Friday 3 October 2025 – None is Good Enough

IT support people have a technical acronym for a certain type of fault: PICNIC (Problem In Chair, Not in Computer).  But, sometimes, the problem is in computer and sometimes even with the support of it.  The week before last, I was on my holidays and I received a call on my mobile from an unknown number.  Uncharacteristically, I answered it and heard what sounded like a small animal grunting but, before I hung up in disgust, I thought I could make out the words “file” and “fault” amongst the bestial noises elicited.

On my last day at work before flying off, I had a typical problem when trying to open a pdf document on the shared drive saved there back in 2022.  It wouldn’t open.  When I double-clicked on it, just nothing happened as if there was no file there at all to open, just the Adobe thumbnail icon.

It’s just an archive folder on the drive, I thought, and maybe they don’t open after so much time; I’ll just ask for the original author to send it to me again, no big deal.  But, as I sat gazing at it, although my IT technical knowledge is not great, it just looked like a normal file thumbnail in a yellow folder on the business’s shared drive.  I couldn’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t open.  I needed the file for business purposes.  And it was saved by the author for that purpose; for it to be opened and read again at a later date.  That’s what saving a file is.  I wasn’t aware of any statute of limitations on saving a file and opening it again.  If it was an archive, there was no indication of it and, even if so, why didn’t I get an error message when trying to open it saying it has been archived, “please contact your administrator”?  That didn’t happen, it just did nothing.  What was I looking at?  Curious, I raised a ticket on the IT support system, “File won’t open”, entered the name of the file and the route of the address it was in, hit submit, logged off and went on holiday.

And now, on holidays, I think there is someone from IT Support calling me about it.  Obviously I’m not sure because they didn’t introduce themselves but, instead, made so little effort in articulating words, I thought it might be a hedgehog snuffling in some undergrowth that had somehow managed to dial my number, except for making out the words “file” and “fault” with the slightest upward intonation on the end suggesting the two words were part of a question.  If this was IT Support, then what possible reason was there to seek further direction?  The “file won’t open”.  This is the name of the file.  This is where it is.  I have no further information.  It’s your server!  If it was IT Support, I wasn’t going be able to provide him with any more information to be able to help him in his job, so I said to him (or a hedgehog which I hadn’t ruled out at this stage) that I was on holidays and that they could email me and I would respond on my return next week and, hearing no further human-like utterances in response, I hung up.

On my return to work, the ticket had been closed so I got the file from the original author instead.  But I still wanted to know what excuse IT Support had for closing the ticket unresolved.  While away, I had received an email from IT Support Desk on 15 September saying curtly,

“Hi,

“Action Needed

“Please contact me re this issue via teams or bring the device to Colindale IT (Ground Floor) advising prior.

“Desktop Engineer”

 

Right.  Like in The IT Crowd, the Desktop Engineers live in the basement.  After you wend your way down there, there is a locked door with a small slit of a window with a notice on the door saying, “Please knock and wait”.  This was my, and is usually all new members of staff’s, second experience, ever, of other members of staff working for the Council (the first being the security guard – see Office Life), going to collect your laptop on your first day, trying the door you were told to go to but worriedly finding it locked, peering through the small window at this diminutive leprechaun-like man sitting at a desk some way away from the door, knocking tentatively but loudly enough for him to be able to hear, and watching him slowly raise his head, consider you for a few seconds and then slowly lowering his head again returning to whatever he was doing (which I found out later was watching YouTube on his phone).  Will he come to the door?  Is this the waiting bit of the instruction on the notice?  What are you waiting for and how long do you give it until you think no-one is coming?  The notice doesn’t say.  Will it be someone else other than him/it who receives you?  Will someone else have heard your knock given you only knocked loudly enough for the person visible through the slit of a window to hear you, who clearly knows you’re standing outside of a locked door at the prescribed time you advised “prior”?

