John Hudson

A report on the 2006 SPA conference that took place at the University of Birmingham 18– 20 July 2006; a longer version appeared originally in Policy World.

The 2006 Social Policy Association Conference took place in the middle of a record breaking heat-wave. Temperatures across the UK soared to unrecorded heights with an officially recorded peak of just under 37°C (around 100°F) – the hottest level in 95 years. But that was outside in the sunshine; inside the packed conference rooms on Birmingham University’s Edgbaston campus, hot bodies and heated debate must have pushed the temperature above 40°C on occasions and the weather, that staple of polite British conversation, threatened to displace social policy as the main topic of conversation. Fortunately, the conference organisers swiftly responded to this threat by bussing in gallons of bottled water, though there was little they could do to help speed the arrival of delegates whose train journeys were delayed by the usual buckled train-tracks that seemingly accompany any significant outbreak of sunshine in the UK.

Day 1
The theme of this year’s conference was ‘The State of Welfare: Past, Present and Future’ and the plenary sessions addressed each of these themes in turn. First up, on Tuesday afternoon, was a consideration of the past. Under the heading of ‘Reflections on the Post-1945 Welfare State’ the conference heard from Jose Harris (University of Oxford) and John Macnicol (London School of Economics).

Harris asked us to reconsider the link between the old Poor Law and the post-1945 welfare state, arguing the influence of the former on the latter was probably greater than is usually imagined. She felt that the presentation of ‘heroic’ stories of transformation in the early post-War period had resulted in an unbalanced picture of social policy before and after the War and, indeed, that a reassessment of the Poor Law might lead us to conclude that it was less dreadful than is commonly presumed.

Much of the discontent with the Poor Law, she argued, came from its use as a tool of economic, rather than social, policy. She noted that between 1830 and 1890 Britain’s GDP doubled but its welfare expenditure halved, not least because Poor Law spending was functionally linked to the Treasury’s core economic policy: the gold standard. Yet, a consideration of the detail of provision on the ground – such as the service provided by Poor Law hospitals – showed the Poor Law was far removed from the harsh Dickensian stereotype. While there was discontent, Harris suggested that it was often because people wanted more, not less, of what was being provided by the Poor Law system.

Warming up to the theme of the link between social and economic policy in the Poor Laws, she suggested a window of opportunity for policy change had opened in the inter-war years when the Poor Law’s value as an economic tool declined. There were many factors that contributed to this, including the failure (and subsequent abandonment) of the gold standard as an economic policy, but the Second World War was crucial, not least because it precipitated a move away from an emphasis on international trading that formed the core of Britain’s economy – and shift in focus towards producing essential goods and services internally instead – and because the City of London fell silent during the War too. With this changed economic context, Beveridge’s proposals for National Insurance became functionally suitable and tied in with the new economic orthodoxy propounded by the Treasury and by Keynes.

However, Harris observed there is ‘always a snake in Eden’ and suggested the post-War welfare reforms established in the wake of the Beveridge Report contained two. First, there was what she termed the ‘monetary snake’ that came in the form of inflation. As post-war life slowly returned to normal, demand for goods rose and so too, therefore, did prices. In turn, rising inflation reduced the real value of social security benefits more quickly than had been presumed. Secondly, Harris suggested there was an ‘administrative snake’ that came in the form National Assistance Board (NAB) whose role was to deal with means-tested benefits for the dwindling minority. Harris argued that these two snakes inter-twined as rising inflation lead to pressure for increased social spending, because the Conservative governments of 1951-64, while committed to the welfare state, gave a higher priority to re-establishing Britain’s role in the global money markets. Their strategy for balancing these competing demands of social and economic policy was simply to place more emphasis on means-tested benefits when allocating funds. Harris noted that by 1964, spending on the supposedly dwindling means-tested benefits actually exceeded that on the supposedly core national insurance benefits established in 1946. She argued that when Labour returned to office in that year they did little to reverse this situation and little has changed since.

Harris’ explanation for this was that the situation by 1964 merely reflected a return to the long-term orthodoxy: it was an inevitable outcome of the British economy’s return to its traditional global banking and financial services base and its move away from the temporary post-war emphasis on domestic production. Moreover, she suggested that the antecedents of the contemporary focus on selectivity can be seen here too. Ergo: the legacy of the Poor Law may have influenced current policy more firmly than is often suggested. Harris argued that a reassessment of the Poor Law might, therefore, lead to a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the British system. She offered the conference a few thoughts to take home on this topic:

• the Poor Law may have been more innovative and evolutionary than is often allowed

• the governance structures of the Poor Law were highly democratic and the elected boards were often very representative of their communities

• the vast majority of adult paupers applying for assistance were women, but they were only tenuously included in the universalist turn of the 1940s

• the Poor Law did not legally discriminate against the ‘undeserving’ poor – it actually legally forbade refusal of assistance on moral grounds – and much of the stigma came from general public attitudes rather than the Poor Law itself

• whereas Beveridge established a contractual basis for social support, the Poor Law offered absolutely unconditional rights to support that emanated from its ancient strictures. Beveridge does not, therefore, have a monopoly on the morality of rights.

