There has been a great deal of attention paid to Mr Gove’s long predicted move to scrap some BTecs and reduce the league table value of the rest to one GCSE (from as many as four). But what will be the result in terms of secondary school priorities? Looking at payment by results (PBR) systems might be a useful starting point for debate.

PBR schemes in which the payment is connected to a specific outcome will tend to see clients divided into three groups. I’m sure there are other terminologies, but these groups could be called ‘the cream’, the people who would have achieved the outcome (getting a job, staying out of prison etc) without any support, ‘the core’, who may be more likely to meet the outcome or meet it more quickly as a result of support and ‘the hard cases’, who are unlikely to achieve the outcome without a level of support which is unfeasible given the terms of the contract.

Cream skimming and parking (what is done with the hard cases) don’t happen because contract providers are bad people, they are the inevitable consequence of certain PBR systems. The main way to avoid these tactics is to move from a focus on a specific outcome to ‘direction of travel’ measures. In this approach the provider doesn’t get much money for the employment of cream clients but can get a payment for getting a hard case to, say, attend a literacy course. For several years the view among employment policy makers has been that this direction of travel is dangerous; leading to providers putting core clients on access courses of dubious value but never getting them anywhere near a job.

Schools aren’t paid by results but they are paid for places. The number of pupils they attract and the status of the school and its staff depend on key performance measures. Mr Gove and Alison Wolf have today repeated the allegation that many schools have pushed pupils into BTecs of dubious value because they are an easy way to lift a school’s GCSEs score. However, both have had to admit the evidence is circumstantial; lots more pupils do vocational qualifications like BTecs and as this isn’t in children’s best interests  – according to Gove and Wolf – schools must be guilty of putting their institutional needs above the interests of pupils.

My own experience suggests that the motivation is somewhat more complex. Schools encourage less academic pupils to take courses which they may find more engaging and in which they have more chance of success and the welcome by-product of this strategy has been – until now – that it helps with the GCSE score. A more charitable interpretation of school behaviour might have been a bit better for staff room morale but it wouldn’t have made such good headlines.

But there is a perverse incentive I have frequently seen at play. It lies in the power of the five GCSEs (including Maths and English) target. This clearly encourages many schools, particularly those worried about their overall OFSTED ranking, to focus resources (for example, small group and Saturday top up classes) on those at the border line of attaining the magic five (rather than those who could get many more or have no chance of making the threshold). This incentive remains in place. Indeed, as Mr Gove presses harder on attainment of the EBac  - in which there are five required subjects not just two – the key measure of school performance, the channelling of resources into the borderline pupils may be accentuated.

The latest school performance tables offer a lot more information in a more accessible form than before. I particularly welcome the information about how low, medium and high attainers have done based on their level leaving primary school. This is a direction of travel measure; the top-line school rankings have for some time combined absolute and progression targets, but the latter are made more vivid in the new performance information.

The excellent Conor Ryan has suggested that the proliferation of measures could cloud rather than enhance accountability. He may be right, but, then again, perhaps a more pluralist approach in which different schools can pursue different measures of success would be good. (Although the hard part of choosing something other than headline GCSEs is persuading parents to shift their focus from this measure.)

My point is slightly different. I agree with Mr Gove, Professor Wolf and many others that if vocational qualifications are weak and equivalences unjustified then something should be done. But just because Government removes one allegedly perverse incentive doesn’t mean everything now lines up in a natural and benign way. It would be very interesting to see from Government an analysis of how they think the different measures now applied to schools will affect how schools use resources and guide pupils.

The fear about the EBac – that it will increase the proportion of pupils who fall into the hard case/parking category – will probably have been increased by today’s announcement (as it cuts off some routes for lower attaining pupils to achieve results for themselves and their schools). Mr Gove is a powerful communicator and decisive policy maker but he doesn’t always seem very interested in the detail, but when it comes to the way national targets shape school policies that’s exactly where the devil is hiding.

PS Since first posting I have discovered that Graham Stuart, independent minded Conservative Chair of the Education Select Committee made a very similar point today, but using rather more forceful language.

