A jobs opening in Number 10?
Like a Russian doll of misery the jobs crisis has layers on layers. We all know about the problems in Britain, with an estimated seven million people who would like full time employment either out of work or working part time. Then today there is a report from the ILO questioning the effectiveness of austerity strategies and predicting widespread social unrest, and showing the number of jobs across the global economy to be still fifty million below the pre credit crunch level. Then looking into the medium term Jim Clifton, head of Gallup, has shown that employment is the single factor most strongly correlated with well-being across the world but has estimated that of the three billion formal jobs for which there is demand the global economy is currently creating only 1.2 billion.
There are many factors which determine how successful an economy is at generating jobs, not least of which is its underlying strength and level of demand. But picking and mixing from countries which do relatively well – like Germany, Austria and Uruguay – a broad approach suggests itself combining three factors: tax policies which encourage investment and job creation, active industrial policy directed particularly to areas with the greatest job creating potential, and industrial partnerships through which Government, employers and employee organisations work together on a core commitment to avoiding high unemployment. Our own Government is doing some very small things in the first area, but nothing that is likely to release the huge stocks of capital sitting in corporate bank accounts; there is also some talk of industrial strategy in the second area, but again it is very limited reflecting the Conservatives’ continued scepticism. As for the third, there has been little or no evidence of high level industrial partnership in the UK for over thirty years.
Much of this is fertile territory for Labour, although it is less vocal on the problem of weak and out-dated trade union leadership. But despite the rolling omnishambles the next election won’t be for three years. Mr Cameron could do with reasserting three things right now:
He is focused on the issues which most matter to people
He can be bold
He can do what it is the interests of the country even if it makes his party uneasy
On the initiative of our Chair Luke Johnson the RSA held its own reasonably successful Jobs Summit a few weeks ago. If I was advising Mr Cameron I would suggest he take a leaf out of our book. How about a major Number Ten jobs summit involving not just the Conservatives’ usual favourite business people but a much wider range of experiences and views (including, for example the ILO and TUC). Like the RSA event the summit could have sessions looking at both the short and the long term but with strong emphasis on solutions.
There are risks. Not just in what people will say but also the acknowledgement that the Coalition hasn’t got all the answers and in the implication that Government might be willing to explore some kind of new ‘post bureaucratic’ mechanism for industrial partnership.
As I know from my own time in Government, one good aspect of a crisis is that sometimes the left field suggestions to the Prime Minister which were previously discarded get called up from the records and re-examined in a fresh light. Who knows they might even look at obscure blog suggestions too?
By the way, it may only have been a subsidiary consideration but when the RSA decided to go ahead with our House redevelopment one factor was the sense that we should make our own contribution to generating economic activity and jobs in these austere times. As an RSA fan (if you are) you can make your own small contribution to the Society’s mission and to economic recovery by sponsoring my insane bid to run a marathon up a mountain.
Ain’t no mountain high enough …
A few weeks ago I was asked to talk to the UpRising Leadership programme which caters for talented 19-25 year olds from diverse backgrounds. I guess I was there as a high achiever to describe my journey and experience. Instead, to the initial shock and later amusement of the students, I explored why I may not have used whatever talent and ambition I was privileged to inherit to make the biggest impression on the world.
I am very proud to be CEO of the RSA. Alternatively I wonder if, perhaps, with more discipline and guile, I could have been a national politician and made decisions to improve the lives of millions. With more consistency I could have been a professional, maybe a doctor or a lawyer, with the knowledge and skills to help people profoundly in times of need. With more self sacrifice could I have dedicated myself to making a concrete difference to the lives of the most disadvantaged here or in the poorest parts of the word? With more focus and patience could I have been an academic working on ideas which take on a power of their own?
Instead I recycle ideas, trundle around the lower reaches of the second division of public intellectuals and try to live up the honour of running this great organisation. As well as the salary, being boss brings status. But it is oh so transitory. As all organisational leaders know, at the first staff meeting a few days after a leaving party to mark their many years of blood sweat and tears, the new boss will be reassuring an enthusiastic staff, with more or less directness, that it is time to blow away the accumulated cobwebs and march into a brave new future. All those things we fondly saw as achievements are either taken for granted or scorned.
‘Is there nothing’ I ask myself in sleepless nights ‘that will endure?’ When it comes to the RSA I derive most comfort from the slow revolution being brought about by the Fellowship. More and more Fellows are engaged, and more and more of that engagement is contributing to the Society’s charitable mission. One example is Catalyst, formed a couple of years ago to provide small grants to groups of Fellows seeking to develop new initiatives or social enterprises. Every six weeks we get twenty or so bids, each of which has genuine value and of which two or three are good enough to deserve a grant. But because the sums we can provide are small we have always hoped that some Catalyst winners would go on to find funding from other sources. Increasingly, this is happening. For example, last week we heard of substantial new funding for a project in Tower Hamlets, Ladies Who L-Earn, which offers unemployed young women training and mentoring by Fellows and local business people to enable them to run market stalls for local designers.
