This is a tale of the relationship between two very different people. Machiavelli = Jack Barton who due to local government re-organisation found himself catapaulted to County Treasurer of Cambridgeshire and the HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) = Andrew Paisey a young accountant who felt obliged to leave Cornwall prematurely, also because of local government re-organisation.

The two men first came face to face at a Group interview. Barton was deliberately being stand offish and letting his Deputy be the nice guy and his two young lieutenants ask the searching questions. One of those questions was "what do you feel about the Council Planning Committee deliberately turning down planning consent on a piece of land whichthe County Council wanted to acquire ? " The first six interviewees all said they thought it was a legitimate ploy. Then it was my turn and I reacted angrily "why not go and mug some old ladies in the High Street ? " I made the long trek back to Cornwall really annoyed that my integrity had probably cost me a good opportunity. I went and complained to my boss at Cornwall that such questions should be asked. A few days later my boss called me in to say that Barton had been on the phone and asked him if my experience was solid enough. He said he had confirmed it was but he had reservations as whether I might be too reserved having never really witnessed my reactive personality as I was very sensitive to his elevated manner. Barton had told him he was not concerned on this point.

And so I got the job and walked into a new authority with lots of new young people and plenty of external problems emanating from an influx of population, high inflation and losing government grant to the urban areas. I came with some new ideas on developing need indicators, expenditure profiles and inflation monitoring in my brief case. And I struck lucky in having a mature trainee called John Stewart who had been doing a PHD in Radio Astromony at Cambridge but had elected to become a local government accountant. John had already developed a population forecast model and this was to become the base of our need indicator developments. At the end of my first year I found myself being raised to the top of my grade which was something I had not heard of before. At that time I changed my number two by recruiting someone as technically gifted as John and we made more strides on inflation monitoring whilst the computer division implemented my expenditure profile concepts. During this time as well as leading the financial planning, budgetting and inflation monitoring processes we also led the Council's campaign against loss of grant. Our smal team of three had become a very crucial part of the central administration and there was lots of jealousy and competition from other parts of the central administration. Consequently Barton decided to re-organise and the work of our small team was to be divided. The expenditure control elements to remain in the Accountancy Division with my number two and a second young accountant and a new Division to be formed to replace the Technical Division which would build on our finanacial planning work and develop a research unit. I was to be the line manager and therefore another substantive increase in salary and status. The Head of the Technical Division to be the divisional head. Whilst this second year was another very successful one in terms of professional and career development it was a sad one personally. My brother had died of leukaemia back in Plymouth and shortly after, my wifeand children left with my next door neighbour.

I was not totally happy about seeing my little cluster of activities split up especially as all my friends were in the Accountancy Division and I was not impressed by some of the senior Techical Division people I was inheriting. John whilst also receiving a good lift up had to report to someone who was not as good as him. By this time I had also been made Financial Liaison Officer to the Chief Executive and part of a small "consulting group" and found myself spending most of my time on corporate activities. Quite often I would find myself clashing with other central department sections looking to muscle in on our dominance and would have to go running to Barton to defend myself. He nearly always said "it's ok - I would have done the same but I did not believe him". In the second year of the new Division I decided to go to New Zealand to get married and look for a new job and a new family life. Barton was really good about it and let me have two months unpaid leave to add to my months holiday leave. Just befoe I left the Asst. Director (Accountancy) post came up and Barton asked me what he was to do about it. I really did not want it and said I had promised to stay in New Zealand if I could land a suitable job. I had assumed it would be offered to David Prince my young counterpart in the Accountancy Division who was very different from me a calm intellectual. I did not get my job offer in New Zealand and when I returned I was surprised to find the vacant post taken by a very flashy and incredibly confident new recruit. What was more disturbing was an office rumour that Barton had offered David the next Asst Director post to come up. I decided at this time to start aiming towards a break out from a local government finance career and started to apply for the new fashion of Asst Chief Executives. The first to come up received over 400 applications and much to my annoyance they deleted everyone without a degree in the first instance. And then the office rumour came true as my Divisional Head left and David was given his job without the post being advertised. I was very unhappy about it and Barton offered me a free standing role reporting directly to him and the Chief Executive with the first task if developing a corporate review process. Before I put pen to paper my wife decided to go back home to New Zealand and I changed my mind about the independent role continuing to work with David without realising my post had already been offered to John. It was a difficult situation with David effectively having two Deputies one still in post and the other (in waiting). I spent a year on the Review Process which turned out to be very frustrating as it just proved how eclectic local councillors are with all those on the Review Group wanting to run in different directions according to their personal experiences/interests. It also revealed that once a previous council makes a mistake in resource allocation on a service like the Fire Service you just have to live with it politically.

