The Department for Education is like David Cameron’s Bullingdon club. It keeps
opening people’s windows and vomiting through them. You are in your office
wrestling with a problem when a minister, say Alan Johnson, spews a £5m
consultants’ dossier on how to solve it. It might be how to reorganise the
upper sixth, recruit a new French teacher, replant the school flower bed or
boost the league-table ranking by kicking out more truants. The government
will have an answer, even if it takes all day to read.
Various thoughts pass through your mind. Who is this idiot? Has he nothing
better to do with his time and your taxes? What makes him think he can do
your job better than you? But the answer is simple. He is big government. He
has unlimited money and absolute power. He rules.
Last week Johnson decided to outdo Saparmurat Niyazov, the late dictator of
Turkmenistan who banned dogs and renamed bread loaves after
Gurbansoltanedzhe, his mother. Johnson’s idea was to write to teachers
telling them how to deal with unruly pupils. He ordained that the national
praise/blame ratio should be fixed at 5:1, with appropriate adjustments for
skin colour. Punishments included Saturday detention (his consultants
clearly went to public school) and the rewards ranged from postcards to
iPods.
This man’s office clearly has a head problem. It was from here that David
Blunkett ordered national story times and homework schedules. Here, as
schools minister, the currently sainted David Miliband imposed 350 “policy
targets” and 175 “efficiency targets” one of which, hilariously, was to
“reduce red tape”. The new government academies, supposed to show the world
how to build better schools, have proved only that they are four times more
expensive if built by a big organisation than a small one (a local council).
Whatever happened to the great E F Schumacher and small is beautiful? One of
his tenets was that economics, and by association government, should be
studied “as if people mattered”. It is a phenomenon of Tony Blair’s cabinet
that almost nobody in it has run an organisation composed of people. When
ministers found themselves in charge of the biggest corporation in Britain,
they did what they did in opposition: make wish speeches and rambling
pledges. They had no conception of how organisations work, which is why they
have become obsessed with consultants, who have no obligation to deliver.
Johnson’s adventure into pop educational psychology came on the same day that
an inspectors’ report indicated something he never mentioned: that the
bigger the school, the worse its discipline. Exclusions are 10% in schools
above 1,000 pupils and 3% in those with fewer. In the largest, above 1,500,
they have risen by almost a third since Labour came to power. Big is bad for
the simple reason that teachers cannot know all the pupils and establish a
relationship with them and their parents. Corridor and playground anarchy is
less easy to control. Bigness breeds alienation and community anomie. This
is common sense everywhere but in Whitehall. Small schools work better.
Over the road some 80 hospitals are being closed or “reconfigured” as being
too small, defined as being unable to afford the expensive kit and computers
being sold hand-over-fist to Patricia Hewitt, the gullible minister. She has
not only removed out-of-hours GP cover to call centres, but patients must
wait longer for an ambulance, drive further, suffer more pain and
inconvenience and widen the NHS carbon footprint. She has put the patience
back into patients. All this comes at triple the cost to taxpayers. The
reason is that Hewitt is spellbound by the great god size.
All over Britain bigness is seen as a virtue and smallness a vice in defiance
of all evidence to the contrary. The new farm payments regime remains a
shambles where it is big in England — and works, where small, in Wales. The
Home Office has set up two nationalised police forces since Labour came to
power. The latest, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), was ordered by
Blair “to make life hell for organised crime”. With 4,000 officers removed
from the front line and £400m to spend on 360 different IT systems, it
appears to have done nothing but bureaucratise itself. Local police regard
Soca, “Britain’s FBI”, as a joke and prefer to handle out-of-area crime
bilaterally as before.
As Schumacher realised, the syndrome is related to all forms of work and
organisation. Last week the world’s largest bank, Citigroup, was told by its
Saudi shareholders to cut back on overheads that had soared 15% in a year.
Peter Drucker, the management guru, pointed out that at a certain size the
bloodstream of any organisation clogs and internal control comes to
overwhelm external purpose. With 327,000 staff Citigroup had lost the
ability to be led. Three of Britain’s biggest companies, Shell, BP and BAE
Systems, have experienced similar leadership traumas, the first for
deceiving its shareholders, the second for overpaying its boss and the last
for corruption.