Harris was followed by John Macnicol who addressed some of the dilemmas that face those trying to analyse social policy from an historical perspective. There were problems, he argued, in handling structure against agency, in deciding whether to place an emphasis on continuity or change and in the temptation to periodise policy eras when policy often evolves in an incremental manner. However, rising to the challenge of reviewing 61 years of policy in just 25 minutes, Macnicol offered us a three-part periodisation of the post-War British welfare state.

Firstly, he suggested, we had the period of the ‘classic welfare state’ that began in the immediate aftermath of the war and with the implementation of the key recommendations of the Beveridge report. He noted that hindsight was a wonderful thing and that many key issues were simply not addressed or were given scant attention in the 1950s – educational disadvantage, NHS underinvestment, poverty and inequality for instance – but felt there was no real shift in the core policy frameworks in this decade. The cracks, however, were beginning to show in the 1960s and in terms of picking a year which marks the end of the ‘classic welfare state’, Macnicol thought 1965 was a good candidate: it was the year the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) were formed and that President Johnson launched his war on poverty in the USA.

However, 1973 was the year that he picked as marking the watershed moment: the Yom-Kippur war and the oil crisis lead to a speeding up of economic change in the UK. He argued that from this date we saw a second period of social policy: one marked by much tighter budgetary control and major shifts in the role of the state. 1973 marked the peak of council housing and the dilution of comprehensive schooling soon followed. Major demographic and family changes took place during this second phase and, of course, Thatcher played a significant role in repositioning the state too.

Indeed, for Macnicol, Thatcher’s role is such that her departure effectively marked the end of this second period of social policy, the final of his three eras being that from 1990 to the present day. He suggested that the social policy of the John Major was well worth investigating, for while he continued many of the Thatcher reforms, her governments had only really turned their attention to social policy in the late 1980s, so many of the reforms were somewhat immature or were still ongoing when Major came. Marketisation of the NHS and the promotion of greater diversity in the format of schools were two key examples he highlighted here. Moreover, Macnicol argued that many of these reforms had strong similarities to those pursued by New Labour. It was because of these similarities – and some of the common pressures such as the increased economic globalisation in the post-Cold War era – that lead to him grouping the Major and Blair governments together in this way.

The first day of the conference also included a pre-dinner address from the SPA President Polly Toynbee. She told the conference that the present was something of an ‘odd time’ for welfare. There was, she argued, a great deal of cynicism that often denigrated the welfare state: from some parts of the media, from the new Conservatives and from the government themselves. With an often weary government drifting towards the final days of the Blair era, there was a real danger that this cynicism may pose some real perils for the welfare state.

Toynbee noted that despite the increased investment in public services, people were still not satisfied with them and often tell pollster that they do not believe things have improved. Yet, they also tell pollsters that their own local school or hospital is good and reconcile the two views by regarding their own experiences as lucky in the face of poor national services. Toynbee worried that the government’s response to this has not been to mount a stout defence but, instead, a buckling at the knees. She firmly believes that things are getting better - that a decade of New Labour has made a difference - but we face a situation where a politician brave enough to say this clearly, as Patricia Hewitt did when addressing Unison delegates about the NHS, is likely to ridiculed or hauled down.

At the same time, Toynbee was keen to note that New Labour’s reforms have been far from perfect. She argued that instead of rallying enthusiasm for the welfare state they have been trying to become more like their predecessors in many areas, often divesting the state of its responsibilities for provision. Toynbee worried about the impact of this on public ethos and asked where the line between public and private ought to be drawn.

Toynbee also had some harsh words for the latest idea to become flavour of the month with the main political parties: the ‘new localism’. She worried about the impact breaking up the centre would have on the idea of the state and wondered if the government had thought about what might happen if responsibility for key social policies is devolved to local communities that are hostile to them. Indeed, she argued that the evidence shows people want good quality, national and universal services – they do not want devolution or local variation in services.

Toynbee concluded by saying there was a need to get back to first principles and praise what is good about the welfare state we have. She asked where the loud voices raised in praise of the state and the good work it is doing are and concluded that many of them are to be found in the SPA. But she reminded the conference that, from time-to-time, there is need to send out a message of support to the welfare state – otherwise it may be too late to do so.

Day 2
The second plenary session – titled ‘Neglected States of Welfare’ – examined the present. Gary Craig (Hull University) and Jean Carabine (Open University) shared the platform on what was the official hottest day on record.

Gary Craig spoke first and addressed the neglected issue of ‘race’. He argued that the overarching nature of discourse around minorities has not been a positive debate about welfare rights but a negative one - with often racist overtones - about the impact of immigration. He said that the ‘war-on-terror’ was bringing an even more hostile tone for certain minority groups and forcefully argued that sections of the press were now out-of-control, printing downright lies about certain groups, safe in the knowledge they will not be punished. The failure of state to enforce anti-racism laws in such instances was, he suggested, shameful. Craig’s critique of the state went further. He suggested the state was not only failing to confront racism, but that its own race relations mechanisms are inadequate too. In particular, he pointed to the way in which many public sector bodies were failing to carry out even some of the most basic tasks that are necessary such as collecting relevant data on its service users. ‘Race’ is relevant dimensions when studying poverty, employment and housing trends, for instance, yet the state’s own data often lacks robustness in these fields. This, Craig suggested, was indicative of the merely marginal concern the British state has with regard to the welfare of ethnic minorities. Craig also had some words of admonishment for the social policy academic community too. He argued that it is still far from uncommon for social policy academic texts to overlook or underplay issues of ‘race’ and that this lacuna extends to social research too. In particular, he suggested there was an absence of coverage in high levels journals – with the honourable exception of Critical Social Policy.

