Delivering subject content through nine life themes
This year, 2024, is almost certainly going to be an election year in the UK (though it could actually be as late as January 2025). Expect to hear detailed descriptions of ‘broken Britain’ – and not just from the government’s opponents, if the PM’s speech to his 2023 party conference is any guide. Expect rather less detail, however, about how to repair the damage. Take public services – things like the NHS, the courts and, of course, schools. A leading (and politically left-leaning) think tank says that “a bold package of reforms and spending commitments” is required to fix the UK’s public services, which will not return to acceptable levels of quality until the next decade. Bold packages, however, are not politically fashionable these days. The major players are hidebound by a political consensus that insists the fiscal situation is dire and are making few spending promises, fearing the charge of recklessness. Meanwhile, the consequences of chronic underinvestment in our schools and other public services continue to mount.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) – in its newly published report, Great government: Public service reform in the 2020s – describes the current situation as dire: “Public services are failing, satisfaction rates are at record lows and waiting lists are soaring.” It warns that even if services like hospitals and schools return to previous rates of improvement they will not get back to acceptable levels of quality until the 2030s.
To be clear, the IPPR report does not simply propose huge amounts of additional investment as a solution to the crisis facing public services. In fact, the report is critical of both main solutions – investment-led and reform-led respectively – traditionally put forward by politicians and others. It refers to the first as “the magic money tree” and the second as “the reform fairy”:
…in truth neither of these arguments are credible. Just spending more money on the same model of public services will fail to deliver better outcomes…
Similarly, the idea that reform alone can deliver better outcomes without additional resources is not credible…
This evidence suggests that we must chart a course between the ‘magic money tree’ and the ‘reform fairy’. This must recognise that we will need both funding and reform to drive better outcomes. The age-old debate about whether a smaller or larger state is the right end goal is a distraction. Instead, we should be aiming for a smarter state.
The IPPR proposes reform of public services based on what it calls “the three p’s”: prevention, personalisation and productivity. The report’s proposals include:
The IPPR describes itself as “the UK’s pre-eminent progressive think tank”. It publishes about fifty reports a year on topics ranging from public services and communities to energy and climate change.
Our 2023 blog Empowering teachers and schools highlighted a previous report from the IPPR that – as part of its call for reform of school inspection away from high-stakes, top-down accountability and “punitive control” – outlined a system aimed at empowering schools and teachers to innovate, making use of their experience and expertise. Describing the current approach to professional development in education as “woefully inadequate”, it called on government to commit to a “world-class” entitlement to teacher training.
The arguments about how best to improve our public services will go on – and not just because this is an election year. It is worth repeating that Life-Based Learning (LBL) is not overtly political – and certainly not party-political. But any discussion of principles, values and aims cannot be entirely divorced from the realm of politics. LBL is predicated on the idea that we cannot simply carry on as we are. That includes acknowledging that our children are our human capital of the future and that we need to invest in them.
In our blogs Fixing the school roof and Investing in the future – published last September when the issue of crumbly concrete in schools and other public buildings was dominating the headlines – we asked (rhetorically) what sacrifices the public were prepared to make to fund the investment required to create and maintain a genuinely world-class education system for our children and young people:
Investing in the future takes time and doesn’t come cheap. And with so many competing priorities – schools, hospitals, caring for the elderly, net zero, to name but four – there are no easy choices. Resources are finite. Let’s not pretend there are instant, pain-free miracle solutions.
From our blog Investing in the future
Image at the head of this article by Prawny from Pixabay.