We have been here before. Decentralisation into agencies and quangos was one
of the many Thatcherisms that Blair and Gordon Brown espoused. But they did
not obey the other half of Thatcherism’s message, to “fund and forget” these
smaller units. Big must be beautiful, says Brown, because small is
uncontrollable. In Schumacher’s terms the long documented diseconomies and
inefficiencies of scale are more than compensated for by the glories of
control. How else could Brown build 80% of all new hospitals in Labour
areas? Or enforce his national £15m “family intervention programme” to put
572 problem families in the “national sin bin”? Or, come to that, cure world
poverty and save the planet? We may live in the age of nano-technology but
certainly not nano-government.
My favourite survey of the week, from the City & Guilds, revealed
startling differences in contentment between groups of workers. The happiest
were the poorest, earning below £15,000, who as a group were 12 times more
contented than those earning above £45,000.
Beauticians, chefs, clergy and plumbers were happiest while lawyers, bankers
and managers were most wretched. Set aside the possibility that happiness
lies in making people feel better and misery in the opposite, it is hard to
avoid the conclusion that happiness relates to being in small firms and in
control of one’s own work, not being subject to big and distant
organisations.
Since this has probably always been true — and the campaign against bigness is
as old as the hills — why has the cure been so elusive? The answer, as
Kipling wrote, is that no force on earth is greater than “women and horses
and power and war”. Leaving the first two aside for today, war is Blair’s
addiction and power is Brown’s. “Small is beautiful” was not an intellectual
gimmick of Schumacher’simagination, any more than the dictums of Cyril
Northcote Parkinson, Drucker and Tom Peters, the management gurus, are good
only for after-dinner speeches. They were real arguments, supportable by
evidence, weapons for the weak against the strong, for the little platoons
against the armies of power.
They need constant reinforcement. They are getting it from the 50 campaigns
protesting against Hewitt’s big-is-beautiful hospital closures, which deny
voters and taxpayers the freedom to pay to keep hospitals open if they wish.
They are getting it from communities banding together to buy their own
neighbourhood policing, because big bureaucracy has withdrawn most officers
to base.
Small government should be the response to Blair’s patronising lecture to
black leaders last week, demanding that “black communities must be
mobilised” against knife and gun crime. How can communities be “mobilised”
when they have been disempowered and stripped of self-government and civic
pride by 10 years of Blair’s centralisation?
Going for small means smashing bigness, not just making speeches about it as
political parties always do. It means withdrawing government from intruding
on people’s lives, not extending it with daily initiatives, taskforces
and enforcement regimes. It means trusting communities to decide on their
public services, as they may in other countries. It means governing as if
citizens mattered more than a hyperactive state. That way lies not only
efficiency but also, we are now told, human happiness.
We need to apply Schumacher now more than ever before.
Much damage needs to be repaired.
Dirigisme, the Leylandia of democracy has taken it's toll. The question remains, however, has the Labour Party ever stopped being in opposition?
Mark Lyndon, London, UK
The role of Government at any level should be to enable. The major problem with this species of Labour is they want to control everything with thousands of targets. Every target, the latest is reporting anyone who takes their children on holidays during term time - Mr Blair should know about this, costs time and money to measure and report and takes people away from doing their job. Education is fed up with constantly moving targets, they just want to get on with teaching.
Ian Lewin, tamworth, staffs
good little article....shame you had to start it with a foolish and immature comment...
abelard, oxford,
As noted, few of the government have had a proper job. But, more significantly , none have experience of the armed services. Not necessarily an advantage in a time of war. Blair to stay on is the answer to all of this. With a new front about to open up and an attack on Iran planned soon do you not need a great wartime leader with a proven track record? A record of getting the intelligence right, a record of being truthful with the British people, a record of good post- war planning and a clear post war political strategy. Why not then stick with the man who has solved the Middle East problem, ended (with a little help from Bono) poverty in Africa, placed Great Britain at the heart of Europe and retained the "special relationship" with America as one of equals. I am glad to see that Gordon Brown has had his first formal meeting with George Bush. It is now essential for any prospective PM to be vetted and given his sealed brown envelope with British foreign policy for the next 5 years.
tony, Glasgow, Scotland
I do keep saying, what would Alan Johnson know about education? The man left school at 15 with no qualifications and he clearly shows his lack of understanding of children or schools. He needs to be re-educated so I suggest we give him a class of 30 + unmotivated, drug taking aggressive 16 year olds for a month and leave him, (unaided), with them. I bet his policy won't include sympathising with inept and neglectful parents at the end of it, ( if, of course, he survives)! The general policy of this Government has been, 'Intervention, intervention, intervention', you are absolute correct but any sane person knows that micro-management never works. Blair has tried to 'think big' but doesn't really understand how 'big' works and so has devolved power to paranoid and small minded, politically correct minions who all have the middle name 'O'Brien'.
judy, Liverpool, england
Decentralisation means that some places will get better results than others. So in healthcare in some local hospitals more people will die than in a similar hospital elsewhere that deals with a similar case load. As long as all those promoting decentralisation are comfortable with that, then fine, go ahead and devolve power.