Jean Carabine then spoke on the neglected issues of ‘sex and sexuality’. She argued there was a very rich research agenda that is opened up if we consider the ways in which sexuality and sex might be important to social policy. While these issues are very private and intimate, invoking a complex web of notions, she argued they were not just about what we do but about cultural values attached to sexuality also. Indeed, she argued that sex and sexuality are, in fact, far from private matters in many spheres of social policy, particularly when sexuality falls outside the ‘norm’. Firstly, she suggested, there are areas of social policy where sex or sexuality is the explicit focus of social policy. She noted that social policy often tries to directly control sexuality – in terms of reducing teenage pregnancy for instance. Secondly, there we areas of social policy which speak of sexuality but it is not the explicit focus. Housing policy, for instance, can convey assumptions about sexuality. Finally, she noted that there where many areas of policy where the issues of sex and sexuality are ignored when they are relevant to the needs of individual citizens.

Day 3
The final day of the conference focused on ‘The Future of the Welfare State’, the theme of a plenary session in which Joakim Palme (The Futures Institute, Stockholm) and Stephan Liebfried (University of Bremen) delivered talks. Palme explored the Swedish model of welfare from its origins through to its proclaimed crisis of the 1990s and beyond. In terms of its origins, Palme noted that these were rooted in both political and economic structures. He argued that though the 1930s depression had been crucial in terms of promoting earnings related social insurance benefits, the model had modernised as a response to changes in the labour market – particularly greater female participation and in response to increased ageing of the population. The Swedish model, consequently, delivers low levels of poverty across the life-cycle, low levels of inequality, high levels of employment and high female participation in the labour market while maintaining broad social support.

However, he suggested the 1990s had been a dramatic decade for Sweden, both in terms of its social policy and its economic policy. Palme was part of a commission appointed in 1999 to review the impact of these changes. He highlighted some of the key reforms that had been implemented during this period, including a tightening of some core social security benefits and a reduction in their generosity, greater rationing of some key social services and more user charges and increased concentration of support on those with the greatest need for assistance. In terms of a ‘balance sheet’, these changes had resulted in some things getting worse – employment terms, unemployment, stress and health – but some things had also improved – wages, education and life expectancy. Similarly, while class and gender divisions had remained largely as they were beforehand, divisions around age and ‘race’ were becoming more prominent. In terms of inequality, the pattern of change was complex too: if capital gains were excluded then the there had been little change to the Gini index scores for Sweden, but including it showed a degree of flux. All this hinted at the future challenges he expected for the Swedish model; in particular, he suggested ageing, capital mobility and regional variations would be key policy issues for the model in the coming years.

Liebfried explored the possibility of a social Europe and, more particularly, how the federal structure of the EU might shape future social policies to emerge at the European level. To do this, he drew on an extensive analysis of how federalism had impacted on social policy development in individual countries, but noted that in most developed countries that federalism came before the welfare state rather than the other way around. Indeed, the fact that the EU faces such well developed welfare states may well be the greatest barrier to a social Europe, particularly given the wide variations in welfare regimes see across the continent. He noted that it was somewhat ironic that the moment at which a social model seemed most probable was likely to have been at the time of the Europe of six, for the founder members had the same type of welfare regime. Yet, he was also keen to stress that the EU now has more competency for social policy than the pre-New Deal federal government did in the USA, so the future was by no means certain. Nevertheless, his analysis suggested that federal structures offer by-passes that can undermine social policy development and, given the EU’s structures - particularly its lack of tax raising powers - the most likely future for social policy at the EU level is that of a fairly limited regulatory model.

A longer version of this piece originally appeared in Policy World.

Remember, remember the 28th November… 1990. On this day, some fifteen years ago, and after more than eleven years as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher’s period of power came to an end. After scraping through the first round ballet of the Conservative Party leadership race - where Michael Heseltine dealt her a fatal blow by gathering the support of more than forty percent of MPs - she eventually announced her intention to stand down on the morning of 22nd November and formally handed over power to John Major almost a week later when he topped a second poll of Conservative MPs.

It goes without saying that her premiership was one of dramatic and often traumatic social and economic change. I was part of the generation dubbed ‘Thatcher’s Children’, a term often invoked but rarely analysed. The idea that a whole generation have grown up with a more selfish set of attitudes because of the values at the heart of government during their formative years remains a powerful one and ‘Thatcher’s children’ is a widely understood – if sometimes throwaway - phrase that is regularly used in everyday speech. Indeed, last year, the then President of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NAS/UWT), Pat Lerew, blamed the group’s ‘devil take the hindmost’ attitudes for classroom indiscipline and the lack of respect shown to teachers. She told delegates at the NAS/UWT conference that: ‘Today’s parents were growing up in the 1980s, Thatcher’s children, when there was no such thing as society and it was everyone for themselves, when anything that had a monetary value was sold and anything that had no monetary value was therefore of no value […] Small wonder then that the children of the day grew up with attitudes that have manifested themselves in their own children.’ (see: Ward and Woodward, 2004).