Related posts:

1. Mr Gove’s awfully big experiment
2. PBR – high hopes, big questions.
3. Selectively grumpy

As two of today’s news stories underline, utilitarianism tends to put common sense and the short term ahead of principles and the long term.

This tendency helps explain the apparent hostility to using human rights as a criterion for arbitrating on domestic policy. Arguably, the most important aspect of the idea of rights is that they are absolute: not only should rights be protected in hard cases (cases, which, for example, offend our sense of fairness or common sense) but this is indeed the test of whether a right is really a right rather than merely a contingent entitlement.

This principle has featured recently in debates about prisoners. Most high profile has been the UK Government’s resistance to the imposition by the European Court of a prisoner’s right to vote. In keeping with this position the Government is now seeking largely to remove the right of prisoners to seek compensation as the victims of crime.

The most important question here is not whether victim compensation is a right but whether the state’s scope to remove rights from prisoners should be seen as restricted or open ended. Even the most liberal minded will accept the right of the state to remove those rights which are lost as a direct consequence of incarceration, for example freedom of movement or association; while even the most punitive would not want to deny prisoners the right to basic health care. But should the state be free to add further losses of rights and entitlements which are not a necessary consequence of the loss of liberty?

The UK Government clearly feels the answer is ‘yes’ and no doubt ministers have public opinion on their side, but it is perhaps reasonable to ask where this discretion should end. Given that neither voting nor access to compensation are a necessary consequence of the loss of liberty how about, let’s say, access to nutrition or warmth above the absolute minimum required for survival? After all common sense might argue that many law abiding citizens are cold and hungry; surely it goes against decency that prisoners should be more fortunate? This is indeed the kind of argument which has driven prison policy in some of the more punitive American states.

Another example of the logic of utility was the announcement by the Home Secretary of a new ‘five calls and we’re in’ rule for anti-social behaviour. On common sense grounds it is difficult to argue against the police being compelled to intervene if five different people have reported the same incidents of anti-social behaviour. It has certainly made for some good headlines at a time when rising crime and falling police numbers are making the Coalition vulnerable on law and order.

But Ms May’s announcement does beg some questions. Such targets are bound to generate anomalies: for example, should the police direct resources towards the fifth complaint about children kicking balls over garden fences at the expense of intervening in a case where there have been only three complaints about a vulnerable person being systematically bullied? On other policy areas the Coalition has exposed the danger of these kinds of unintended consequences. Ms May’s apparent abandonment of the principle of localism may now be used when ministerial colleagues in other areas seek to resist calls for national safeguards.

Indeed, with the direct local election of police commissioners taking place in the autumn, policing is often mentioned in the Coalition’s localism script. Whether these elections will attract candidates of calibre and a reasonable turnout remains to be seen, but it is unclear what the value of a local mandate will be if policy can be dictated by Whitehall on an issue as detailed as how many telephone calls trigger action on anti-social behaviour.

Human rights and localism are very different kinds of principles. Both, it seems, are vulnerable to the pressure on all politicians to meet the voracious appetite of public opinion and the 24 news cycle.

Related posts:

1. RSA Fellows bring some cheer on a gloomy Monday
2. Defending rights from the right
3. The problem with entitlements

It looks like I may be appearing on Channel Four News this evening to discuss fairness, presumably in the context of Mr Hester’s bonus.

I will approach the conversation with two pieces of recent reading in mind. The first is a paper by Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy at Kent University. It’s worth quoting his summary in full:

‘ This article analyses a dataset covering 26 countries for more than two decades to show that spending cuts, privatisation and increases in poverty undermine legitimacy. It uses a direct measure of legitimacy in terms of the frequency of riots and political demonstrations and strikes rather than the usual indirect measures in terms of attitudes and trust in government’.

So there we have it, cuts and poverty lead to unrest. You may think the good Professor should list his subsidiary specialist subject as ‘the bleedin’ obvious’, but, having seen resistance to the very notion of social causes among even intelligent people, his findings are worth sharing.

