I now invite you to consider our vocabulary. The words we use affect the way we think in a big way. Consider the word “outcomes.” “Outcome” is a fine old word. “Outcomes” is a horrid little new one.

It has been designed by social engineers for social engineers. It is all about overall results that do not take account of individual needs. If you travel on the London underground in the rush hour you can see why it is pathologically impossible for a Whitehall civil servant to think in terms of the a policy to meet individual needs. There are so many people that such a quest seems impossible. What they do not realise is that further down the line that is precisely what those in the public service have to do if they want to be effective and helpful in any meaningful way.

I suggest that once he uses the word “outcomes” he starts to get it wrong. This is nowhere more relevant than with Inclusion but it applies elsewhere as well.

The Prologue

Therefore I present Death of a Nightingale. In the play the headteacher, Margaret Williamson, comments “Your social engineer has put square pegs into round holes … with epoxy glue.” He does so whenever he goes against the grain of man’s natural instincts, and because his focus is on outcomes, and not on meeting individual needs. He does not know what those needs are, nor does he feel any need to know. He combines myopia with tunnel vision. Society then has to cope with the consequences.

Act One, Scene 2: Regional office, DfES

James Harrington is the mandarin from London. Judy Fotheringham is a regional officer in the DFES, David Harding is the Director of Education in Westborough and Gerry Thompson is a special needs co-coordinator.

DAVID HARDING Between these four walls I don’t think Inclusion is going to be a cheap option.

JAMES HARRINGTON Well leading accountants advised us that we could make some real savings simply by reducing the number of Statements LEAs have to write for children with special needs. Get that down by a third, reduce special school places by the same, and then hey presto you don’t need all those special schools. And writing Statements is a real headache. We’ll have to keep some schools for kids with profound difficulties or very complex behavioural problems, but most can go.

DAVID HARDING Hm. Accountants. Some are just calculating machines on legs. They play with figures and talk about outcomes. They leave us to deal with people and try to meet their needs. They’re just not street wise. They manage us when we should be managing them. The savings won’t be there if we do our job. Mark my words.

*****

DAVID HARDING (with a smile) You know, James Harrington is totally, totally without
shame.

JUDY FOTHERINGHAM I don’t agree. He’s probably a bit like me. I’m not immune to shame. Very, very occasionally I do take my conscience to bed with me, but when I do, and it isn’t very often, I leave it on the breakfast table the following morning. We’re always going to be upsetting somebody, not meeting their needs. It’s in the nature of our job. We’re interested in outcomes. Fortunately for us, most of those people who don’t like what we’re doing just sound off in the pub. Our life would be impossible if everyone was like the parents in your school.

GERRY THOMPSON I’m absolutely certain his visit won’t give him any sleepless nights at all. Most likely he’ll go back home, and open a bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild.

DAVID HARDING Well, Merlot Chateau Sainsbury for me. I’m sure you’re right.

GERRY THOMPSON We couldn’t do without people like Harrington. Nothing would get
done. I’m sure that fella will go places.

DAVID HARDING In this world or the next? You know I believe his father was high up in the Indian Civil Service. That’s where he must have got his superiority complex. Tell me; is that a photo of your daughter?

JUDY FOTHERINGHAM Yes, Rebecca. Putting her through university.

DAVID HARDING What’s she studying?

JUDY FOTHERINGHAM Bio-engineering. A chip off the other old block. Her father was a lecturer in chemistry. He passed away, last year. Prostate cancer. Took him early. He didn’t have a PSA test until too late
.
DAVID HARDING I’m sorry. I didn’t know. It must have been difficult.

Act Two, Scene 6

DAVID HARDING … Don’t think I don’t realise. It’s just that I’m expected
to deliver outcomes as well. It’s not easy.

EILEEN WINTERTON Outcomes, I do hate that word. I’d ban it altogether. It’s so impersonal. Why don’t you use the good old English word ‘objective’? The word “outcomes” gives jargon a bad name. You have to focus on meeting individual needs if you want to get anywhere at all, and there’s no quick fix either.

Yes, those who have a mandate to govern must do so. But they must be sensitive to individual need. They should certainly not see that, as I suspect some do, as bourgeois self indulgence.That is sick.

My reference to prostate cancer here, and the consequence of late diagnosis, was quite deliberate. Just over ten years ago my wife Ros urged me to have a BUPA health check. I was shocked to discover that a simple blood test revealed an elevated PSA and a subsequent biopsy revealed prostate cancer. Fortunately it was diagnosed early, it was zapped by radio therapy, and I am here today. But it was not that my blood had not been checked before. It had, but not for PSA.

In the USA men over 50 are encouraged to have this test and their survival rates are much better than ours. Is the System thinking about the work involved and its cost, and looking for excuses to justify this, when it should be thinking about us? Women have successfully asserted the need for cancer screening. Why haven’t men?

In the last couple of weeks, and many years too late, this has suddenly been realised in the UK

So ban the word “outcomes”, and focus on “objectives” and meeting individual needs. Am I right?

Here is another of my “needles”. Do I make my point? And I am not just talking about special educational needs.

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