Tag Archives: targets

Mark Valladares

20 November 2018 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Tue 20th November 2018 - 11:55 pm

Another busy day, but I’m pleased to note that a bit more use is being made of our Spokespeople in the Lords. After all, there are rather more of them than in the Commons, and they’re a valuable asset when it comes to holding the Government to account…

  • Cable: Bank of England must conduct honest assessment of Brexit deal
  • Cable: Govt must block Interpol election of Alexander Prokopchuk
  • Tories to blame for missed NHS targets
  • Cable: Our priority is building the momentum for a People’s Vote
  • Vulnerable people put in homes not fit for human habitation
  • The licence fee is not the Government’s to spend

Cable: …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 4 Comments
Judy Abel

Is regulation becoming the new religion?

By Judy Abel | Wed 9th March 2016 - 9:27 am

 

In whatever field you care to mention – whether it is education, services or business – employers and organisations are checking up on us as never before.

Recently my car broke down in Glastonbury, so I called the AA. Out came the AA repair person, who did a great job, but he then asked me to rate the service he had provided on a tablet, by clicking on a happy face, sad face, or categories in between. Not only that, I got a follow up phone call asking me whether he had done a good job. Why couldn’t the AA just let me call to complain I there had been a problem? This all creates so much pressure on working people.

Last time I went to my GP surgery there was a plastic plinth asking me to rate my experience, with the happy and sad faces again. I tried to type in a message saying “Stop checking up on people, the pressure on staff must be intolerable”, but the message box vanished! On the back of many lorries there is a number to call, inviting us to rate the lorry driver’s performance – and on it goes. And, in my experience, when performance-related pay is introduced in a company the spirit of collegiality can quickly turn into one of competitiveness and dissatisfaction.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Iain Roberts

Time to scrap P.E. targets for schools

By Iain Roberts | Mon 12th July 2010 - 10:20 am

The SNP government in Scotland has come under fire – again – for missing its self-imposed target that every child do two hours of formal P.E. a week. Only 35% of primaries and 23% of secondaries have achieved the two hour goal.

But why have the target at all? What’s it actually achieving? Surely it’s sensible to only impose this sort of national target when there’s clear evidence of benefit.

Will two hours of P.E. make our young people more lithe and reduce obesity? Not according to the evidence.

A study published in the BMJ journal Archives for …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 12 Comments
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    Thanks for this. Kindness - to people, businesses, whole communities, our environment and to nature, to our past, present and future - requires us also to be br...
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