An OLD Injustice and NEW conspiracy of silence

Imagine how you would feel if you were totally dedicated to honesty and suddenly found yourself looking at the handwritten minutes of a secret computer budget ?

In the spring of 1984 I was asked by my boss Jack Barton the Director of Finance at Cambridgeshire County Council to undertake a project on computer pricing. I was given a file by Brian Smith the Chief Accountant and contained therein were the hand written minutes of a meeting outlining the existence of a secret computer budget to cover the cost of a major computer upgrade in September 1984. The minutes were written by Paul Kemp (Assistant Director - Accountancy) and as well as Barton and Kemp the meeting was attended by John Keenan (Assistant Director - Computing) and the then Chief Accountant Roger Swain (has lost his memory !)

I immediately confronted Barton on these minutes and was advised that my project was to get him off the hook so I consented to carry on. Towards the end of the project I prepared a list of sample computer service prices which included the "secret budget" to a small working group. This group included Barton, Brian Smith (new Chief Accountant) and John Careless (Computer Operations Manager). Barton blew his top and stated that these figures must NEVER be included in any document. I ceased to have anything to do with the project. As a project officer working directly for Barton I spent months turning up for work with nothing to do. Finally he relented and I spent the next two years doing both internal and external projects (For the Central Committee on Common Police Services). I also represented him on the Negotiating Sub-Committee of the Police Negotiation Board.

In March 1986 Barton rerired early and I sought to gain some retribution for the deep distress that I had been caused. I wrote to Lady Blatch (ex Leader of the Council), John Barratt (ex Chief Executive) to ask them if they knew of the secret budget but received no response. I wrote to the Chief Constable and District Auditor again no response. I informed the local newspaper, the Cambridge Evening News, but they did not respond. And I also asked my professional institute the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) if they would discipline him and they were supplied with the original minutes. Thy said I would have to make a personal complaint against him and at this point in time, because of all the things he had done for me previously, I could not personalise it at that time.

So I carried on in a similar role with the new Director (an ex-colleague brought back in) but without any of the external roles. A year later I was asked to review a loss making Staff Car Scheme. This was a particularly sensitive project for me as I had previously submitted a report to Policy Committee advising that such a scheme would lose the County money and it was turned down. Subsequently, Barton had got two other officers to prepare an internal scheme which was approved but had lost money right from it's introduction.
During the project I was advised by Paula Gilder the new Assistant Director - Accountancy that the scheme had an hidden subsidy because no interest was being charged on the purchase of the cars. The annual loss was therefore £125k per annum and not the £50k per annum reported. I put this fact in my report to the Policy Committee but it was deleted by David Earl, the Deputy Director. I was not prepared to accept this second piece of democratic deception so I sent a copy of my original report to the leaders of three political groupings. No one told me what happened at the Committee and no one said anything about my intervention.

However, my trust in my managers was now seriously blown and yet I needed to get involved in something. I decided to pick up the thread from an earlier role of being in charge of Financial Planning. I therefore responded to a paper circulated by the Director of Corporate Planning and gave him my views. Instead of ringing me up to discuss them he got in touch with David Earl, the Deputy Director who summoned me to his office and accused me of being a maverick. This was finally the straw that broke the camel's back and I resigned. I was naive enough to hope that their might be some need for an independent HONEST analyst. How wrong I was. and I have not worked since.

In 1998 I finally approached the County Council and sought some compensation. I received a letter jointly signed by the three political leaders saying it was a long time ago and I should forget it. I was unhappy about this as the Conservative leader was close to Lady Blatch and the Labour leader had been in post at the time and had told me she could understand why Barton had implemented the secret computer budget.
I did not see at as an impartial decision. This year following fresh elections I decided to have another go.The matter was put in the hands of Alan Barnish the Chief Executive. His first response was that everyone involved had left and he could do nothing. I pointed out that Brian Smith who had been "in the room" when Barton stated the figures " MUST NEVER BE DISCLOSED" was now his Director of Highways and Environment and a member of his management team. Now despite the fact that all he had to do was talk to Brian Smith I was asked to supply the evidence.

This meant going back to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) from whom I had resigned from , in disgust, back in 1986. Their first response was prove who you are. The second response was we are too busy to look. So I asked Alan Barnish to write direct and they then said they could not find the minutes !

I approached Paul Kemp who is now Regional Director of Finance( NHS Eastern Region) to ask him to confirm the minutes but he repudiates his involvement.! I also asked Brian Smith to confirm Barton's tantrums but he chooses to ignore me. I have also recently discovered that Paul Kemp is a member of the CIPFA Health Service Panel. (co-incidental,of course).

I am left not only carrying the injustice of being "abused and alienated" all those years ago but also totally downheartened by human nature whereby those who chose to co-operate in the original deceptions now deny their involvement. I would have liked an apology and an independent assessment of the impact of these clashes on my life of those events. If that assessment states that I have suffered from those events then I would have expected the County Council to address that fact.

Over the last few years I have been caring for my frail parents one of whom was terminally ill. Sadly, they have both gied this year and I have to somehow pick up the pieces of my life.