC), the Assistant Director (AD) for BXC and my boss, the Head of Economy & Skills.  The AD didn’t join and my boss kept dropping off the call because his laptop keeps restarting in meetings that are too complicated for him to follow.  I asked the lead planner who was responsible for the planning obligations once plots of land had been or will be sold to third parties and they appoint their own developers, in this case so far, Chase New Homes, JJ Rhatigan and Halcyon?  “They’re responsible” he explained.  Then the AD joined, late and without excuse or apology.  But that’s ok; who are we to her that she has to expend the effort of courtesy on us underlings?  In any case, she wasn’t invited; she invited herself and if she wants to miss a chunk of it, that’s her problem alone.  However, catching the tail end of the planner’s conclusion about responsibility, she posted to the chat a wordy explanation about indemnity clauses in third-party contracts and leases that I didn’t get the chance to read properly until after the meeting but basically concurred that she wasn’t responsible for economic development contributions on land that the Joint Venture, led by the council and directed by her, had sold to third parties.  That the council promised its residents they would benefit from the “£8bn of investment” in their neighbourhood didn’t seem to be her concern.

I went on to ask the planner my queries about the Employment & Skills budget and whether it shouldn’t be spent on Employment & Skills rather than the construction costs of one of Related Argent’s (RA’s) buildings, especially since RA has never included in their ESAP how the use of that building is going to support Employment & Skills delivery.  With the Head of Economy & Skills’ screen blank, the AD interjected saying she was uncomfortable explaining to me without him being present.  Uncomfortable silence.  No-one invited her and no-one asked her.  If she wants to listen in, she’s welcome, but we’re discussing the obligations in planning terms; the grown-ups are talking now so, wordlessly, she understood that she is welcome to shut up and listen if she wants to stay on the call.  So, instead, she chose to lower herself enough to assert herself to me to explain it to a lowly Principal Officer.  It had, she said, been discussed and agreed by the Employment & Skills Steering Group (ESSG) about twelve months ago and before my time at the council that the budget would be spent on the fit-out of the building.  “And it’s already being spent”, she said with an evil smile.

It was time to stand up to her.  “That may be”, I replied, “but it’s not necessarily up to the ESSG or JV to unilaterally determine this because the council also has a separate duty to monitor that the planning applicant is compliant with the S106 agreements.  According to the S106 agreement, the means of establishing how the contributions will be made, in this case how the money will be spent, must be agreed between the JV and the council in the ESAPs, and it hasn’t been, including the last one for Phase 5A twelve months ago.”  Silence.  Unlike with Padraic, she didn’t challenge me on being mental.

This morning, I attended my first Housing, Economy and Placemaking directorate All Team Meeting.  Hosted by the Executive Director, we did an in-real-time survey of staff using Slido (see The Little Things).  One of the survey questions was, “What are you most worried about over the next 12 months?”  Using the QR code on the screen, we were to log on to the Slido session on our mobiles and enter a one-word answer.  “This is completely anonymous”, the Director assured us, “a safe place to give feedback.”

“Leadership” I entered enigmatically.  On the Teams meeting screen, a word cloud started to form and my entry popped up.  Then it got bigger because I wasn’t the only one to enter it.  “Leadership!”, the Director exclaimed, recognising his main role was entered under worries his staff has.  “If anyone wants to comment on what they’ve put and start a conversation, please feel free.”  But he just said this was anonymous and a safe space and no-one said anything.  I don’t think anyone was particularly trying to protect their anonymity, or even shy to explain to the whole directorate what they meant by their one-word worry, but these things are often complicated and nuanced and hard to immediately explain succinctly and coherently to a virtual room full of people when you have just been asked to express an emotion off the cuff.  I didn’t know what the context was why others had entered “leadership”, but I knew why I put it: I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing.  He doesn’t make it clear.  And nor do his ADs.  There is little direction.  Why aren’t we getting jobs committed to our unemployed residents by businesses in the council’s supply chain when we have a written Social Value policy?  He has never said.  Why is your AD pushing in the opposite direction to the remit you gave me when you employed me?  I understand there are real-world tensions that need to be balanced, for example between the logistics and costs of construction and the need to include people and businesses with little experience to help, but this is more the reason we need careful direction and leadership.  This is why he is paid the big bucks.  But we never have any and instead, meetings are reduced to ugly battles of wit between staff and the senior leaders as was the case this afternoon.  I don’t know if this is what my colleagues also meant by “leadership” as their main worry but the Director was tantalised by the feedback and wanted to drill down, but the only means once a year he has for talking to his staff, that it is online and en mass and asking for their feedback one word at a time and anonymously, is a frustratingly poor mechanism to choose by which to, ironically, lead his directorate.  He added that, “I want you to be clear what you should be doing and, if you feel that you need clarification, then that is what the Senior Leadership Team is there to help you with.” 

It’s just that it’s not.  We never hear from them.  We systematically don’t have the information we need to do our jobs, for example, my learning in passing and after 11 months working on the BXC project, that selling plots of land commercially and transferring the S106 obligations in third party sales agreements is a major part of the regeneration strategy.  With the tension she created, I did not dare ask her for these agreements with S106 obligations passed on and she certainly didn’t offer to share the,m which would have provided clarity to the staff she is supposed to be leading.  When were you going to tell the S106 monitoring officer about these arrangements?  And why did I have to find it out on my own?  And, when I did and asked to speak to the lead planner about the implications to my doing my job that they employed me to do, why did the AD not think, “Oh no, a member of staff hasn’t got all the information he needs to his job without worry” but, instead, intervened to contain my professional curiosity and get tetchy with me when I sought clarification from Planning and discuss with the lead planner the implications for the council delivering their commitments?  Is that what he means by “leadership”?  Was this what my colleagues also meant?  It remains tantalising and unexamined for both me and the Director and that’s two hours this morning I’m never getting back.

Word cloud from our meeting this morning about things staff members said, in “one word” they are “most worried about over the next 12 months”.

I will keep doing my job, though, at least until I’m relieved of it like my predecessor.  I will keep pushing as my boss wants me to.  But there comes a point when this just seems too futile if my leaders don’t care and I can never get the rock to the top of the hill no matter how long I push it, and this was the case in my jobs at Hammersmith & Fulham and Enfield as well.  If councils don’t want their S106 monitored, I can do that at any council, not just Barnet.  Albert Camus said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.  Why?  Because Sisyphus owned his fate.  In the absurdity, in the repetition, he found meaning; not in the result, but in the act itself.  In pushing, resisting, continuing.”

Well Camus’s a masochistic eejit; it was meant to be a curse.  Camus said, and Hayek might recognise as an irrational desire to control the economy, that absurdism is “the conflict between humans’ innate desire for meaning and the indifferent, silent universe in which we exist.”  It is the “divorce” between staff members’ longing for order and meaning and the Senior Leadership Team’s lack thereof.

“Dear Padraic,

“I am safely ensconced in the mainland and, Padraic, it's lovely here.  There's a river running past my window as I write, and the people already seem less bitter and mental.  I'm not sure why, but I think it's 'cause a lot of them are from Spain.  Mostly, I wanted to say there's a spare bed here for you, Padraic.  And with the war almost over, I think there'd be work for ya here.  Because there's nothing for you on Inisherin.  Nothing but more bleakness and grudges and loneliness and spite and the slow passing of time until death.  And sure, you can do that anywhere.”