He does eventually get up and walk bent to the door, dragging a knuckle on the ground, very slowly, and open it enough for him to be standing in the way of you entering, looking up at you silently and blankly.  You’re not sure what’s going on, so you start to explain that you’re here about your laptop as arranged (with him?... with the person in charge of the Igor they have employed to answer the door?).  He leaves the door ajar and limps, silently, back to his desk except to wave vaguely at a chair opposite him as he goes back to his phone.  You sit there wondering what happens next or how long you might be there.  Are you waiting for him?  Is someone else coming?  Do they know you’re here?  You gave a time “prior” but no-one has been told you’re here.

You’re at his mercy because you can’t do anything until you have your laptop and log-in.  This hazing has to be endured on your first day but, thereafter, you learn to question any need to return to the dungeon if at all possible.  The shared drive isn’t on my “device” and nor is the document.  He looking at my physical device I know is not going to solve this particular problem.  If he thinks he can access the file, then he can email it to me just as the author did, adding an explanation about why his devices that he set up don’t work if he thinks that is what the problem is and has the urge to share it.  It’s a dysfunctional relationship between IT Support and user but one they seem happy torturing us with, and I maintain the status quo.

Except, I was curious: what did the gremlin write when closing my ticket on the IT Support portal?  On the 26^th, he closed it writing, “No response multiple contacts”.

Really?  “No response” from me is correct but fails to add the nuance of this particular interaction that the response he asked for was stupid.  As for “multiple contacts”, I think this would be inaccurate even if he took into account all the contacts he has attempted with the bipedal hominins who work in Colindale in his entire career living in the dungeon.  In this case, an incoherent phone call to a user on annual leave and, so, one email that reads like a military telegram sent by Rommel during a particularly busy day in Tobruk.  One contact with an instruction that doesn’t relate to the fault but is just an invite to the dungeon inevitably to be abused is good enough and his work was marked up as done.

The question now, is, can that record be beaten?  What is the minimum amount of work someone can get away with when they have to justify it in writing?

Barbarian, Commodore Amiga (1987): The Desktop Engineer gremlin going to answer the door in IT Support’s dungeon while the other engineers get on with whatever it is they get up to.

So to Brent Cross Town.  After I had finally got a list of people trained and employed on the development after 15 months of mind-boggling mendacity and refusal, and 11 months doing the same to my predecessor S106 Monitoring Officer before me, and still not having a delivery plan that is anything but waffle-lite, the Assistant Director for Brent Cross Cricklewood (regeneration) at the Council wrote in an email to my boss about her thoughts on the Employment & Skills (E&S) performance reported by Joint Venture partner, Related Argent, and the lack of an agreed delivery plan to date and, after she having a meeting about it with one of their directors, relayed back to my boss, “…whilst performance is exposed to be so low, we are sure that RA will be as keen as us to work towards improving the situation, rather than just pushing back on everything.”

Since we received that delivery plan: the draft Employment and Skills Action Plan (ESAP) from RA in February that I bounced back because it was so rubbish (see Gaslighting), consistently pushing back at any suggestions I actually make on actions it could include, they have not been working from a plan before or since, now nearly eight months later.  As our Chief Executive at Hammersmith & Fulham once shared her wisdom with us: “To fail to plan… is… to fail.  Or something like that.” (see The Little Things).  Sage words, well said, that could be well learned by our AD here.  I love the way her sentence starts so professional, bouncy and positive and confident about her financial partner’s intentions and so quickly towards the end becomes ratty.  I can almost picture her smiling at the start of her sentence before spitting out that last word, everything!!

Exposed by me was, of 6,134 people employed on-site to date since construction commenced in 2019, 3.4% of the workforce have been Barnet residents, of which six apprenticeships, 19 unpaid work experience placements, one previously unemployed resident (a care-leaver referred by the Council’s Education and Learning Service) and £717,900 of the contracts procured going to five local businesses.