Yet, while the term is commonly understood, it is less clear whom the term applies to. Martin Powell and John Stewart (2005) had a different group of people in mind – and less dramatic concerns - when, in a recent issue of Social Policy & Society, they worried that the academic world of ‘social policy has lost its ‘historical imagination’, with many students – Thatcher’s children, and in a few years Major’s children – not being exposed to social policy history’. When novelist Malcom Bradbury penned a piece on ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Children’ for the New York Times way back in 1988 he had yet another group in mind as he explored the values and lifestyle of the wealthy yuppies who ‘belong to her post-Industrial Revolution, her high-tech, innovation-driven, banking-led world [and] have made their dreams, careers, fortunes, and sometimes misfortunes, in the Thatcher era’.

All this begs the question ‘who are Thatcher’s Children?’ The people Bradbury described were hardly children – most being in their thirties and some in their forties during the Thatcher era - and almost all had done their growing up long before Thatcher came to power. While many academics are inclined to use the term as Powell and Stewart do when talking of their undergraduate students – often when bemoaning their lack of perspective or lack of sympathy for particular social groups or social policies - the truth is that few current students have any memory whatsoever of the Thatcher years; indeed, those 18 year olds who entered university this autumn had yet to start school when Mrs Thatcher left office and, outside of the circle of mature students, only those candidates with truly remarkable abilities of recall will have any first hand memories of the Thatcher era. Of course, Thatcher’s influence reverberates beyond the time she spent in power and the values of today’s teenagers are likely to have been heavily shaped by both the policies she introduced and the values of friends and family who lived through the Thatcher era; then again, much the same applies to the Major years, the Callaghan years, the Wilson years and so on.

If the term means anything, then surely it applies – as used by Lerew - to those who were children during the Thatcher era: people whose formative years spanned the period 1979-90, whose memories of Prime Ministers before Thatcher are at best hazy and whose first opportunity to cast a vote came after the Iron Lady had left office. In other words, Thatcher’s children are those who are aged around 25-35 today, many of whom, as Lerew observed, are now parents with children of their own.

A quick exploration of the British Social Attitudes allows us to compare the attitudes of Thatcher’s children with those of the rest of the country’s adult population. While the analysis here is rather crude, the data offers us some interesting discussion points.

Firstly, it is worth noting that – despite the hype offered in some quarters - the differences between the Thatcher generation and the rest are often very small and sometimes as good as non-existent. For instance, there is hardly a cigarette paper between the two on opinion about the gap between rich and poor, with 85% in both groups thinking it too large, 1% too small and the rest about right (these figures disregard ‘don’t knows’). Similarly, in both groups around a third agree strongly with the proposition that people who break the law should be given stiffer sentences and around 30% strongly agree that for some crimes the death penalty is the most appropriate sentence. Indeed, the survey’s composite left-right scale showed no discernable difference in the traditional left-right political leanings of Thatcher’s children.

Graph 1

In terms of support for the welfare state, the survey again found much to unite the two groups. So, for instance, in both groups around 85% agree that ‘large numbers of people these days falsely claim benefits’ and just under 80% believe the government should spend the same or less on supporting the unemployed. In fact, the survey’s composite welfare scale – which aims to measure the respondent’s degree of sympathy towards the welfare state - shows almost identical mean figures for the two groups.

Graph 2

However, the survey data does highlight some differences between the groups. In broad political terms, there seems to be a slight but significant lowering of interest in public affairs, with a smaller percentage of Thatcher’s children describing themselves as having much interest in what is going on in politics and fewer having ever written to a Member of Parliament. (Interestingly, despite common suggestions that the younger generation are now more inclined towards direct action, there is little difference between the groups in terms of having ever participated at demonstrations, though more of Thatcher’s children seem willing to go on a march if they were to be suitably angered by an issue.)

Graph 3

In social policy terms, there are some slight differences over priorities for public spending – Thatcher’s children placing a little more emphasis on education – but the significance of these differences are somewhat moot given that these two items are easily the top two priorities for both groups and the overall rank ordering of spending priorities shows no major differences. More interesting, perhaps, are differences between the two groups with regard to social support for specific groups within the society: Thatcher’s children are less supportive of increases in spending on benefits for retired people than the rest of the nation – though both feel more should spent (66% amongst Thatcher’s children against 75% for the rest) - and for increases in spending on benefits for disabled people who cannot work (though again with a majority favouring more: 61% amongst Thatcher’s children against 71% for the rest).

Graph 4

So far, so true the stereotype perhaps? This may be so, but if we look at attitudes towards support for some other groups in society we see a more complex picture emerging. With regards to social support for parents working on low incomes we see the picture reversed, with Thatcher’s children being slightly more in favour of increased spending (71% against 68%) but with twice as many being in favour of much more spending here (14% against 7%). Moreover, in terms of social support for single parents, Thatcher’s children prove to be much more supportive of increases in expenditure with 52% of them in favour of such action compared to just 34% amongst others.