Another aspect of change has been the concerted attempt to engage Fellows more fully in the RSA’s research and development projects. Just the other day my colleague Rebecca Daddow was enthusiastically describing the many ways in which Fellows are supporting our groundbreaking work in West Kent, which aims to support the rehabilitation of people recovering from drug and alcohol dependency. As our method is all about helping people in recovery to integrate as full members of civil society, Fellow engagement is part of what makes the project distinctive and powerful.
And then this week I heard that in sums ranging from thousands to fivers, many Fellows have already generously responded to our appeal for funds towards the refurbishment of the RSA’s Great Room. One of the many improvements in the new Great Room will be cutting edge technology which will make the on-line experience of watching and participating in RSA events even better. There have in the last eighteen months been around sixty million global views of RSA lectures.
Many people who watch the lectures, and who read this modest blog or visit the RSA’s website are not Fellows. We see spreading great ideas around the world as a core part of our charitable mission, but now, for once, I am asking those who like what we do but don’t contribute as Fellows to make a concrete expression of their appreciation.
One of the symptoms of my mid life crisis has been a growing obsession with physical fitness. I ran the marathon a few years ago and am still aiming to run 10k in under 40 minutes. So when a friend challenged me to run a mountain marathon my foolish pride would not let me refuse. The Lowe Alpine Mountain Marathon on June 9/10 requires me to run a marathon distance mainly steeply uphill navigating my own route and carrying a six kilo overnight pack.
As I have gradually added each ingredient of difficulty to the training – distance, incline, weight, rough ground – the scale of my idiocy in volunteering has become clearer. A trial half marathon along the cliffs of Dover and Deal last weekend left me exhausted for two days. What is more, the whole exercise is costing me hundreds of pounds on travel and kit costs.
But you can lighten my burden. I have set up a JustGiving page and I am asking friends of the RSA to help me raise two thousand pound towards the Great Room appeal.
Perhaps in twenty years’ time a grey haired man, limping slightly as a consequence of a nasty fall in the Cairngorms decades earlier, will walk unrecognised into John Adam Street and point out to his grandchildren a small patch of beautifully restored mosaic on the staircase to the Great Room. ‘There’ he will proudly proclaim ‘I told you I had made an impression on the world’.
Saving the world (part 1)
Every once in a while I get the chance to restate, and in so doing refine, a core element of my case for change in the world. So it was last night when the wonderful Tessy Britton (FRSA) and Laura Billings (FRSA) invited me to an ‘Ad-hoc enquiry’ dinner at the Hub in Westminster. I was a last minute stand-in and the group of twenty or so people sitting round the table eating soup and salad were highly impressive and accomplished, so it was quite a tough gig.
Today and tomorrow I will summarise what I said.
My initial pitch focussed on the social aspiration gap and the conundrum posed in seeking to close it:
* Growing demand and rising expectations combined with what is likely to be at least a decade of severe public sector resource constraint, mean we are on a default trend toward more and more unmet social need.
* Furthermore there are values which most people adhere to, for example, that children should have relatively equal life chances, young people should have jobs or useful education, whole localities should not be excluded from opportunity, which we are not in any way on track to deliver.
* On the whole, in relation to public service policy the Government and citizens want to achieve the same goals: better educated children, healthier lives, safer communities.
* Citizen behaviours are crucial to achieving these outcomes, indeed what we do as parents, patients, carers and neighbours is, arguably, a more important factor in outcomes than changes in Government policy or variations in the quality of services.
* Overall, internationally, the British are probably in the fair to good range when it comes to being responsible, resilient and altruistic, which is only what you would expect given our privileges as a nation. But there is huge scope for us to be better at looking after ourselves and each other.
* The conundrum (the question the Labour Government was mulling over when it commissioned work on ‘behaviour change’ and David Cameron was driving at with the notion of the ‘Big Society’) is how we persuade or enable people to align their expectations, attitude and actions with their aspirations so as to increase what the RSA has called the ‘social productivity’ of public policy interventions.
* There are some examples of the kind of change needed. Take refuse collection, where fast rising rates of household recycling are the consequence just as much of changes in the way citizens manage their rubbish as of changes in how councils deal with it. Similarly, at their best, personal budgets for social care take the desire of services users and carers for more autonomy and turn this into a resource enabling a reduction in bureaucracy and ensuring that money gets directed to meeting the needs and wishes of budget recipients. Yet still across most public services, and running through most public policy, is a model in which citizens are seen as demands, needs or problems rather than partners, stakeholders or assets.
* Is this because the model of public services as collaborations to achieve social outcomes between the state, civil society and individuals is simply unrealistic? Perhaps the underlying nature of British society – particularly inequality and limited social solidarity – makes a more socialised model of public provision impossible? Or perhaps we simply haven’t been willing to be sufficiently imaginative or ambitious?