What would these figures be had the contractors on this £6.8bn capital project in the heart of the borough done nothing to extend economic development opportunities to our local residents and businesses?  More than this?  Are they going out of their way to exclude our residents and local businesses?  I’m not sure but it has been accepted that this “exposed performance” is the “do-nothing” outcome and so, in lieu of having a plan that anyone can follow, my verified monitoring report has exposed that RA needs to come up with a plan that they can follow.

Let’s explore RA’s responses to my AD’s direct questions (composed by me) about elements of what their plan has been to date and that my boss asked me to respond to to tell him whether their responses made sense.

I asked, “How are the S106 obligations passed on to the various contractors on RA’s plots?”  The AD said she was told by the RA Director that planning obligations were imposed upon contractors by writing an SVER and sharing it with them.

I told my boss I didn’t know what SVER stood for, it’s not a thing and, fundamentally, there should be a “commitment that the S106 obligations are contracted in contractors’ contracts (i.e. in the contracts as opposed to in impenetrable acronyms).

I asked, “How are S106 obligations being passed on to third-party sales plots such as Plot 25 sold [with planning permission on the condition that local residents are trained and employed in jobs created] to developer, Fusion Students, to build student accommodation [see Liberty and the Existential Crisis of a Government Officer]?”  She said, “RA say that third-party plot developers are required under their respective plot agreements to comply with S106 obligations.  However, this is not happening in practice.  EG – Plot 25 with JJ Rhatigan [the contractor commissioned by Fusion], who delivered nothing for E&S and we cannot enforce whilst there are no penalties or remedies that can be applied.”

I asked my boss, in practice, did our AD ask to see RA’s agreed contract with Fusion?  I advised, if it does include a clause to deliver the S106 obligations, then it can be contract-managed and enforced if Fusion didn’t pass on those obligations in their contract with their contracted developer, JJ Rhatigan.

In lieu of RA knowing how to agree and enforce a contract, she shared that, “RA have asked for Barnet Council to lead on convening and chairing Steering Group meetings to ensure that the partnership, reporting, decision making and timings meet local authority requirements.  This is a Joint Venture and as such we should be taking joint responsibility for performance.  This is why we are keen that the ESAP and legal agreements with contractors are clear, compliant and enforceable.  Also, whilst performance is so low, we are sure that RA will be as keen as us to work towards improving the situation, rather than just pushing back on everything.”  (Pushing back on everything has really got up her nose.)

“She means me, doesn’t she?” I asked my manager in our one-to-one today when he shared this response with me.  He said she did.  I can’t lead a mighty conglomeration to do something and expend money on something they don’t want to do if we don’t enforce our planning.  The AD is relying on that my monitoring has exposed that not having a plan has meant they have achieved nothing.  That is true.  However, that their appointed Head of Social Value is a professional scheister and otherwise has no skillset in Social Value delivery is telling that they never had any intention to include local residents and businesses, instead just manage and spin the message to senior leaders at the council.  And it would have worked, too, had that pesky S106 Monitoring Officer not exposed them.  But, relying on shame from being exposed to have appointed scheisters in lieu of Economic Development delivery experts is not going to force them to now comply if these people are shameless, which they are.

So I replied to my boss, “If I’m going to make this happen, RA now need to appoint an actual Head of Social Value who knows how to project-manage and deliver it and get rid of this one now he’s been exposed.”  No reaction so I carried on.  “It’s like, if you have to hammer nails into a piece of wood, you use a hammer.  If you now say you want to saw the wood in half, you don’t say, go get me the hammer!  You look for another tool to use.”

“I already understood your point.”, he replied, a bit pained at my mansplaining.

Good, then, no, I can’t do it unless you give me a saw!”

 

It was left at that.  But later today, he sent an email to the AD promising, “Paul and I will support [the Social Value Manager] and [his gimp – the lead for Brent Cross Recruit] to improve performance over the next 3 months, 6 months and year.”

Will I?  I thought I just said I wouldn’t? I thought I really laboured that point?  Reality doesn’t feature in the work strategic leaders at the council do, only obsequiousness leading to ill-judged promises.