Graph 5

These differing attitudes towards social support may in part be attributable to the two groups’ chances of falling into the specified client groups: Thatcher’s children are more likely to be working parents with young children and are still some way from retirement for instance. However, they also hint at a third area where there are some clear differences between the two groups: attitudes towards family forms and family life. So, for example, Thatcher’s children have a much more relaxed view towards marriage (with more than twice as many of them when compared to the rest of the population strongly agreeing that it is ‘all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married’) and differing views on the impact of female employment on children and family life (Thatcher’s children are around half as likely to agree that pre-school children suffer when their mother works for instance). Indeed, the survey’s libertarian-authoritarian scale – which aims to gauge adherence to ‘traditional values’ – is the only of one its three composite measures that shows any sort of generational patterning, with Thatcher’s children showing a small but significant shift away from authoritarian social views.

Graph 6

In short, Thatcher’s children show clear signs of being more socially liberal than their forbearers and a majority of them are clearly in support of increasing state expenditure in many policy areas and, indeed, favour it more heavily than other generations in key areas. While there are certainly areas in which they are less supportive of the welfare state than other generations, it is worth noting that their position is far from straightforward. Indeed, when asked whether the creation of the welfare state is one of Britain’s proudest achievements, they are less likely to agree with this proposition than previous generations but few regard it is a failure either; instead, they are much more likely to say the neither disagree or agree with what is a rather crude question - a reflection of their more complex position perhaps? Either way, the evidence does little to support the picture of a generation whose hearts and minds have been captured by Mrs Thatcher’s extolling of ‘Victorian’ social values and economic libertarianism.

Graph 7

In many ways this is hardly surprising. As the more astute reviews of her legacy have observed, Mrs Thatcher lives on not in the values of a single generation that grew up with her as their Prime Minister, but in the institutions she created and removed and the policy programmes she instituted and eradicated. How, of course, could it be any other way? If her influence on values was so great, then surely we should all, as Nick Assinder (2004) observed, be ‘Thatcher’s children and grandchildren’ now rather than just one cohort of us? It is puzzling too that it should so often be presumed that those of this generation who grew up outside of the bubble of prosperity Thatcher created mainly in South East England should be so fond of her values. Might it not, on the contrary, be that many of the twenty- and thirty-somethings who witnessed first hand the impacts of unemployment, the miners’ strike and rising inequality on their own parents are instead driven towards greater support for strong social policies? As North East based film maker Craig Hornby recently said when being interviewed about his documentary on the collapse of mining in the region, A Century of Stone, ‘I’m one of Thatcher’s children. I left school in 1983 and I’d like to thank her for giving me something to rebel against’.

Hornby’s usage goes against the grain of its popular understanding. So too does much of the statistical evidence. Fifteen years after Mrs Thatcher left office, perhaps its time to kick into touch the idea that ‘her children’ are carrying forward Thatcherite values.

References & Sources:

Assinder, N (2004) ‘Are We All Thatcher’s Children Now?’, BBC News Online, May 5th, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3670179.stm

Bradbury, M (1988) ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Children’, New York Times, December 11th.

National Centre for Social Research (2004) British Social Attitudes Survey, 2002 [computer file]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive [distributor], March 2004. SN: 4838.

Newton, K (2004) ‘The hills are alive’, The [Middlesbrough] Evening Gazette, October 8th.

Powell, M and Stewart, J (2005) ‘History and Social Policy’, Social Policy & Society, 4 (3), pp293-4.

Ward, L and Woodward, W (2004) ‘Thatcher’s children are today’s parents - and we’re paying price, say teachers’, The Guardian, April 13th.

Science dull and hard, pupils say (via BBC):

Some 51% of teenagers think science lessons are boring, confusing or difficult, a survey suggests. Figures from the OCR exam board, which interviewed 950 children aged 13 to 16 in England, showed 7% thought people working in the area are “cool”.

No information, though, on whether these teenagers find other subjects any less boring, confusing or difficult. (And, after all, it’s school, not a trip to the amusement arcade.) Only 7% thought scientists were cool. So? Are all scientists definition cool? Should they be? Maybe if they’d asked the teenagers a more sensible question (a more scientific one?) they might have got a more meaningful answer.

Clara Kenyon, director of general assessment at OCR, said: “The results go to show the growing apathy in today’s students about science and their ignorance of modern day achievements. It is startling that no students named those responsible for recent scientific advances, for example, Ian Wilmut who cloned Dolly the sheep or Professor Colin Pillinger who headed the Beagle 2 space probe to Mars project.”

Again, why should teenagers be familiar with these personalities? Many, I am sure, would be familiar with the general stories behind Dolly the sheep or Beagle 2 (though it might be argued that neither was much to write home about!) - does it matter if they can’t recall the names of the chief investigators? Would we be concerned if they couldn’t name some high profile geographers, historians or mathemeticians? I don’t think so.

So what was the point of this unscientific survey of science?

OCR is launching a different type of science GCSE from next year, which it says will encourage more involvement with modern topics such as cloning or mobile phone technology.

Ah, I see…

Last week, the GMB raised concerns about the government’s use of private consultants, claiming that it had bought in advice and support to the tune of at least £1.47 billion in 2003/4 (the figure being based on answers to Parliamentary Questions about specific parts of government and, therefore, not covering its full range of functions).

Their Press Release notes that ‘At the average rates of pay for consultants that means the government are employing an army of 27,093 private consultants a year’…. and this is on the assumption (based on Official Statistics) that consultants earn £51,770 pa on average.