But of course it won't work like that - in fact, we will get loud complaints about "postcode lotteries". In particular this newspaper will be amongst the first to highlight the differences, and demand that something is done by central Government.
That is the fundamental dishonesty at the heart of this debate - citizens claim to hate big Government but they want exactly the same quality of services everywhere. This is impossible. It would have been interesting to see a piece discussing this rather than a meaningless rant.
ChrisR, London,
How I long for post code lotteries, as it means we are trying different things in different locales! As long as the locals actually DO determing the results. It does mean locals have to control fund raising for it to work.
In the USA, each State regulates many of the items that affect day to day life. States control things like how you sell your house, how old you can be to get married, driving regulations, driving licenses, what is required to cut hair as a living, etc. And each State funds itself, and can decide what the method of funding is (via income tax or control on alcohol sales, or via taxing tourists). How towns are set up and ruled varies within a state, from having a mayor to a board of selectmen. And towns fund themselves and determine how many police they will have and if they will build a new school and what they will pay a teacher.
I would vote for local decision making with open town meetings where residents vote by issue and local revenue generation!
Jane Reynolds, Whissendine, UK
No invention of mine would be half as Byzantine, incredulous, or fantastic as the truth of the matter. High on snake oil, that's what Labour are, why else would they want to seek another term in office? Mr Cruddas was saying that Labour ought to get back to its core values, as if to say that the Party should reinvent itself, it's worked before. The Euston Group of Labour 'thinkers' is busily trying to rush out another Party image one that will totally divorce Labour from the misrepresentation, lost opportunity, misuse of power and extravagant waste that has exemplified the last ten years; to present the electorate with a new set of political parameters, new vocabulary, more comparisons with Major and Lamont; the honesty of their mistakes during the Blair interregnum. New Labour was a trial, just one model of the 'we can be anything your heart desires' politics that has devalued pathos and dried up our sympathy. Let’s call it the Same Old Same Old Labour Party.
Malcolm Turner, Alsager, England
'It is a phenomenon of Tony Blair’s cabinet that almost nobody in it has run an organisation composed of people. When ministers found themselves in charge of the biggest corporation in Britain, they did what they did in opposition: make wish speeches and rambling pledges. They had no conception of how organisations work, which is why they have become obsessed with consultants, who have no obligation to deliver'
Well said Simon! You have explained the defining characteristic of this administration - well meaning incompetence.
Peter Steadman, Gerrards Cross, U.K.
Interesting that several commentators on Simon Jenkins' article point out that most ministers in this government have not had a proper job. Gordon Brown is included in this group although I believe he has made one commercial decision in his time as Chancellor and that was to sell half of Britains gold at the bottom of a twenty year bear market. Perhaps it is best that he and the others just stay parasitical rather than trying to make our daily bread in proper jobs. That way we will eat for longer.
Colbeck-Welch., Jersey Channel Islands,
'It is a phenomenon of Tony Blair’s cabinet that almost nobody in it has run an organisation composed of people. When ministers found themselves in charge of the biggest corporation in Britain, they did what they did in opposition: make wish speeches and rambling pledges. They had no conception of how organisations work, which is why they have become obsessed with consultants, who have no obligation to deliver.'
Well said Simon! You have explained the defining characteristic of this administration - well intentioned incompetence.
Peter Steadman, Gerrards Cross, U.K.
Of course, let's not forget that the bigger the organisation, the larger the salary of the person at the top. Any connection?
severin, London,
New Labour’s conviction is that central command and micro-management really works, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. This demonstrates the supreme power of political faith over reason. Poor results are explained away rather than being systematically analysed. Because there is no learning process mistakes are repeated endlessly and we are locked into declining, poor value for money services. Power should be devolved down to the people with expertise who are directly involved with the problems. How can anyone really believe that someone can really come up with an all-encompassing solution that works all over the country? The reality is there is unlikely to be any single definable solution that works everywhere anyway and you are forcing people to work in a strait jacket.