Why don’t we just enforce our planning authority rather than relying on shame?  Just don’t allow Fusion to occupy the site with students until they remedy the lack of contribution with a contribution of a financial payment instead.  Contractually, they don’t have to pay it but, then again, statutorily, we’re not allowed to allow a development to be occupied until it is acceptable in planning terms.

But, seemingly, we as the Local Planning Authority don’t apply our statutory planning authority when it’s our money.  Why is that?  It’s because the council’s stewardship of planning authority, especially when the council is the planning applicant, is a joke.  Marina Hyde commented in the Guardian on Tuesday about Jared Kushner’s stewardship of a statutory body with the authority to enforce democratically-imposed legislation:

“Quick refresher on our boy: he is married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and previously served as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s first administration, taking the opportunity of Trump’s election loss/unfortunate insurrection-fostering to seemingly leave frontline politics and start his own investment firm.

“[…]

“The morning saw the announcement that EA – who make huge franchises like EA FC (Fifa, to anyone who plays it) and Madden NFL – was being taken private in a $55bn deal brokered by Kushner, with the Saudi regime’s investment fund as the majority owner.  Worried it might rub up against regulatory opposition?  In the circumstances, please don’t be.  As the FT put it: “People close to the discussions say Kushner’s involvement would also ease the deal’s path through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which adjudicates on deals involving foreign buyers.”

“Why am I reminded of the guy in Goodfellas who brings the Air France heist to the gang and dismisses their concerns about security.  “Security?  You’re looking at it.  It’s a joke.  I’m the midnight-to-eight-man.””

 

So, so long as the AD is in charge of enforcing herself, her joint-venture-partner’s, RA’s, Head of Social Value, despite being exposed to have delivered social value equated to the “do-nothing” option, possibly even less, gets to carry on, entrusted (so long as I do most of his job for him) in the job.  Doing less than nothing is good enough.

Goodfellas (1990): Barnet Council’s Assistant Director having a meeting with a Director from Joint Venture financial partner, Related Argent: “Planning enforcement?  You’re looking at it.  It’s a joke.”

In another test of how little someone needs to do and still justify it being good enough, Hill Group, appointed developer of Barnet Homes’ new Fosters Estate in Hendon, reported that construction was practically completed on 30 August and that, of 18 apprenticeships delivered against the S106 target of 13, 12 apprentices were not local residents but just random employees across the country who happened to be on an apprenticeship and, of the remaining six Barnet residents employed into apprenticeships, all were sacked just weeks into them, one, according to his mum, horribly so (see Shit Just Got Real).

As a recap, on 25 July, on the shared understanding that they had not met their target, I invited Hill Group’s Head of Social Value, “…if you want to make a case for reasonable endeavours made to satisfy the S106 obligations for Skills, Enterprise, Employment and Training, then please do [my italics].”

She didn’t reply and didn’t send any report of endeavours made.  In fact, I never heard directly from her ever again.  On 5 September, I asked the Planning Manager to issue a demand notice for the contracted financial remedies.  On the 16^th, she asked the project lead for Fosters Estate at Barnet Homes if she should send it to him or their contractor.  He replied the same afternoon, saying:

“Hi [Planning Manager],

“Hope all is well.

“Thanks for making contact regarding our Employment and Skills obligations on the Fosters Estate project with Hill Partnerships.

I am confident that Hill have fulfilled these obligations, possibly exceeded them.  Meetings were held with [my predecessor] and Hill in the past and I periodically checked in with [the now retired Planning Infrastructure Monitoring Officer at the Council] to see we were on track generally.”

 

Oh good, the Local Planning Authority needn’t have employed me as their S106 monitoring officer then.  But he went on to concede:

“I’ve CCed in [three Hill Group employees responsible for this, not including the Head of Social Value who was also in contact with me about this but only after I announced that financial remedies might be due, making four people working on this and ending up achieving precisely nothing] from Hill so they can provide a comprehensive reply specific to apprenticeships along with any supporting documentation.