There was little surprise in the finding that the Department of Work and Pensions tops the table here: it spent £307 million on consultants (which the GMB claim approximate as 5,930 consultants). Paul Kenny, the GMB Acting General Secretary, was pretty enraged, arguing: “These figures show that the tax payer is paying far too much for management and consultancy advice. There is scope to save money on these consultants and to spend the money instead on the front line public services. The culture of continual re-organisation in the public sector is creating a field day for consultants”.

Much of the usage of outside consultants is, of course, as a consequence of large scale computerisation programmes, where external contractors are routinely used. However, the story stretches beyond the front-line and right up to the top policy making echelons of the civil service too according to a story on the front page of today’s Guardian: ‘Fears over management consultant’s role in No 10‘.

A former management consultant controversially hired by Tony Blair to head Downing Street’s policy unit will have a role in deciding the appointment of Britain’s most senior civil servant, the Guardian has learned.

The prime minister has delayed the decision on who should become the new £220,000-a-year cabinet secretary while he takes the advice of David Bennett, a former partner with the global US consultancy McKinsey, on the appointment. Mr Bennett has no experience of politics or government.

His arrival in Downing Street on June 1 has attracted criticism from Labour backbenchers and trade unions who are unhappy at the number of management consultants being brought into Whitehall. His involvement in such a sensitive decision involving the civil service will be taken as proof of the influence that figures from the private sector now wield.

Interestingly:

Mr Bennett, who has a 20-year association with McKinsey - dubbed the “Jesuits of capitalism” - is expected to press civil servants to become more entrepreneurial and push through an electronic revolution in the delivery of all services. He backs the McKinsey slogan that “everything can be measured, and what gets measured gets managed”.

This policy could have massive implications for further job cuts - on top of the 84,000 already due to go - and will put him on a collision course with the Whitehall unions where resentment is already high about the appointment of business analysts and computer project failure.

And:

He came to Mr Blair’s attention after he was involved in the ground-breaking NHS project - due to start this year - to put everyone’s medical records online. He produced a report by McKinsey which urged the purchase of off-the-shelf software from major commercial companies or paid them to adapt of one of their systems. Critics say the report sounded the death knell for small computer firms or for the government developing its own systems to bid for the project.

Also:

He previously advised Tessa Jowell on IT strategy

Is all of this, perhaps, an illustration of how deeply the IT/consulting interests have penetrated the core policy networks in the UK?

Not that we are aware of the full nature of Bennett’s role. In the spirit of open government, ‘Downing Street yesterday declined to provide any details of Mr Bennett’s appointment by not disclosing his six-figure salary, duties, hours or his age. A spokeswoman said: “No press release is being issued, and MPs will have to table questions if they want to ask about his salary or job.”‘

According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report, the Nordic countries account for four of the six most networked economies in the world. The USA slip down to fifth (from first), being replaced at the top by Singapore, while the UK come in at number 12 (up from 15).

Leading Nations:

1. Singapore

2. Iceland

3. Finland

4. Denmark

5. US

6. Sweden

7. Hong Kong

8. Japan

9.Switzerland

10.Canada

11.Australia

12.United Kingdom

13.Norway

14.Germany

15.Taiwan

There’s an interview with the Chief Economist and Director of the WEF Global Competitiveness Programme, Augusto Lopez-Claros, on the site too, in which he says:

The Nordic countries again top the rankings this year, with Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden in the second, third, fourth and sixth place respectively. Iceland, in particular, recorded an impressive ICT performance, climbing from 10th position in 2003 to second out of 104 economies in 2004, which represents the greatest improvement among the top performers.

Such a development does not come as a surprise as Nordic countries have consistently shown very high ICT penetration and usage rates and come out among the top performers over the last four years.

Besides having an excellent macroeconomic, regulatory and infrastructure environment, those countries share a commitment by their governments, business communities and households to ICT use. In addition, they are constantly innovating.

As a result, Sweden, Finland and Denmark outrank some of the larger European economies in the number of US patents registered per million population, a frequently used indicator of a nation’s innovation record.

World Usability Day (via usabilidadedigital) has a focus on e-government this year. Events are planned for November 3, 2005.

The Adam Smith Institute (ASI) hit the headlines last week with their claim that the 31st May marked this year’s ‘Tax Freedom Day‘. For those who missed it, ‘Tax Freedom Day’ is calculated by dividing the country’s total tax bill by its national income and then converting the percentage - 42% this year - into calendar days. According to ASI the resulting date marks the theoretical point in the year when we stop having to work for the government, rather than for ourselves. And, of course, the aim of the ASI in calculating it is to make us begrudge the amount of effort demanded on our behalf by the state.

Public finances are regarded as a notoriously dull issue but Tax Freedom Day captures the imagination because the thought of working five months of the year simply to pay tax can even give a firm advocate of the welfare state reason to pause for thought. Eamonn Butler, Director of the ASI, used the opportunity to compare Gordon Brown unfavourably with a medieval baron, arguing ‘the average serf in the Middle Ages only had to work four months of the year in the service of even the most rapacious feudal lord’.

As was to be expected, the right wing press lapped it up. The Sun were outraged that Gordon Brown had ‘effectively gobbled up every penny we have collectively earned for five full months’ in order to pay for his ‘lavish spending sprees’. The Evening Standard celebrated it as the day ‘employees will finally stop working for Gordon Brown today and start earning for themselves’. In The Times, Stephen Pollard told us to ‘Crack open the Krug’ to celebrate, but then had second thoughts and said ‘far from celebrating, we ought to be commiserating with each other. Last year, we could start keeping our own money three days earlier; when Labour took office in 1997, Tax Freedom Day fell on May 25′.

