The public services, too.
As with my last post I write this without using the characters in Death of a Nightingale as intermediaries.
If you have read Death of a Nightingale or this Blog, or even if you have just browsed this website, you may think that I am antagonistic towards civil servants, especially mandarins represented by James Harrington in the play. He is a bit of a “wanker.”
But if that is the conclusion that you have drawn, you could not be more wrong. I have, over the years, met many who were dedicated, competent, conscientious and totally incorruptible. What I am antagonistic towards is the system within which they work.
The System is the problem
There is clearly something very badly wrong with it as there is with Parliament itself. (Visit post 48) The two are inter-connected at the navel.
Look at the public services. They are like a rudderless ship, overmanned, holed beneath the waterline, struggling to keep afloat in an ocean storm.
Consider the facts revealed in the recent study by Policy Exchange under the title: The Renewal of Government, a manifesto for whoever wins the election. The study compares the public sector with the private.
The public sector has better pay and pensions, almost total job security, much less redundancy but, hard to believe, in fact quite incredibly, it shows less improvement in productivity, many more strikes, more sickness and absenteeism and poor morale generally!
Click http://cli.gs/qX10vJ and put “morale” into its search engine. See where it leads you. You only need to give it five minutes.
It’s not a matter of money
I draw one stark conclusion from all this. You don’t solve problems by throwing money at them. You solve problems by managing them. Why do LibDems in particular always think it is just a matter of money? Why are we are so bad at dealing with these problems? Different question. Same answer.
Today, the world is very complex. It is not a place for the amateur however well intentioned. Yet, we have a system that allows amateurs, MPs - yes in today’s world they are amateurs – to be involved in day-to-day management decisions? Far too many of them are lawyers, PR consultants, journalists, and party political hacks, sorry, career politicians . And we repeat it in local government. The one thing they are all good at is talking in meetings. And they get plenty of practice.
It is a time consuming, money wasting, short-termist game, everyone pretending that this is democracy in action. As I have said, every con man needs a mug, and we are the mugs to allow this charade to continue.
Death of a Nightingale points this up
Death of a Nightingale uses the virtual reality of theatrical drama to provide just one illustration of the price we pay. Well-meaning amateurs, many without a clue as to the range of special needs that exist, simplistically thought there were savings to be made, or projected in their gut what they imagined they would want for themselves for everyone else. Both were wrong.
That is why they went on to close over one hundred special schools and shoehorn children with special needs out of a supportive environment of a special school into mainstream schools. We then pay billions of pounds for classroom assistants to help teachers look after them, in most cases bullied and excluded, yes excluded, in an inclusive environment. Certainly the policy was right for some, but certainly not right for others.
Not just in education
The same has happened with mental hospitals. These were closed to save money or because its patients should be looked after within the community. So what have we done? Filled the prisons with many of them – at£40k per annum a time, apart from the cost of the methadone. And now we are forced to build more prisons and cannot afford rehab centres! (Read Times 17 March 2010 on Drug Addiction).
Just what good is the legal right to something if you are worse off as a result and if others are worse off too? And it is always the most vulnerable.
I repeat. Management today should be left to the professionals , to the people who really know how to meet the needs of children with special needs, or people with serious mental health problems, or with health problems full stop. Managers without that knowhow cannot easily be good managers.Too many managers and decision takers lack this professional knowhow. And they keep their jobs.
It does not need to be this way. I suspect that this is not the European way which instinctively we criticise, but shouldn’t. There they train a political elite to govern.
If special education and SEN help you to understand the problem, it can also help you to see a solution to it.
Power up your imagination
I am going to invite you to power up your imagination. So please stay with this to the end.
First, imagine that the Department for Children, Schools and Families in London was scaled down in size dramatically butwith Higher and Further Education restored to it from Lord Mandelson’s little empire. It should never have been taken away.
No more target setting for a start to get bums on seats in our Universities – silly then, even more silly now – whether they should be there or not. No more target setting to get children with special needs into mainstream schools whether it is best for them or not.
Now, while you are about it, abolish OFSTED. You’ll see it won’t be needed. With me so far?
Next, if you are ready, get rid of Local Authority control over schools – and the whole panjandrum of Inclusion as well. You will soon see that they are surplus to requirements too.
Saved a bit of money already? And helped to reduce the country’s black hole of debt?
Next, instead of all of that, get local authorities to appoint three regional education authorities staffed with highly skilled educational practitioners, one for education, one for higher and further education and one for special educational needs. The last one would include some medical and psychology practitioners as well. The template for this already exists. It is there with regional airport authorities and with something like Tyne and Wear Museums.http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/about/ourmission (Visit Post 41) It also worked with the regional development authorities like the Tyne & Wear Development Authority.
What I am urging you to imagine really does work, and works well.
Now, give these authorities a simple remit. Meet the varied educational needs of pupils and students in their region, academic and vocational, and promote excellence.
I think it was Yevtushenko who wrote “Let every man be great, including the man who makes my galoshes.”
They would, of course, need to be centrally resourced to enable them to fund schools and Universities and to check them out to make sure that they were fulfilling their remit and working within their budgets. They would be accountable to the local authorities that set them up and report to the DFES, putting their reports on the NET.
One final thing. Hiring and firing and pay bargaining should replicate that in the private sector. It works
In the context of all of that schools and Universities and their boards of governors would be given their individual remits and their budgets, and they would be required to work within them, again with the same disciplines that operate in the private sector.
Accountablity at the core
“ACCOUNTABILITY” should be at the core of this in the same way that “BLACKPOOL” is at the core of Blackpool Rock. It is the one thing that distinguishes democracy from autocracy – or not, as the case may be!
All of this would be an enormous culture shock, but deadwood would go, and success would be rewarded. People would start to enjoy their work. Oh yes, it might save a bit of money too.
Heralding the Age of Pragmatism
What would all this mean? I shall explain in my next post. Essentially, it would herald an end of the Age of well-intentioned Ideology. It would see in the birth of a new Age, the Age of Pragmatism.
It might work! And we very badly need it to.
Interesting ideas ….
The Department for Children, Schools and Damilies (DCSF) is one of Labour’s great inventions, although I agree FE & HE should be put pack in, or links made better. At least take out from business.
One of the greatest fears for all of us that work in the Children’s Sector is that the next Gov will tear DCSF apart again just as we are beginning to see the benefits for children of integrated working – having social workers, teachers, childcare, mental health, play provision and nurseries all working together to deliver services for children and families most in need. And indeed everyone.
I’d totally agree about abolishing or severely slimming down Ofsted. EPPE research on effective early years intervention seriously questions whether their criteria for quality has any baring on real quality.
Yes I totally agree, it has always been the case the many are lumped in with the few. I trained as a nurse under the old nursing regime, which worked and we all knew what we should do. Now they have to be trained in a university and miss out on the essential aspect which is to care. I was taught that every cog in the wheel was as important and without them the wheel would not turn properly. Now if you don’t have a degree you are not good enough.
Also we take our lead from those who are supposedly the leaders, and if they are not efficient or effective how can the rest be. I live by my values and teach accordingly and will continue to do so no matter what the leaders say or do. That is why I have choosen to home educate my son and teach him my way.
Tregony pointed out that I was somewhat out of date in relation to terminology. I have amended with thanks for correction.