Then an opportunity arose to go to the Association of County Councils as Assistant Secretary (Finance) on secondment. It was a trail already travelled by John who had gone there as a Technical Assistant on secondment so the Cambridgement Finance Department had a good link. I assumed that with the incoming Thatcher Government the Shire Counties would get back some of the money that the Wilson/Callahagn Governments had taken. This I felt would be a good plus point on my Asst Chief Executive applications and I would hopefully make some good contacts. It meant a very long working day and the initial discussions were interesting until it started to become clear that no one was taking any serious notice of our arguments. As I became increasingly fustrated I was summoned by someone on the Civil Service side to explain that they had to have a financially neutral settlement between the cities and shires in order to introduce a new grant system which would penalise authorities (mainly cities) who were deemed to be over spending. I immediately passed this on to the Secretary of he Association who called a meeting with the poltical leader of the Association. He seemed very naive and told me to just let things develop and he would have a word behind the scenes with Margaret !! And so I relaxed and just ate the fancy sandwiches. And then came the big day when every one met in Church House to hear the results. Just as I had been told - no change !!! I felt absolutely deflated and let the Association know I would not be returning. I did not feel like returning to Cambridgeshire immediately as I was supposed to be away for a year and John was at last standing in for me. I was also annoyed with Barton who had never once popped in to see me at the Association offices despite being a regular visitor. So I stayed away and reflected on what I was going to do. I considered totally different careers in geology or botany but nothing happened. An already planned walking trip in New England saw the end of summer and I then just retreated into my Cambridge flat until the time of my scheduled return approached.

I approached Barton who acted very surprised to hear from me and said he was not under any obligation to have me back. I did not really agree with this but saw no point in challenging it and I did not hear from him for a while until his secretary rang me to say he wanted to see me. I was offered another secondment with South Cambridgeshire District Council on a lower grade than my post at the County. I went to talk to their Treasurer and decided the project was interesting enough to accept and that I would just have to live with the loss of status. The project was for two years and involved developing management structures and pricing systems for the Housing Repairs Organisation in accordance with new legislation. It was something I believed in and despite the staff not welcoming the legislation I got on with everyone very well. During my secondment there was a political furore back at the County Council relating to the Education Budget with the leader of the County Council wanting to bring the police in. I was delighted when the Chief Executive at Cambridgeshire persuaded the leader of the County Council to ask me to undertake an investigation as I could not be involved in any way. I thought it was a positive testimony to my integrity and started to interview all those involved including Committee Chairman, Chief Education Officer, etc. My report to the Education and Policy Committees managed to diffuse the situation and lead to some structural changes to the financial management within the Education Dept which also affected the Finance Dept. It was something the Chief Exec. had always wanted and which Barton accepted with seeming approval. The end of my secondment was supposed to be the letting of work contracts and at this point it became clear that my enthusiasm for the legislation was very diametrically opposed by the District Architect and Property Manager. So I decided to leave earlier than planned and once again plonked myself at Barton's door.

This time the reception was more warming and it was agreed I would operate on the independent basis reporting directly to Barton as previously agreed four years earlier. I worked on internal projects such as evaluating new technology investment options, a review of a staff car scheme (a pet Barton project) and external reviews for the Central Committee of Common Police Services (Barton was Financial Adviser) and other local public bodies with whom Barton had good links. And then I was asked to develop a pricing system for the County's Computer Division as Barton wanted Service Dept's to take more initial budget responsibilty for new systems. I was handed a file by the then Chief Accountant, Brian Smith on which I was amazed to find details of a Secret Computer Budget for the forthconing financial year. The meeting had between Barton, Paul Kemp the latest Asst. Director (Accountancy), John Keenan the Asst. Director (Computing) and Roger Swain, Brian's predecessor as Chief Accountant. I told Barton I was unhappy about being involved but he said the project was aimed at avoiding any future recurrence. It seems he had promised the County Council he could introduce the latest IBM mainframe without additional costs but this had not proved possible. So instead of admitting defeat he had decided to hide the additional costs. I now realised why I had been included in the group to see this monster of a water cooled computer at the IBM development site !! So I completed the project and presented the draft report with the secret budget included in the results. Barton went bersek, the first time I had ever seen him lose his temper and he said the figures were never to be included again. That was it for me I decided not to have anything more to do with the project and informed Brian Smith of my intentions. I did not hear from Barton for months and just continued with one small project that did not involve him but had to spend a large part of my time twiddling my thumbs. I decided not to walk away as I still had family commitments and opted to tough it out. Eventually, Barton came back to me and I continued to undertake a mixture of internal and external assignmentsoh his behalf plus representing him on some national bodies.