Freedom is a complex term with many contested meanings but it hardly makes sense in this context, not least because the vast majority of the money Gordon Brown has ‘gobbled up’ comes directly back to us or to our friends and family. But by expressing tax in days of work it Tax Freedom Day not only gives a very complex issue a simple personal dimension, it also emphasises the least popular dimensions - tax and work - of an equation that needs to be balanced with the public goods that emanate from them. What, then, if we were to perform the same trick with public spending? Rather than suggesting a feudal burden we need to be freed from, perhaps the figures might highlight how well we collectively use our time to support our families and serve our local communities?

For instance, it turns out we each work just one day a year to fund our public libraries, museums, galleries and concert venues. That seems remarkably good value to me - put like this it doesn’t seem too much to ask. Similarly, we might want to spend more than a mere 32 seconds a day of our time funding medical research - heck, why not go for a whole minute?

No doubt it’s the welfare state that the ASI are really objecting to, but if we break social spending down into discrete programme headings then the billions Gordon Brown is ‘gobbling’ for his ’spending sprees’ seem more like modest contributions of our time to help family members or close friends and neighbours. Consider the biggest single item of social security spending - the state pension. It turns out we work just seventeen days a year to provide income for our parents or grandparents. Is that too much to ask? Perhaps ASI staff don’t get on with their elder relatives, but it seems a bit much to begrudge them the rewards from one-and-a-half days out of every calendar month. Perhaps they have more pressing needs for their money - like the Krug they keep cracking open?

It’s a similar picture for schools, where just under a day month is worked to fund our primary and secondary schools. Most parents would view this as an absolute bargain. While the NHS commands a much bigger chunk of our time - some 25 days this year - this still compares very favourably to the private sector driven system in the USA that swallows over 50 days a year of collective effort in order to satisfy its cash hungry insurance funds.

Almost all of us will, at some point, make use of our public schools, hospitals, libraries, museums and state pensions and even if we do not use them at this particular moment in time then it is likely someone in our family will be. Personalising public spending by converting it into days of effort worked towards supporting ourselves or our own families helps reconnect it with the people in our own lives we are supporting. It also reveals the often paltry investments we make in some key areas of direct concern to us. For instance, we might want to spend more than just fifteen minutes a day working on environmental protection.

Of course, while primarily acting as kind of intergenerational savings bank, the state also acts to redistribute income between the rich and the poor and it is probably this that the ASI objects most strongly to. However, if we use the same methodology to demonstrate how long the nation works to fund the incomes of different social groups then it actually makes the case for redistribution remarkably well.

According to the latest published data (for 2002-3), the richest 10% of the country commanded 32% of our national income while the poorest 10% received just 1%. These figures are stark, but if we convert them into days it turns out that the country as a whole worked until April 25 to pay the incomes of the richest 10%. Unlike the taxes taken by Gordon Brown, I imagine much of this money really was ‘gobbled up’ in ’spending sprees’. Curiously enough, it is less than a week short of the full four months of income only the most rapacious feudal lords asked us to hand over in the Middle Ages. Meanwhile, the nation worked just four days to produce the income of the poorest 10%.

Even after Gordon Brown intervened to redistribute some of this cash the picture changed little: in a picture reminiscent of a Dickensian tale we only turned our attentions to the poorest 10% on Christmas Eve - working a paltry eight days to raise their income - and while the richest 10% generously gave up two weeks of national effort compared to their pre-tax incomes they still asked us to work the first 101 days of the year for them.

Put differently, it wasn’t until April 12 that we had finally reached the theoretical point in the year at which we stopped working for the rich and started working for ourselves. Let’s call this ‘Fat Cat Freedom Day’. However, far from celebrating, we ought to be commiserating with each other. It used to fall so much earlier than this in the past.

What a great phrase… from Martin Dodge of UCL in a Guardian article about firms tagging workers to improve their efficiency.

Workers in warehouses across Britain are being “electronically tagged” by being asked to wear small computers to cut costs and increase the efficient delivery of goods and food to supermarkets, a report revealed yesterday.

New US satellite- and radio-based computer technology is turning some workplaces into “battery farms” and creating conditions similar to “prison surveillance”, according to a report from Michael Blakemore, professor of geography at Durham University.

The technology, introduced six months ago, is spreading rapidly, with up to 10,000 employees using it to supply household names such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Boots and Marks & Spencer.

Under the system workers are asked to wear computers on their wrists, arms and fingers, and in some cases to put on a vest containing a computer which instructs them where to go to collect goods from warehouse shelves.

The system also allows supermarkets direct access to the individual’s computer so orders can be beamed from the store. The computer can also check on whether workers are taking unauthorised breaks and work out the shortest time a worker needs to complete a job.

According to BT (via Computer Shopper):

The number of broadband connections in the UK has exceeded dial-up usage for the first time. BT figures show that there are now more than 7.4 million broadband users, with two million using cable and 5.4 on DSL.