"Many thanks.

“Kind regards

“Senior Project Manager (New Build)”

 

One of the three copied in replied, again the same afternoon, assuring,

“Hill are happy to provide a report by the end of the week to summarise our social value obligations and achievements at Fosters Estate.

“We have been in touch with Paul Clarke about the above.

“Best wishes,

“Social Value & Community Manager

“Hill Group”

 

Has she?  I invited her boss to submit this same report she is now “happy to provide” but never heard from any of them again until this email.  If she had been in contact with me about this matter and submitted a report already, why does she need to the end of the week to write it?

She did indeed take until the end the week, submitting her report at 5:06pm on the Friday.  It must be a long report, I thought, with lots of endeavours listed for apprenticeships.  In it, she had drawn a table with three columns, in the first headed "Target Value" she had written “13 Apprenticeships”, in the second column under the heading “Actual Value” she had written “17 Apprentices employed on site at Fosters Estate” and, in the third under the heading “Status”, she had written “Exceeded” and coloured it in green as an indication of RAG-rating.

So, that’s not so much a report on endeavours made despite failing to achieve any apprenticeships as reported to me, but simply a bald assertion that they have “exceeded” the target, so, assessing whether their endeavours were reasonable, as all that is required in the S106 contract, is moot.

Except they didn’t achieve any.  I already confirmed that.  With them.

The Planning Manager asked me if this affected my assessment of whether the demand notice was necessary and I confirmed this hadn't persuaded me to change my mind.  The following week, she emailed the Senior Project Manager at Barnet Homes asking can we three meet to discuss this?  We met on the 26^th.  I went through in forensic detail how none of the apprentices reported who were actually given the opportunity to actually enrol on an apprenticeship and complete it towards getting a qualification were Barnet residents (and he also pointed out that he recognised two of the names listed were the contractor’s sons, actual nepo-babies from the Home Counties claimed as a S106 contribution meant for housing-estate-Barnet residents) and the remaining six Barnet residents all had their employment reported by Hill as terminated within weeks of them starting after having enrolled on apprenticeships that I knew that one had not enrolled on for two reasons: 1) that is mum told me so and 2) because Barnet and Southgate College, the apprenticeship training provider Hill had reported for him, doesn’t deliver that course.  And this, I deduced, was the same for the other Barnet residents: “enrolled” on non-existent courses and then sacked.

Yikes.  “But they shaded their box in green!... the international sign for a target has been achieved!” he wanted to say as a Pavlovian response to seeing the colour in a corporate report.  But, in view of just been presented with hard, intellectual evidence instead, he thought better of it.  Instead, he said, “Then Hill should have to pay the remedies.  It’s only right.”

I did concede that they had the right of reply to this objective monitoring feedback.  Although I had already given them this, twice now (the first when they didn’t respond at all and the second simply asserting they had exceeded the target and colouring the words green with no further information or evidence), I would be happy to allow them a third bite of the cherry if he wanted to feed back to them my feedback which, of course, I had already given them to no acknowledged comprehension (but not the nepo-baby bit which I hadn’t recognised).  So he asked me to send him my forensic analysis of the apprenticeships reported in an email that he would ask them to respond to.  I wrote:

"The issue is with the commitment on apprenticeships.  I was unable to verify that any apprenticeships have been achieved.  There are financial remedies attached specifically to the apprenticeships.

"Details of 18 apprentices and their apprenticeships (courses and employment) have been reported; 17 listed in this final report.  Of these 18, 12 have been reported as not being local residents (as required in Barnet’s planning policy and in the S106 contract).  I had given this feedback to Hill on more than one occasion, not just after the final report was received, and asked Hill to amend the report accordingly, but I didn’t receive a response.

