The Pirme Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, have jointly authored an article in today’s Telegraph setting out their hopes for the coming Parliament. Dealing with the deficit is vital, they say – but the real mission of the Coalition is to give people control over their lives.
On dealing with the deficit:
… for both of us, sorting out the public finances is a responsibility, not a passion. We didn’t come into politics just to balance the books. We are both ambitious for Britain: we want to change our country for the better. We want to see the best schools open to the poorest children, a first-class NHS there for everyone, streets that are safe, families that are stable and communities that are strong.
On how they intend to devolve power to people:
Last week we started publishing Structural Reform Plans, one for each government department. Don’t let the dry name fool you. These are radical documents that are going to change the way government works.
Each government department has its own plan, with a list of objectives and deadlines to achieve them by. So far, this might sound like the last government with its Public Service Agreements and Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit. The difference is in what we’re asking departments to do – not to control things from the centre but to put in place structures that will allow people and communities to take power and control for themselves. In place of the old tools of bureaucratic accountability – top-down regulation and targets – are the new tools of democratic, bottom-up accountability – individual choice, competition, direct elections and transparency.
What this means – for example – in education:
In the plan for schools published last week we identify the major task for the Department for Education: to set schools free, encourage diversity and allow people to start up new schools, thereby opening up the state monopoly on education.
Instead of teachers thinking they have to impress the department, they will have to impress parents, who will finally have a real choice over where to send their child. The most disadvantaged children will benefit from a “pupil premium” so that schools have an incentive to take them on, rather than the incentives they have at the moment to keep them out.
On why this is a genuine Coalition reform:
It combines Conservative thinking on choice and competition with the Liberal Democrat belief in local democracy to create a truly radical vision for the NHS – giving general practitioners authority over commissioning and patients much more control, and ensuring democratic accountability with councils taking greater responsibility, in particular over public health.
You can read Nick and David’s article in full here.
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12 Comments
If you want to give power away then abolish Distict Councils and devolve power to Town and Parish Councils. Anything that cannot be devolved to be taken up by County Councils. (Cornwall is a very good example of this.)
Particularly with planning applications, the system needs to be reversed; applications should first be reviewed at County level to see if they comply with county plans, but the final say should rest with the Town/Parish Councils as they are made up of people entirely from the local area who will be most affected by planning proposals. The current system ignores local opinion and allows Councillors who do not live in an area, and may not even have ever been to that area, to make final decisions. There would still be the right of appeal to the Secretary of State.
In the plan for schools published last week we identify the major task for the Department for Education: to set schools free, encourage diversity and allow people to start up new schools, thereby opening up the state monopoly on education.
This is unbelievable rubbish and appears to be proof that Nick Clegg is swallowing the Tory agenda (or rather the Gove agenda – dangerous, right-wing, destructive) – and rather contrary to line we have been taking on the Academies Bill in the Lords.
Tony Greaves
And I have now read the following several times:
Instead of teachers thinking they have to impress the department, they will have to impress parents
I wonder if either of these two men have spent any length of time in a school recently? “Impressing parents” is not the first task of a teacher.
Tony Greaves
On Tony Gs comment. When schools are recruiting a new intake then impressing parents & the child concerned are precisely what they should be about.
@Paul Barker – completely agree, of course TEACHING WELL is #1 priority but I’m pretty sure that is the implication, only you do well by the children and thus impress the parents, rather than having to fulfil bureaucratic targets
And the power to raise revenue locally…?
No representation without taxation!
“When schools are recruiting a new intake then impressing parents & the child concerned are precisely what they should be about.”
So that they can attract (“recruit”) the best pupils, I suppose you mean.
What happens to the others?
“What happens to the others?”
They take their higher funding level elsewhere, presumably. The real bonanza for schools will be the bright, poor kids who will contribute to the success of the school and bring a sackload of funding. This will skew the system like any incentive, but they come in worse forms than that, I suppose.
Don’t get me wrong, I am worried about just about every other aspect of education policy (mad creationists holding sway for the first few years, etc). But not that one.
Alix
Sorry – I don’t understand your comments at all. You’re not against academic selection?
You mean council tax? Taxation is one of the few things that hasn’t been centralised yet.
I agree with Tony Greaves – the “Free Schools” thing is a silly Tory pet plan, not something we should give the appearance of actively endorsing. It comes about mostly because people like Michael Gove haven’t a clue about how state education works, they wrongly assume it means councils have control over what goes on in schools, they don’t realise that anyone who wants to get involved in running a school already can, that is what the whole system of school governors is already about. They wrongly assumes there is no choice or competition in state schools – can’t this clueless idiot see e.g. that the reason state primary schools are going mad doing all they can to push up their SATS results, is because that’s what pushes them up the league tables and that’s what impresses the parents? Far from there being no competition, a lot of the prpoblem comes from excessive competition.
These two cluless idiots writing this Telegraph piece talk of “giving power away”, so why can’t they LISTEN to practioners in the field – ordinary people who work as teachers or in health care? I’m finding almost universallty everyone who works in these fields thinks the coalition plans are bonkers and can exapkin very well why this is so.
UK government changes to health and education proposed will not change Britain. The coalition government only governs ENGLAND in these matters.