Politics, Policy and Administration

Child Benefit and welfare reform

mikerowe — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:32:24 +0000

Recent debates over welfare reform highlight some of the profound difficulties in making cuts in the way this government has approached it. In effect, the current reforms are presented as ‘salami-slicing’ – that is, taking each programme and reducing it, taking a little off the end. So, Child Benefit is not abolished, it is just withdrawn from those families deemed to not need it. The approach leads to problems because they try to do it on the cheap. To assess each family, its financial status etc, would require a whole new army of administrators and detailed criteria. Much simpler is to say that an income over a certain level disqualifies you from receiving the benefit. However, the injustices are, much like the Poll Tax, glaringly apparent upon the simplest of analysis, and opposition has focused upon this.

A more profound analysis might ask different questions. Why do we have Child Benefit? Why is it paid to all, regardless of income? It was, historically, a tax allowance. But this meant that the wage earner received the benefit in a reduction in income tax. Since the wage earner was, in the past, normally the man of the house (so much of the welfare state assumed this in the 1940s and 1950s), the money didn’t always benefit the child, most of whom were cared for by women. So, to replace the tax allowance, Child Benefit was introduced – a simple payment to all mothers of children of qualifying ages. There is no stigma attached, it was popular with women of all political persuasions (research suggested that it was the main source of income independent of the husband for even Tory women) and it was cheap to administer. So much of this has changed. Can we conceive of a different system that takes into account the changes since? Indeed, can we not think of entirely different ways to achieve the original policy objectives (what were they again), even assuming those objectives remain valid?

But policy inertia dominates. Nothing too radical is proposed (yes, there are long term plans for a single benefit system, but that is some way off). The opposition simply opposes. And, in the end, we will lumber on with little real change.

Maggie the movie

mikerowe — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:28:28 +0000

I heard the old chant: ‘Maggie, Maggie Maggie. Out, out out!’ It appears people have been demonstrating outside the cinemas when the Thatcher movie is showing. I am not sure if the chants are ironic, or perhaps it is some kind of collective memory trip. Speaking to people in Merseyside, it seems to me that quite a few are very uncharitable towards Maggie. Some have said they wouldn’t watch the film. Others have suggested that they will – just to see her looking frail and old. Not kind.

Race and conviction

mikerowe — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:05:37 +0000

I am slightly hesitant about commenting on the Stephen Lawrence convictions. In part, this is because there is little to say at face value. But I am always a little wary of any convictions supported (even pre-empted) by The Daily Mail and the police – why is everyone so certain about the two convicted and the other three that ‘got away’. I don’t want to spin conspiracy theories, but let us hope that the jurors thought long and hard about the evidence. Similar levels of certainty surrounded the convictions of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four in the 1970s. The police were under pressure to get convictions then as well.

And then, within 24 hours, the police are using the case to argue for more resources. The ‘crack squad’ that caught these two (they took 18 years) are to be disbanded because of cuts. Save their jobs or the other three will go free!! Rubbish. If, as we are also told, murder rates have declined in London, a cut in the numbers of officers investigating the crime would make sense – there are other priorities. Or should London police still be geared up to investigate cattle rustling, just in case?

And then, instead of debating the state of race politics and racial violence in the UK (good headlines from The Independent yesterday), the press turn on Diane Abbott. It seems to me that she is now a victim of exactly the divide and rule tactics she suggested were used. Instead of using the word ‘white’, she might have been more tempered in her language – and even then, I am not in agreement with her. But look at the record and you will scratch your head. Why is she vilified now? Why are we even talking about it?

Less reaction, more consideration and understanding might be in order all around.

Like so many forecasts, I was wrong

mikerowe — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:04:55 +0000

The Office of Budgetary Responsibility has downgraded forecasts for economic growth. Other crystal ball gazers have been wrong about unemployment, about the fate of the Euro and, perhaps less surprisingly, the weather.

I too have been wrong in a forecast I made in May last year. The coalition has lasted 18 months. But then, in so many ways, it has ceased to be a coalition. The right of the LibDems has been subsumed into the Tories. You can scarcely tell them apart now.

I predict that I will never make a forecast again.

Days of action?

mikerowe — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:06:07 +0000

Out on the march in Liverpool yesterday, I was impressed by the turnout. Lots of people of all ages from a wide range of unions – and, oddly, a few from firms of solicitors! It was all good humoured – the police were mob handed for some reason. Perhaps it was the six anarchists with the black and red flag they were worried about? Nothing to fear there – I saw one of them later in the afternoon doing his weekly shop in Tescos.

Leaving aside the flippant observations, there was something quaint about the march. The old chants I remember from the 1980s were being recycled. It almost felt as though ‘normal service’ had been restored after the confused and confusing years of New Labour. Now, at last, we know who the enemy is. But the speeches were recycled too. Some of them might easily have been made twenty-five years ago. ‘Defend our welfare state’ is the one phrase that really says nothing but expresses a faint longing for the past.

In short, while some felt a sense of solidarity on the march, being surrounded by like-minded people, I felt more and more alienated. While Cameron and Osborne might argue there is no alternative to their Plan A, it is apparent to me that there is no alternative in the trades unions or the wider left – witness the excruciating sight of Ed Balls and George Osborne on the Sunday morning TV programmes together.

I have probably overworked the Life on Mars parallels. Maybe I should start using Back to the Future?