My second influence is Gavin Kelly’s latest column for the New Statesman. Summarising the latest research from the Resolution Foundation, Kelly shows that even if the Government meets its growth targets middle income households will suffer significant falls in living standards, but that there is a very good chance things will be substantially worse. (At least we are doing better than Spain, where the unemployment rate for 18-24 year olds is now a staggering 50 per cent.)

When large swathes of people are suffering economically the issue of fairness become more important. It also tends to become more toxic. The news this week has been dominated by two big fairness arguments, one about the poor (the Coalition’s plan for a benefit cap) and one about the rich (Mr Hester). In both cases much of the coverage was couched in terms of public anger, indeed Coalition ministers chided Bishops voting against the cap on the grounds that they were ignoring public opinion.

This reinforces a point I tried to make (ill advisedly at great length) in posts over the festive break. As we move further into the age of austerity, there is, I believe, an urgent need for our leading politicians to try to articulate a comprehensive, coherent and, hopefully, humane account of what fairness should mean. Without such an account we risk ever louder cries of rage as angry people look for someone to blame for their current problems and future prospects.

Of course, there is no simple account of what is fair and unfair and certainly not one to which everyone would agree, but recognising this is part of the point. As long as we use the idea of unfairness as a kind of conversation stopper it will be hard to find any narrative that addresses the legitimacy deficit that Taylor-Gooby’s work suggests will steadily grow.

Just as I finished writing I got a call on the train from Channel Four News saying I’d been dropped. The researcher remained unmoved even when I suggested that my blog reader would be glued to her set. ‘Oh dear,’ said the nice lady opposite me as I hung up with a sigh, ‘sometimes life just isn’t fair’.

No related posts.

I am writing immediately after the RSA Jobs Summit which I co-chaired with our Chair of Trustees Luke Johnson and former RSA Trustee, and respected independent economist, Vicky Pryce. We had an amazing line up of speakers ranging from senior politicians (David Miliband and David Willetts) to respected academics and policy analysts (Paul Gregg, Jonathan Portes, Paul Johnson) to incisive writers on the economy (John Kay and Diane Coyle) to people with front line experience of business (John Makinson, James Mawson, Elizabeth Varley) and many more.

The conversation had a nice concertina rhythm, moving from broad debates about jobs, enterprise, and investment to more specific questions about industrial policy and labour market regulation. Overall, I was reminded that in policy making what matters is what is important not what may be most novel. Although the sessions spanned political perspectives ranging from Miliband to the unapologetically free market views of the IEA’s Mark Littlewood, and a wide range of expertise, there were some points which came close to achieving a consensus:

• Despite the grim figures the UK has a good record on job creation (200,000 more jobs under the Coalition for example) and – by international standards – a reasonably flexible labour market.
• Our problems lie most acutely in youth unemployment but also in other people and places consistently over-represented among the unemployed and under-employed, and the fact that a combination of fiscal and demographic changes mean we probably have to create about an extra 300,000 jobs a year over the next decade even to maintain unemployment at today’s levels.
• We continue to have major problems with the employability of those young people not going into higher education. The roots of this are complex but we may need to speed up reform to the education and experience we offer 14-19 year olds.
• The over concentration of power, investment and growth in London and the South East is a problem. Most agree that part of the answer is strengthening the city regional tier of government, particularly with elected mayors. There is also recognition of the need for greater flexibility in labour market factors at a city and at a population subgroup level, although what this should encompass (minimum wage level, public sector pay, tax, employment regulation) is more complex and controversial.
• Notwithstanding the pressures of austerity there continues to be strong case for emergency action to create public works jobs for young people.
• Although we should aim to increase skill levels, we will always need many low skilled jobs. But the attitude and life skills of employees and the management skills of employers are important to whether this work can be more or less well remunerated, satisfying and provide the basis for progression.
• Entrepreneurship is vital to future growth and job creation and there are probably more budding entrepreneurs around now than ever before. But we are still quite in the dark about the characteristics which make for a successful entrepreneur and the context which most favours them. When we do find people who have, and act on, great ideas we should cherish them and encourage them to develop this talent in others.
• In terms of its current areas of economic strength (for example, creative industries, pharmaceuticals, business services) the UK is pretty well placed to exploit growing global markets. Despite the abolition of the RDAs, the Government is increasingly willing to talk about the need for industrial policy but this needs to be based on an objective, evidence-based assessment of the emerging areas of technology that we may be able to exploit.