Of the remaining 6, 5 are listed in this final report.  Going purely by what has been reported by Hill, none of these apprenticeships were achieved.  Going by what was reported, S [initial used to anonymise the resident] was enrolled on a Level 5 Civil Engineering course with Anglia Ruskin University and started his apprenticeship 14/11/22.  But his employment was terminated 10 weeks later.  A L5 apprenticeship would normally take a number of years to complete.  The report template does ask the contractor to report the guided learning months for the course but Hill has not reported this for any of the reported apprentices that had their apprenticeships terminated within a few weeks/months of having started (with possibly one exception; below).

A started a L3 apprenticeship in Engineering 13/3/23 and this was terminated less than five months later.

L started a L2 Bricklaying apprenticeship with Barnet & Southgate College 28/4/23 and this was terminated just over five months later.  I’m not aware that Barnet & Southgate College delivered this course then.

M started a L3 apprenticeship with Oaklands College 29/4/25.  Given my concern around the previous early terminations reported, I asked Hill if M would be retained so that he could complete his apprenticeship.  I didn’t receive a reply.  His employment was terminated 9 weeks later.

J was on an earlier report having started a L3 Bricklaying apprenticeship with Barnet & Southgate College on 11/4/23 and employed by Fairway Brickwork but I received a complaint from his Employment Adviser at Barnet Homes (BOOST) via his mum on 24/9/24 saying that his employment had been terminated when he asked when he would be enrolled on an apprenticeship as he had been promised (and as had been reported to the council) and explained that he couldn’t afford to commute to the site to see if there was work available for him that day when often there wasn’t and he would be sent home without pay.  In fact, his mum said that he wasn’t employed but was asked to register as self-employed and she was unclear what he was being paid and for what and was concerned it was below the National Minimum Wage.

I raised this complaint with Hill Group who replied to me saying they would investigate it.  However, I never received a response.  Some months later, after chasing the matter twice, Hill removed J from the report without saying whether or not they had conducted an investigation.  Again, I am unclear that Barnet & Southgate delivers this course.  Not sharing the findings from their investigation with me did lead me to question the veracity of the report of other apprenticeships, whether they enrolled and why their employment might have been terminated so early into them.

G, albeit being a Haringey resident, was a student of, and referred by Barnet & Southgate College, and so she is considered a local resident and this is defined in the S106 contract.  She did 10 months of her apprenticeship.  It is possible that this is an apprenticeship but the minimum course duration is usually 12 months.

Most of the non-local residents have been retained on their apprenticeships e.g. 28+ months and being retained after the practical completion of this development in order to allow them to complete their apprenticeship and gain their qualification.  This is the obligation for our local residents and is demonstrably afforded by this development.

The S106 obligations only require the developer makes reasonable endeavours to achieve the targets so, in the final month of the development as reported by Hill, and given that I had been unable to verify any apprenticeships, I invited them to submit a report of endeavours made including adding any further pertinent information to the report that would explain why all the local residents employed in apprenticeships had their employment terminated early that might not have been captured in the reporting template but provide further context.  Hill didn’t respond to my email.

They did then send a report to you but in it asserted that they did hit their apprenticeship target without including any corroborating evidence.

Happy to review any report of endeavours made or any further contextual information on the apprenticeships not captured in the reporting template."

The Senior Project Manager from Barnet Homes emailed me today with Hill Group’s Social Value & Community Manager’s case for reasonable endeavours.  I thought she might say that they did employ 17 apprentices (ignoring the 18^th apprentice his mum complained about); that they employed some who were not Barnet residents demonstrates that they did create the apprenticeships on the development in good faith but Barnet & Southgate College couldn’t fill them with their students so, regrettably, the job ads had to be extended out because the jobs needed to be done – this is a real-life development.  And they did manage to employ five local apprentices and the fact that they didn’t retain was through no lack of endeavours by the contractors to look after them, pay them, offer training and give them work to do – they just weren’t interested.

