Recollections of Robin Murray

In 1981 when the Ken Livingstone administration came into power at County Hall I was a career local government officer working for the GLC, in a senior position as an Assistant Director General mainly concerned with housing and various other departments. I was ready and interested to work with the newly elected councillors on their innovative policies.

The first information I gleaned about Robin coming to the GLC in the new post of Chief Economic Advisor came from press cuttings portraying him as a wild academic, a doctrinaire bogeyman, likely to indulge in partisan and impractical theorising, working far more closely with the elected politicians than was seemly. Oh well, I thought, that isn’t likely to intrude on my spheres of interest. Events proved me wrong.

During 1982 the nucleus of what was to become the Industry and Employment Department started to make its presence felt and not all my colleagues were happy with its novel approaches towards bureaucracy. As a consequence I was asked to become involved with the Industry and Employment area and soon moved into the new department as Deputy Director, working with Robin as Director. That this rather improbable arrangement (as it was viewed by many onlookers) actually worked and contributed to some notable achievements, owed much to the easy working relationship Robin and I built up. My job was to oversee the administrative back-up necessary to turn policies into reality, keep the lawyers and financial experts satisfied that I & E was well run and free up Robin to concentrate on strategic thinking. We were both heavily involved with the setting up and operation of the Greater London Enterprise Board and a range of management issues inevitable as the unit of five advisors grew into a department of 100 people covering a range of functions.

It was a time of huge vitality, incredible workloads, many frustrations, buffeted by those who opposed what we were doing; fostering colleagues seething with a mass of ideas, many of them challenging, a few sailing rather close to the conventional wind. It was immensely stimulating, if exhausting, but much of the pleasure (and very occasionally the problems) came from working with Robin. I learned much from him about commitment and determination and I think he learned a little from me about turning round a bureaucracy so it delivered what he wanted.

Robin also brought humanity into what was a rather austere organisation and that I valued too. He was ready to chat about our families in a way most GLC officers of the time didn’t and to combine serious work with the relaxing accompaniments of food and drink. I found it most congenial and I hope I carried with me afterwards some of the many lessons I learned from that exhilarating time and from Robin, the most memorable of colleagues.