Derek Emery, Bedworth, UK
As anyone who's experienced one of them knows, the worst of all possible worlds is a small company that _thinks_ it's a big company.
Given the inevitability that government thinks big, it may be that large monolithic and ossified departments are actually, and depressingly, the lesser of two evils. Small departments who thought big would simply spend more time, effort, and money on turf wars.
And one data point. The only politician whose mouthing off ever directly contributed to me losing a job and thereby losing some of my stock of happiness, claimed a belief in small government. That was Mrs Thatcher.
Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK
I totaly agree.Whats even worse,there is no light at the end of the tunnel.We have the prospect of Brown taking over,who says he was the best chancellor,who taxed our pensions out of the window,and now its revealed,sold our gold at the bottom of the market.No wonder he had a good meeting with George Bush.
Yours Tim Crellin
Timothy James crellin, Kidderminster, england
While your general observation is doubtless correct, I submit that it would be a mistake to assume that it is the fault of the Labour government. There are forces at work, as I believe the Queen observed, that aren’t easily defined. I cite two examples; the state or present treatment of public sector housing, and the new obsession with gambling. It is altogether aberrant that, despite widespread complaints, a Labour government should under-invest in housing and move to hand it over to private enterprise in a peremptory manner. It is altogether anomalous that a Labour government should be promoting organised gambling on the grand scale, especially when it has paid so little attention to this most fundamental interest of all it’s supporters - housing. I think it is wishful thinking to expect this ‘tendency’ to change with the government, though it should be opposed in every possible way.
Henry Percy, London, UK
Education should have been removed from the greasy grasp of politicians years ago. Gordon Scott of Glasgow puts his finger on it - most politicians wouldn't recognise a proper job if it came up and bit them - then again who with a proper job would go voluntarily into the nasty little world of politics. Since the fities politicians have failed generation after generation and won't see it or admit it - frightening little people.
victor cowen, Malaga, Spain
People running large organisations often have personality disorders - tendency towards grandiosity and be psychopathic. The love the power and the thrill of size but need to have scapegoats for failure: they never make mistakes.
It is the need to dominate and have enforced adulation that drives people to create such monstrous structures. The naive believe efficiciency and effectiveness are substitutes for naked power and its display
TomTom, Leeds, England
The concerns highlighted here are undeniable and serious in that they are beginning to lead to misallocation of taxpayers’ money on a mega scale.
Because the trends to ‘big’ and greater central control are self-reinforcing, checks and balances through personal accountability are suppressed, and those who know it’s time the tide turned lack the will (or the power), and increasingly, the mechanism to do something about it.
The idealists who loosely link collective notions with the thinking of Karl Marx may put trust in his prediction that when all had been accomplished, the State would ‘wither away.’
That leads to thoughts of Big Government, turkeys, votes, Christmas and the great metaphorical bandwagon of pork barrels, gravy train and sundry hangers on that have accumulated in recent years, to take more and more, and return less and less.
Not forgetting the retinue of soothsayers merrily spinning their tales of derring-do.
To make us feel better about it.
dr venables preller, Warminster, UK
Why, O why, does blindingly obvious common sense count as 'provocative', 'reactionary' etc. at the moment? Still, well done that man there, for pointing out that the emperor does indeed, have not a stitch on. And thank you.
M.T.Pearse, Houghton College NY, U.S.A.
I tried to get your fellow columnist Chris Woodhead to understand that "small schools work better" during a radio phone-in. He wasn't interested (apparently I was missing the point). And what would I know? I'm only a teacher who has taught in schools both large and small and who knows the vast difference between the two in terms of behaviour, attitude and quality of education. I've yet to meet an educational academic who could see this elephant in the room.
Sarah, Oxford, UK
I think the major problem with politicians in general is that very few of them have ever had a "proper job" where they are responsible for budgets and taking decisions that make or break a company's success. I would ban anyone under 40 from becoming an MP to make sure they experience real life before getting into a position where they can dictate how we the public run our lives. I would not trust Tony Blair and his kind to run a corner shop never mind the country.
Gordon Scott, Glasgow, UK
Congratulations, Simon, you have finally become a right-wing reactionary. It happens to everyone eventually nowadays, the way things are going, unless you toss your common sense out the window.
Jonathan, NYC, USA
This lot couldn't run a bath.
John Dean, London, UK