And then came news that both Barton and the Chief Exec. were going to retire early. This was really bad news for me because it meant the new Director of Finance would not have access to the external projects which Barton had and I would have no relationship with the new Chief Executive. An even bigger surprise followed with David Prince returning to fill Barton's shoes. This was both good and bad news for me as it was nice to report to someone who knew me very well and with whom I had worked with closely before but it was also a stark reminder on how David had progressed and I had gone backwards. I did decide at this stage to try and get my own back on Barton for my period of virtual isolation after refusing to stay involved in the Computer Pricing Project. I asked our professional body the Instititute of Chartered Finance and Accountancy to reprimand him for compromising other institute members in his employment and supplied the original copies of the minutes. They were not that keen saying I would have to make a personal complaint. I was not keen to personalse it as you will see that Barton had been good to me on many occasions.

My first year post Barton's retirement passed by uneventfully. David then asked me to prepare a report for the Policy Committee on how the loss making Staff Car Scheme could be modified to eliminate the loss. This was a very pertinent project for me as I had produced the first evaluation of such a scheme at Barton's request and had reported that I could not be sure as to whether it would break even or not as a compromise between Barton and myself. When pressed by the Chairman of the Finance Committee at the Policy Committee meeting I felt obliged to say that with human nature as it is I felt it more likely that the scheme would make a loss and the proposed scheme was rejected. Two years later when I was away on an external project Barton got two other people to produce an internally managedand funded scheme and this report said that because of cost savings the new scheme would break even. I was coming to the end of my review when Paula Gilder another in the long line of Asst Directors (Accountancy) told me that the interest costs on purchasing the cars was not being charged to the scheme. This interest was even greater than the reported loss and not charging it was contrary to the Council's accounting policy. I therefore decided to report this non-disclosue to Policy Committee but David Earl, David Prince's Deputy deleted the reference. I could not accept this and sent my original report to the leaders of the three political groups. I heard nothing more about the ramifications of this act or what the Committee had decided - everything just went very quiet. Some time later a copy of a draft report landed on my desk which covered the future corporate management of the authority. As someone who had played a leading role in developing the existing processes I felt I had a right to pass comments and did so. The writer of the report,the Director of Corporate Planning was unhappy about my comments and complained to David Earl. He summoned me to his office and accused me of being a maverick and a heated argument ensued. I decided that thar was it - I was not going to be insulted by someone who had sought to prevent me from telling the truth. So I wrote to David Prince informing him that I no longer wished to be a member of his Department. He tried to talk me out of it but I was just as annoyed with him for failing to keep Earl off my back. And so the ghost of Barton as played out by David Earl had finally terminated my thirteen year relationship with Cambridgeshire County Council.

I was sufficiently, convinced by the rightness of my stance, that I sought to seek assignments from other Councils on the basis of my proven independence and integrity but all I got was sympathy. And so I retreated into a quiet life of raising plants, cat spoiling and trying to be domestically helpful. The plant propagation led to a summer of looking for empathetic plant nurseries but I could not find the right chemistry to break out of my reclusive existense to which I returned. Five years on my partner had a phone call from her ex fiancee and I found myself back living at home. At this point in time I decided to ask the County Council to review the circumstances underlying my departure. CiPFA said they had lost the original minutes of the Secret Computing Budget. Those who had been originally involved in setting it up were unhelpful. Roger Swain (now Director Finance at Addenbrookes) whom I first managed to contact said he could not remember being involved and then Paul Kemp (now Director of Finance NHS Eastern Region) who wrote the original minutes, completely denied his involvement but switched to amneasia the next day. I left it to the Chief Executive to talk to Brian Smith who has weaved a path to Director of Transportation and Environment with the County Council. but presumably he is not talking either. I had released a copy of the minutes to the Cambridge Evening News who showed no interest and have seemingly devoured that copy. I tried appealing to all the members of the County Council but with no success. An online petition with requests placed in community guest books was a spectacular flop proving that the internet revolution still has some way to go.

I have spent the last few years caring for a terminally ill father and a long term housebound mother. They have both died this year and this HSP now has to find a new role. I still have this deep resentment about what I had to experience at Cambridgeshire County Council due to the elitist attitude there and Barton's deviousness/dishonesty to underpin it. I am even more annoyed by the blatant conspiracy of Messrs Kemp, Swain and Smith to suppress the truth and protect their own self interest. Whether I will be able to suppress this anger remains to be seen as the road to justice seems forever blocked.