Playing out this theoretical argument in my head, my response was simply going to be, but you can’t expect the Planning Inspector to accept that reasonable endeavours had led to no apprenticeships whatsoever for local residents?  If so, it would create a legal precedent that developers don’t have to deliver any local apprenticeships simply because they are impractical and then that’s the end of S106 Employment & Skills.  None is not good enough.  Can they provide evidence such as job descriptions, apprenticeships advertised with the College and staff reviews, I would ask, if we are to accept their argument?

But they didn’t make these arguments.  Forwarded on from the Senior Project Manager, they simply got bogged down in my feedback that they historically didn’t respond to my emails.  Still there is no mention of endeavours.  She said,

“Reading through the email threads we are confused as to Paul’s claims regarding us not responding…

“As far as I am aware since picking up Fosters from [one of her other two colleagues] in June, he has asked for two things

“- information on the employment dates of apprentices – which I sent on Thursday 24^th July [which she did and therefore she reported that all of the Barnet residents had their employment terminated within weeks of starting]

“- and a report on how/why we believe we have met the S106 – which I sent on Friday 19^th September [which she did but sent it to her client at Barnet Homes after the Planning Manager asked the Barnet Homes Senior Project Manager on the 16^th if she should send the demand notice to him, the first he had heard there was a problem, and not to me when I requested it on 25 July, and it wasn’t a report on how/why they believe they had “met the S106” but simply the word “Exceeded” shaded green in a table next to the target for apprenticeships].”

“We have continuously reported on time, amended reports and been open to engaging at all stages so this feels like an unfair accusation.

“Kind regards,

“Social Value & Community Manager”

 

Wow.  Talk about focussing on the wrong thing!  But since she has, just as a few examples, on 1/8/24, I chased for the quarterly monitoring report.  With no response and it being overdue, I chased this again on 19/8/24.  When I did receive the belated report on 24/9/24, I asked to arrange a review meeting to discuss performance which, from their report, was clearly going awry and I had now received a complaint from one of the apprentice’s mums and could we discuss it?  No reply.

Given no apprenticeships had been reported and the Social Value lead was ignoring my emails, on 8/10/24, I asked again, “Can you please reply to my email below or else let me know if Hill Group is still endeavouring to deliver the S106 targets on Fosters Estate?”  She replied two days later saying,

“Hi Paul,

“Apologies for the delayed response – the original queries were sent just before I went on leave for two weeks so must have been missed accidentally and then it has been a bit hectic across Sept/October so been behind on emails.”

[Here is when she explained that the young man had failed to enrol himself on the apprenticeship that doesn’t exist that she had already reported he was enrolled on and that she was continuing to support him despite my telling her that his mum said she had already sacked him and I asked her why.]

“Apologies again for the delayed response.”

“Social Value and Community Manager”

 

So I replied to her explaining all this,

“…J has informed the council that he was told by his employer when he started that he would be enrolled on an apprenticeship course but that his employer would not give him further information on this over the duration of his employment and, after enquiring about it again, he was dismissed. In the meantime, he has provided information that he was being paid an apprenticeship pay rate, below the otherwise National Minimum Wage, when he wasn’t employed on an apprenticeship. Also, you have reported that he was enrolled on an apprenticeship.

“Can you give me some feedback on this?”

 

She replied,

“Hi Paul,

“Thank you for this feedback. I will investigate this matter with the site team and respond asap.

“Regards…”

 

It didn’t seem to be asap when she eventually replied.  On 18/11/24, I chased her again for a response and again on 27/12/24.  On 8/1/25 she sent the findings from her investigation,

“Good afternoon Paul,

“Apologies for the delay, I was out for most of November and December running our Kindness Shop events so must have missed this email.

“We have amended our report to no longer include J as an apprentice for this site.