There is little new in all this but it was useful to see the points of broad agreement and to focus minds on the key aspects of a strategy for jobs and growth. We will be publishing a fuller report of the day in a few weeks’ time.

Related posts:

1. Desperate times call for …
2. My name is Bond, ‘Bond for hope’
3. Up the workers

I am speaking on Wednesday about innovation in higher education. I thought I might lay out my speech outline today to see if I can grab some useful feedback from readers ahead of the event.

On one level it is odd to imply there is an issue with innovation in HE. Universities are by their nature hotbeds of new thinking.  Whether it is UCL opening a new campus in East London, Newcastle’s work on becoming a truly civic institution or Northampton’s decision (working with the RSA) to become ‘a leader in social innovation’, every university can point not only to their best teaching and research but also to significant changes in the ways they work. Furthermore, while the requirement under the Research Assessment Exercise that departments show ‘impact’ from their work has been roundly criticised in some academic circles, my impression is that it is opening up new debates and helping those who have always argued for faculty to engage more fully with the world outside academe.

And yet, while this is to be welcomed, it is also arguably the case that most HE innovation is both incremental and largely constrained by the core assumptions and business models of the sector. Truly ‘social innovation’ involves more fundamental questioning, indeed the starting point for this kind of step change is recognition that key aspects of the current system are increasingly problematic.

I plan to suggest four big challenges which could form the starting point for a more radical process of questioning and – subsequently – innovation. In summary these are:

The essence of the student offer: as Stefan Collini has pointed out, there is fundamental tension between the idea of students as learners (which implies they defer to teachers) and students as customers (which implies their preferences are sovereign). Also, some aspects of the student offer may become less powerful (eg course content in a world of free on-line access to some of the best courses in the world) while others become more important (most obviously, the securing of employment).  In the US rising fees in the best universities have been accompanied by escalating investment in things like sports, catering and recreation facilities – is that how we want the taxpayers’ subsidy to fees being channelled in England?

The relationship between universities and their localities: reading a presentation by Newcastle’s  John Goddard – one of our leading advocates  for the civic university – I came across this quotation from Gerard Delanty ‘The great significance of the university is that it can be the most important site of connectivity in the knowledge society…and…a key institution for the formation of cultural and technological citizenship…and…for reviving the decline of the public sphere’. Yet, generally only a fraction of the capacity that universities could bring to the places they inhabit is explicitly tapped.

The nature of universities: according to John Goddard’s research, local public agencies (like councils) often find the authority structure of universities opaque and diffuse; this is a barrier to collaboration. While the relative autonomy of faculty from the university administration is a virtue, and the tendency of academics to view the hierarchy of their discipline as more important than the hierarchy of university leadership is inevitable, it still leaves the problem for universities of how – as institutions – to mobilise to meet shared challenges and pursue overarching objectives.

The core business model: HE is expensive and like all labour intensive industries its costs comparative to the rest of the economy are continuing to rise.  Part of this lies in the complex nature of a university combining the characteristics of a knowledge business (research), a large scale service provider (undergraduate teaching), and a wider public purpose in relation to human development and social capacity. With, among other things, a competitive market, the constant demands for greater efficiency and the growth of international private teaching universities using sophisticated distance learning methods, universities may increasingly need to question their core business model.

Any views on whether these are the right issues to provoke a deeper, broader approach to innovation are most welcome.

Related posts:

1. ‘Bond for hope’: some questions answered (I think)
2. PBR – high hopes, big questions.
3. To err is human….