Technocracy – a coup by another name?

mikerowe — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:59:58 +0000

I am slightly puzzled by recent events and, particularly, the uncritical response that it has generated. It seems to me that, by downgrading the credit ratings for Greece and Italy, the financial services industry has been able to dictate to governments, politicians and the EU how they respond to the current crisis. Merkel and Sarkozy are merely doing their bidding. And to hold a referendum in Greece is unthinkable – what has democracy to do with it? Have we forgotten Chile in 1973? Just because Super Mario doesn’t wear a uniform, is he any more legitimate?

Having said that, I am not defending Berlusconi.

Learning from our past

mikerowe — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:57:00 +0000

Last year, we held a small event here on administrative history. It has resulted in a special issue of a journal, the International Journal of Public Administration, with another to come. It also led to the invitation to the United Nations – don’t ask me why. So, could the second event maintain that momentum? It was held at the end of last week and, I think, the answer is yes.

I have been referring to Life on Mars and the continuing echoes from the 1970s to be heard in contemporary debates. I think we would do well to look back further for some inspiration. That is not to say that the past was better than the present. Not am I suggesting that there are some similar experiences to be found in our past. Rather, I find the discussions useful in that they put some things in perspective. The papers we heard included: a discussion of the use of clay tablets in Ur in ancient Mesopotamia; the development of the Indian Civil Service from a commercial venture through to independence; and the use of stories as advice to rulers and their senior officials. None have direct value as sources of inspiration for those confronting the challenge of reducing costs etc. But they do remind us that the state we now know is a recent and, in historical perspective, temporary form of rule. Those offering alternatives, such as Brendan Barber, might do well to reflect on the fact that the welfare state is only about 60 years old (or 130 if we stretch it back to Bismarck). Yet we tend to talk of it as if it should always exist. “Defend the welfare state” is the often heard cry. Instead, we might ask whether there is anything in our past that helps us think more clearly about where we are to go next?

In Place of Austerity – fire up the Quattro?

mikerowe — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:38:19 +0000

Brendan Barber, head of the TUC, spoke at the university yesterday. He set out a ‘five point plan’ as an alternative to the coalition government’s austerity strategy. The plan consisted of:

reductions in public spending over a ten-year period rather than within the life of a single parliament
investment in infrastructure to stimulate the economy
taxing the financial services industry
a greater role for trades unions (no surprises there?)
reductions in the growing inequality in pay

This is less than radical. It looks to the continent for a corporatist model of corporate governance (workers representatives at the top table etc), stimulus packages combined with taxation. It felt like a plea for a return to the ‘good old days’ of the 1970s? Disappointing.

I have noted before that, in the 1970s, the left was highly critical of the welfare state and the relationships between government, the city, trades unions etc. So why now is the radical alternative a return to a past that was unsatisfactory, even on their own terms? Life on Mars all over again?

And one questioner asked whether he would support the forms of direct action and resistance that she believed to be brewing. Brendan Barber’s response – we must be clear that we speak for the majority of ordinary working people. In other words, no.

But at least he was taken to a football match afterwards… How the other half live!!

Conflicts of Interest

mikerowe — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:47:27 +0000

A strange report, yesterday, from the Cabinet Secretary into the Liam Fox affair (see: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/allegations-against-rt-hon-dr-liam-fox-mp-report-cabinet-secretary). Leaving aside the details of the affair, the report is, at best, diplomatic. At worst, it is unclear. One phrase stands out. Donations in this case ‘could be seen as giving rise to the perception of a conflict of interest’. It seems the Cabinet Secretary is unclear what is meant by a conflict of interest.

It refers to conflicts between a public role and your private interests. The exercise of a public office should be in the public interest alone and be free from any personal interests. Conflicts include clear cases, such as awarding contracts to friends or relatives, owning shares in such a company etc. But a conflict also arises when friends have privileged access to influence, or when donations are made to political or other funds. These are conflicts of interest. There is no question of perception.

This is not to say that, because there is a conflict, some terrible injustice or gross corruption has occurred. A conflict exists, whether it leads to any financial gain or other advantage. Removing or managing such conflicts is part and parcel of daily life in government at a senior level.

‘…Could be seen as giving rise to the perception of a conflict of interest’ suggests that there is no conflict of interest, just a perception. It seems to suggest that a conflict arises when someone gains. So the offence reported on by the Cabinet Secretary is the perception that someone gained in some way from the relationship. But this is to misunderstand. There was a conflict.

The Appliance of Science

mikerowe — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:52:12 +0000

In preparation for teaching, I was reading about the ‘science wars’ that some speak about from 15 years or so back. It arose when Sokal published an article in a social science journal that was a fraud, prompting debates about the lack of rigour in social sciences. This brought to mind the current turmoil in the science world caused by the ‘discovery’ that some sub-atomic particles appear to be able to travel faster than the speed of light. In one sense, the response of the scientists in Geneva has been to their credit. They have opened access to their data and asked their peers to check it and to be proved wrong. But this reflects something else too – a good degree of nervousness. If the data is accurate, then scientists must revisit many of their assumptions. In Khun’s terms, we would be facing a paradigm shift. You would think this would be exciting but, instead, it seems to fill scientists with dread. It can’t be true. One has offered to eat his shorts if it is true.

So much for the rational world of ‘hard’ natural science!!