“The findings from my discussions with the site team are provided below:

• J was offered two apprenticeship opportunities via our bricklaying contractors Fairway. These were at Barnet & Southgate College and an online course provider. J unfortunately did not sign up to the courses during the enrolment period so missed the course starts.
• The quality of his work was raised in meeting with his managers. Fairway and our site management team offered him the chance to stay with Fairway and receive more support and guidance to help with his progression.
• Fairway did not dismiss J from the business and they actively demonstrated that were keen to keep him on with another opportunity. This offer was for continued work on another site in Hertfordshire while there would be a one month break from brickwork at Fosters Estate to continue his learning. As part of this temporary relocation, a colleague had offered him transport as they were aware that he doesn’t drive.  This offer was declined.
• Following this meeting, J was unhappy with the feedback from Fairway and decided to leave the business.

"We hope that this provides some clarity on the matter.

 "Regards,”

 

Not really.  Are you saying that you had dispensed with your role as S106 E&S lead on Fosters Estate for two critical months, in breach of the S106 agreement that there must be someone responsible, and a point-of-contact for the council, for the whole duration, to do Kindness Shop events instead (whatever they are)?

His mum said he was sacked on a day, as was a frequent occurrence, where he had been told that there was no work for him and he must go home without pay, and come back at 8am the following morning to see if there was work available then.  They got around this illegal behaviour by never having employed him, instead he was self-employed.  It was only after he meekly questioned this impoverishing, demeaning and demotivating arrangement that he was sent home and told not to return.

Still to be clarified was, what about his account of events not addressed here, especially being commanded to come to site and then being sent home without pay?  How can you employ someone into an apprenticeship who you don’t employ?  Since when do apprentices enrol themselves on an apprenticeship course and, presumably therefore pay for it themselves, and not the employer?  Apprenticeships are normally paid from a business's Apprenticeship Levy paid via their HMRC payroll portal, or via the CITB for member developers, including selecting the training provider from the drop-down list on HR's portal, so how could the employee arrange this?  Even if this possibly is a thing, why did you not think it could go horribly wrong when it inevitably did?  How were you employing someone on an apprenticeship course that the College doesn’t deliver?  And, given that he never was on an apprenticeship which, in contradiction to the S106 monitoring report you sent me, you're now saying you knew about, were you paying him the National Minimum Wage as opposed to a lower apprenticeship pay rate, which, if the latter, would be illegal?

On the same, day, I replied raising these questions (more diplomatically than this).

On 22/1/25, she replied saying that he was paid £48.16 per day.  So, no, he wasn’t paid the legal minimum.  I assumed this didn’t include the days he was instructed to come to work and wasn’t paid at all.  She said that this amount was after a 30% tax deduction was taken from him by Hill Group. 

If he is self-employed, why is the “employer” deducting tax?  If he were employed, one’s Personal Allowance of earnings before starting to pay tax is £12,570.  He would be exempt from tax on this rate of pay if on the payroll.

A business can opt to pay the tax of a self-employed member of staff, but only if the staff member agrees and he is given a remittance or payslip.  He had nothing to show what he was being paid and what was being deducted to be paid in his name which, being self-employed, would be his legal responsibility to make sure is paid to HMRC, even if by someone else on his behalf; this is not PAYE.

And since when are accrued tax rates a round number like 30%?

After that last email It all seems a bit dodgy with weeks between responses, vague replies and seeming illegality, stealing and abuse.  And now I’m being accused of making an unfair accusation about it despite all the evidence.  Even though he already had, I think Barnet Homes’ Senior Project Manager thought better of simply forwarding that ratty response onto me this morning and later replied again adding,

“Hi Paul

“Further to my earlier email, [the development agent], has asked me to convey that the project team are under a lot of pressure because the job is losing money for Hill, hence tempers are getting a bit frayed.

"I hope this additional context is of assistance.” 

 

Today, I emailed the Planning Manager with my conclusion to my monitoring:

“I think we’re done here with this.

“Paul.”

 

And, the bottom line is that they achieved no apprenticeships.  It remains to be seen, now, if Hill Group challenges the demand notice and the Planning Manager or an independent lawyer determines that, despite their shenanigans and breach of basic employment law, none is good enough.