When I edited “Death of a Nightingale”, a play that I wrote “to be read”, so that a shorter version of it could be performed at a rehearsed reading at the New End Theatre in London last November, I inevitably lost some of the dialogue that I liked but could no longer include.
In one respect I left a waggy tail behind, but removed the dog!
Here is “the waggy tail.”
Act Two Scene 6
Part of the dialogue between head teacher Margaret Williamson and two parents as they watch Brighouse School, a school for physically disabled children, being demolished. It comes in the final scene of the play.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON The system has become one big job protection society. It’s not about enriching kids lives. And we pay for it.
JUDITH FAWZI You’ve hit the nail on the head there.
ANWAR FAWZI Rights of kids paramount. Words. Empty words. You just try to assert those rights today, you know, in a tribunal. It’s not easy.
ANWAR FAWZI And not cheap either.
JUDITH FAWZI No, not if you have to get a medical report.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Tribunals are supposed to help you. I’m afraid that they are really just a part of their defence works.
ANWAR FAWZI And Statements are our part of ours. And now they’re trying to get rid of them altogether. Then our kids will have no real rights at all.
Here is “the dog” that got left behind.
Act One Scene 3
(Play written to be read)
A discussion in the staff room between the head teacher, Margaret Williamson, a care assistant, Wendy Robinson, Emma Kirk, the music teacher and Joan Errington, the English teacher. They are worried about the threatened closure of their school.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Meanwhile our great government can’t make up its mind whether we are a part of one large sausage machine, or a lot of small sausage machines, and they keep coming up with more and more paper plans, more and more targets.
WENDY ROBINSON They certainly keep themselves fully employed. Good intentions maybe, but so had my Aunt Mabel.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Who is your Aunt Mabel, Wendy?
WENDY ROBINSON She doesn’t actually exist. But in our family we always blamed her when things went wrong.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON No, she exists alright. She works alongside Murphy. Did you not know? I’ll tell you exactly where she is.
Mum wants little Johnny to come to this school. Thinks it’ll meet Johnny’s needs. The medics agree. We agree, and we’ve got a place for him – and the more kids there are in this school the less on average each one costs. Yes? But no, Murphy, who’s not wired up to what we do, decides the fate of little Johnny and wants to send him somewhere else, and Mabel, who of course is legally qualified, chairs the tribunal that decides what’s in Johnny’s best interests so long as it makes the best use of economic resources, and she goes along with Murphy. Mabel’s word is final.
But you can appeal against it. To whom? I’ll give you one guess….to the ever courteous, totally dependable Mabel. The needs of little Johnny are supposed to be paramount, but they get lost somewhere along the way. What a crazy mixed up world. They’ll give the job to a computer next. You watch.
EMMA KIRK Hey stop this. We’re not politicians and sociologists. I just want somebody to let me teach.
JOAN ERRINGTON That’s a real cry from the heart.
EMMA KIRK I’ll bet you most teachers would say the same.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Sorry girl, you’ve got to be a sociologist today if you want to be a teacher. You’ve got to know how people tick, and you’ve got to know the real world – not the fantasy world you’d like it to be. That’s where our kids are going to be and they, especially them, need all the help we can possibly give them.
JOAN ERRINGTON I wholeheartedly agree, Margaret. You have to be a sociologist, a psychologist, and a fairground manager too.
There is a Prologue to my play in the book. Here is a short extract:
“The recent Power Report (chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC) pointed to ‘the weakening of effective dialogue between governed and governors’ and ‘the rise of quiet authoritarianism within government.’ If I can remove the wrapping paper, it is saying that our democracy is often just a sham, and that the problem is not so much spin as twist. It is a serious criticism of those who wield power – the subtle and not so subtle pressures they exercise – the patronage they use to get their way. It should be no surprise that lawyers, accountants, academics and others, from time to time compromise strict standards of professional behaviour and play word games instead.
I have seen it happen. If the System does look itself in the mirror, it needs to recognise that the mirror itself is a distorting one. Will it do even that?
Sad to say, the report has already been allowed to gather dust as reports of this kind invariably do, and everything goes on as before.”
Yes, I hope that you’ve restored the dog to its waggy tail.
I am writing here about Tribunals. They badly need sorting so that they can be a check on the system, not just an integral part of it, so they can help the citizen deal with the State and not just help the State deal with the citizen. There’s a big difference.
I know something about Tribunals. I have seen parents trying to seek their assistance; but more importantly, for many years, my wife Ros was a volunteer member of a Citizens’ Advice Bureau Tribunal Unit, secured a law degree to facilitate that and represented many clients before Disability Appeals Tribunals. Later she also became a wing member of one of them, adjudicating Disability and Social Security appeals.
A few people were fortunate enough to secure her services and are fortunate to secure the services of people like her. Most, I suspect are not, although Trade Unions do, where they can, represent their members.
I know just how vulnerable are those who use the Tribunal system without outside help. If you are accused of murder, rape or arson the State will rush to provide you with legal aid. Not so if you have a claim against the State and the implementation of its policy.
The argument is that Tribunals are informal, and you don’t need lawyers. That is nonsense. You do. Just as in criminal cases, they are governed by Law; by both statute and statutory regulation and by legal precedent covering decisions in earlier cases. These will be argued against you. But there will be no-one to challenge those arguments and to cross examine witnesses, and no-one to argue them for you if you are on your own. You are at the mercy of Mabel!
On one occasion my wife told me that not only did one of her clients not understand the initial arguments but, after 7 years, at the actual tribunal hearing he couldn’t understand the chairman’s decision, and didn’t even know that he had won! That is how complicated some cases can be.
If, in the words of the Power Report, you are seriously concerned about “re-balancing of power between the Executive and Parliament, between Central and Local Government and between the Citizen and the State.” -if you are – you should do something about redressing the power between the Citizen and the State in relation to Tribunals.
There is a solution. When claimants cannot afford a solicitor, third year law students studying welfare law should, as part of their University studies, offer their services to those taking their claims to Tribunals. In educational tribunals it would be on a pro bono basis. Where a cash claim was involved it could be on a “no win no fee” basis.
It would be a very good learning experience for those students, maybe a refreshing one, a bit like a cold douche on a hot summer’s day. For students of Jurisprudence at Oxford University, if they still inhabit the same rarified atmosphere that I enjoyed many years ago, it might come as a bit of a shock to the system too.
Anyway, why not?
I am sure that Termites will find an argument against it, you know the people who say they want to improve things, but never ever do. Termites? You’ll have to scroll back to my other posts to understand fully what I mean.
You will see why it is time to bin them, and why it is time to move on.