The UK is bottom of the EU league table for e-government take up accroding to a recent report by Eurostat (via e-gov monitor; full text via Eurostat):

Less than a third of businesses in the UK used basic eGovernment services compared to the European average of 45 per cent and 90 per cent in Sweden… Survey findings released by Eurostat show 31 per cent of UK companies used online government services to obtain information during the first quarter of 2004… 27 per cent downloaded forms from government websites against an average figure of 41 per cent for the EU25 and 84 per cent in Finland. The UK also came joint bottom with Cyprus in the EU Member States in terms of businesses using government services to send online forms, reported to be just 11 per cent, compared with the average of 29 per cent. Take-up in this area was highest in Poland at 68 per cent, followed by Finland at 61 per cent.

Similar figures for e-Government take-up by citizens were, in a sense, relatively better compared to the EU norm. A fifth of UK citizens were reported to have obtained government information online (EU average 22 per cent), seven per cent had downloaded forms from government websites (EU average 10 per cent) and just three per cent had used online forms (EU average seven per cent).

It’s a poor record, particularly given that the UK tops the IT spending league table in Europe (report only available at huge cost from Kable, but this snippet from electric news):

The UK is spending more on public sector ICT than any other European country, according to a new survey by market analyst firm Kable. ICT expenditure across Europe is set for slow but steady growth over the next two years, according to the report, titled “ICT Spend in the European Public Sector.” Total spending this year will amount to EUR87 billion, reaching EUR94 billion by 2007. The UK accounts for an estimated 23 percent of the total for this year, or EUR21 billion, a figure that is 40 percent higher than the amounts spent by Germany or France. The UK spending is largely being driven by major investments in e-government and back office infrastructure, says Kable, and includes major IT projects like the Connecting for Health initiative, the Criminal Justice IT programme and the Defence Information Infrastructure.

Obviously the figures are not fully comparable, being in absolute rather than per capita amounts, but it seems clear that the UK isn’t getting the return it ought to. Given this, it is no surprise that on-the-record explanations are starting to emerge. Last week, an ODPM official argued that the UK struggles with e-gov ignorance (story via FCW):

Setting up government Web sites for citizen transactions does little good unless the public uses them, a U.K. e-government official said today. Almost all of the UK’s 400 local governments will provide electronic services by the end of this year, said Julian Bowrey, divisional and programme manager of local e-government in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Bowrey was a panel member at FCW Events’ Web-Enabled Government Conference in Washington, D.C. Although a digital divide exists between those who have access to computers and those who do not, e-government usage is low even among those who have access. “The first thing we do when we get access to a computer is go shopping,” Bowrey said. “Very few of us do e-government.”

Given his responsibility for local, rather than national, e-government, his proposed solution was, perhaps, to be expected, but interesting nonetheless:

To increase usage, the central government’s Web portal should link to local government Web sites, Bowrey said. The U.K. equivalent of FirstGov.gov is Directgov, but its content is mainly limited to policy statements, he added. Users searching for information on special education in schools, for example, would be more interested in information about local schools and how to contact local officials, Bowrey said.

In short, devolve down to the local level and bring a government (i.e. a political) dimension back in:

A U.K. marketing campaign should target two segments of the populace most likely to start using e-services, Bowrey said. One is “grumpy young men who want to pay their parking fines online and want to complain, preferably at 3 in the morning,” he said. The other is women with an interest in local community services, he added.

The United Kingdom also must overcome the public perception that local authorities are unresponsive and accessible only during banker’s hours, he said. The “view among some people is ‘Well, local government just doesn’t do this stuff. It’s all 19th century,’” he said.

But, he also conceded that building e-government is, in itself, not enough:

Surveys show that interest in e-government is far higher than actual usage. More people don’t use available services “because they’re not aware of them,” Bowrey said.

However, it might also help if some of the basics were done properly — and this applies to local government as much (perhaps even more than) central government. Central amongst these is surely accessibility and here the record is often poor. Indeed, a recent report found that 85 per cent of London borough web sites were yet to achieve web accessibility.

It has also been suggested that services need to be made more user friendly too. Nigel Dunn, Vice President of Genesys Conferencing, has argued this can be done through giving e-government a clearer visual identity; some of this is, no doubt, a plug for his products, but worthy of some attention perhaps (via Publictechnology.net)

His argument is simple but compelling - putting a human face to an e-government service will in crease take-up. Though it may sounds like a sales pitch for video-conferencing, the message is an important one to heed for e-government service marketing. The public have greater trust and usage of a service if there’s a face attached to its marketing and communication - so videoconferencing or avatars could make a real difference if embedded in the front end of an e-gov service.

It might help too if the Prime Minister himself had a stronger understanding of what’s going on in the field; his shameful ignorance was exposed in a recent House of Commons session:

Q88 Mr Allan: You have something of a reputation of being a technophobe on a personal level, is that fair?

Mr Blair: I am afraid that is fair actually, yes.

Q89 Mr Allan: It is. Have you ever visited the multi-million pound central government website that you have set up to get us all to use these new electronic government facilities?

Mr Blair: I think that is a very unfair question. The answer is no.

Q90 Mr Allan: Do you know the address of this multi-million pound project?

Mr Blair: No.

Mr Allan: Your head of e.government, Ian Watmore, would be able to tell you all about it.

Mr Blair: That is exactly why delegation is such an important part of the job of a prime minister.

Oh dear…