After my pitch there was a fascinating conversation which shaped a conclusion in which we identified six elements necessary for the emergence of a different paradigm for the public sphere. I know it will be almost unbearable, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear what those elements are…
Driving ambition
As David Homewood FRSA describes in this recent RSA Comment piece, the cost of insurance is making car ownership completely unaffordable for hundreds of thousands of young people, something which is bound to be worsening problems of youth unemployment, particularly in rural areas. A few years ago, there was much hope that smart boxes in cars would solve the problem by forcing young people to drive safely and enabling insurers to reduce premiums. But the boxes have neither reduced prices nor changed behaviour sufficiently to make a difference and now only one significant insurer offers a smart box-based deal.
This is a real practical issue affecting the economic prospects and quality of life of younger people. I suspect solutions will involve some combination of technology, economics and behaviour change and if anyone out there fancies funding or collaborating on a research project I’m sure the RSA would be interested.
I can’t quite fit the pieces together but I wonder whether one way forward may be based on younger drivers giving lifts to older passengers? I haven’t got the statistics to hand but my recollection is that young people’s likelihood of having an accident is significantly increased if they have other young people in the car and significantly reduced if they have older passengers. Is there a way of combining young people’s need for cheaper insurance and the offer of free comfortable transport for older people?
If that seems impractical, I was intrigued to read about a system called Bring Buddy which has been developed by design students and DHL. Basically, the system uses social media and GPS to connect people’s movements across cities to parcels which need to be transported. The system is particularly relevant in city centres where pedestrianisation or congestion charging makes on foot or bike delivery much easier than by car or van. My web surfing doesn’t make clear whether Bring Buddy is in operation and, if it is, how it is working, but a system whereby young people’s insurance was dependent on them taking older passengers might work using a similar crowd sourcing methodology.
Perhaps it’s a silly idea but hopefully it will provoke other thoughts.
But I should end with an admission. Although it was David’s Comment which provoked me today, I was going to write about this issue a few months ago when I was trying to get insurance for my older son who passed his test first time last December. My indignation towards insurance companies for the cost he and his mother ended up paying was burning bright for a full two weeks. That was how long it took before he managed to write off the family car! Since the smash, in which no one was injured, he has become a much more careful driver but this underlines that the problem is not just about greedy insurance companies but also the genuine dangers that young people can pose themselves (and other people) when they drive without supervision.
On reflection, Evan Davis is wonderful
I was delighted this morning to see the extensive coverage for an RSA report by my colleague, Dr Jonathan Rowson, called ‘Reflexive Coppers’. The report described a small scale but fascinating study of the value police offers felt they received from insights into cognitive processes and exploring ways of thinking more effectively.
The positive findings reinforced the RSA’s more subtle and empowering approach to behaviour change. Instead of ‘nudging’, which seeks to change choice architecture (for example, putting healthier food more easily in reach than unhealthy in canteens), the RSA’s ‘steer’ approach aims to give people the understanding and tools they need to change their own behaviour. This was particularly relevant to police officers as they try to find a way to reconcile their public order and public engagement functions.
We try at the RSA to be honest about the disappointments as well as the successes of research. So Jonathan’s report also describes the problems police officers had applying the lessons they had learnt from their training, and the limited take up when they were offered an opportunity to have further discussions about reflexivity.
I suspect this latter finding reinforces a point I was making last week about the need to embed more thoughtful ways of operating in day to day work practices. Unless methods of refining individual cognition and regularising group reflection are made a core part of work, attempts to think better are likely to be undermined by day to day pressures.
The Society’s ‘social brain’ strand of work (of which the police report is a part) is central to our broader historical focus on enhancing human capability. Whether the issue is improving children’s attainment, tackling social problems or fostering innovation, how to think and decide more effectively is an important question. Indeed, the RSA is seeking to achieve greater depth than other research organisations by underpinning our practical and policy related work with a set of cross-cutting insights not just on cognition and behaviour change but also social networks, design and social enterprise.
Given the RSA’s broad remit, it is important that we connect the specific focus of our work to wider themes. Which brings me to Evan Davis, who, as we all know, has a background, and continuing interest, in business and the economy. As you can hear, it is the esteemed broadcaster who spontaneously links Jonathan’s work to economic productivity and manufacturing specifically.
Indeed, in a knowledge economy dominated by the service sector the question of how we might organise work so that people are better motivated and more likely to develop and apply new ideas is as vital to business profitability as to public sector efficiency.
In ‘The Righteous Mind’, Jonathan Haidt reports research showing how the quality of people’s reasoning is improved by being forced to reflect for just two minutes, rather than responding to a question spontaneously. With that in mind, look at this research on how our on-line behaviour indicates a growing intolerance of even the most minor delay in gratification.
It is the ability to reflect which makes humans different and social psychology, behavioural economics and other disciplines are finding more and more ways in which our intuition is unreliable. Imagine a world where everyone every day was given the encouragement and the time for structured reflection (sometimes alone, sometimes with others) it is hard to believe it wouldn’t make the world a better place. As work intensifies and information multiplies it is also hard to see how we can make it happen.
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