Unfortunately this is where Sunder falls into the trap which Camerons version of conservatism tries to use rhetorical means to exploit.

Change can bee seen all around us if we choose to look for it and the news agenda is full of initiatives designed to bring about ‘effective change’. Cameron has recognised this fact and has instigated a massive strategic reversal within his party to stop fighting against the flow of agenda-based publicity and has tried instead to tap into it.

It is inevitable that the law of diminishing returns starts to take effect once the political message has been strictly adhered to for the course of a political cycle when the effects of continuing with it start to invert: progress has evolved from modishness to dogma and has infiltrated the language of conservatives, while those that failed to keep one step ahead of the game and keep reiterating the same message as the circumstances changed have consequently and unwittingly evolved into conservatives or are proposing over-extension (I’m looking at you Sunder – which is it?).

We reached that point when Blair stepped down as leader. ‘Effective’ and ‘social change’ became terms which were essentially decoupled from each other – either we could consolidate the gains and have effective change, or we could continue pushing for social change to the point where system overload was reached and not even legislation would be effective.

The question for the Conservatives under Cameron is therefore whether they will continue to push for further neeeded changes, hold the ground and consolidate the gains or roll-back those changes which are causing so much aggravation and upset. Unfortunately this is a three-way choice he cannot answer precisely, whether he wanted to or knows how to or not because the picture is so mixed.

On education policy, for example, rural market-towns and medium-size and larger cities have been impacted by the changes in different ways, partly because of their differing geographies, partly because of their differing demographics and partly because of politics – it’s not just that there no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but that any size will cause discomfit for many people – none of whom Cameron can afford to alienate in his quest to win a majority of seats.

It is for similar reasons that Brown is seen to be growing unpopular as he fails to adapt the the challenge of his own making and the backbone of Labour-supporting organisations (ie Sunder’s) try to bind him into sticking on the same territory, against a necessary shift in emphasis.

It’s a pitiable political position all round! But what else should we expect?

Under these circumstances, Brown must be hoping that the storm is not so great that it abates before he is forced to call an election or that the focus of it is forced onto the Conservatives by silly mistakes such as Boris’ mayoral administration is wreaking – either way Brown’s strategic uncertainty is reducing, though whether this changes his odds of staying in power after an election is a different matter.

Competition doesn’t “work” in the way you mean it full stop, the ability for people to change frequently means the biggest providers simply all offer the same thing. It stagnates rather than encourages progression and development. In an environment like schools where the end-user doesn’t directly pay for it there is little advantage to the type of competition you describe in my view.

The point is the power and ability to switch schools, not actually doing so on a regular basis.

Competition doesn’t work by people constantly switching providers. The fact that people are merely permitted to leave or terminate a service encourages existing providers to improve and respond to alternatives. I imagine that parent’s ability to choose would actually make the relationship between school and pupil more stable rather than less so, because that is something that parents evidently want. Currently, however, schools might be shut down or amalgamated against the wishes of parents, due to resource allocations decided centrally.

It seems to me that it is pointless for the state to try and be that involved. As I’ve said it can fund, and at a push give practical organisational support, organisations that do this job of support much better than it can do itself. I guess there is an argument for what defines the state in this situation, and whether those support organisations become an extension of the state, but like Nick says…if you give these people funding and no interference then they can choose, autonomously, how best to move forward. Why does the state need to be involved in that? What does the state have to offer to be involved in that?

[16] – “Possibly, but I think the idea that these organisations need state support beyond funding is a fallacy”

I (unsurprisingly) disagree. If you look – for example – at the policy debate surrounding widening participation and access to higher education it is clear that all sectors benefit from a close relationship in which assistance is not only financial but also involves a two-way transfer of knowledge and skills. These are partnerships that go beyond funding and benefit from doing so.

Instead these organisations aren’t seen for the worth they have and have eternal struggles with funding of their own. If the state can’t see it’s way to the value of aiding organisations that are there pretty much purely to help sustain the voluntary sector, then why should we believe they’re capable of supporting anyone smaller than that?

And of course, parents and guardians play a major role in selecting a school, though in Sweden it was interesting to see how pupils themselves were frequently the prime movers in making a choice. Some will make better decisions than others. What the evidence suggests is that children are better off overall when they and their families have the choice rather than a civil servant. After all, whatever system you have, someone has to decide where a particular child will go.

Agreed. But can’t the state do more than that in enabling such organisations – providing support that extends beyond the financial? This would not be ‘interfering’ but ‘assisting’.

The state can do a lot to help these areas, no doubt. But it tends to do wrong when it starts interfering in more practical aspects of the partnership. On this issue of voluntary organisations and social enterprises the state should be nothing more than a funding body, regulating where necessary I’ll concede, that uses objective information to best divert it’s funds.

The more pressing question is how the centre-left can demonstrate how the state can work in conjunction with voluntary organisations and social enterprises to meet the needs of the community. The ‘myth’ that such a partnership is impossible, and that the state poisons all that it touches, must be challenged.

However I still think that food and education differ in this: with food the customer makes lots of little purchases, so can change behaviour at low cost – this is why the food market works pretty well from the consumer standpoint and as you rightly say everyone is happy to leave it in the private sector. (It works less well for producers, though, which is why there is – more abroad than here – a co-operative sector, particularly to secure distribution.) Education is a “market” in which consumers make a very few decisions each of which has major long-term consequences. What’s more, in the school sector consumption takes place by proxy: I know of no economic theorisation which addresses the issues which flow from this.

Again, I am willing to be enlightened…

Well I was giving an example of well-functioning regulation, rather than suggesting that restaurants and schools are equivalent in any other respects. I don’t see why a comparison like that is “offensive”, if the point is merely to establish the optimum level of regulation to deliver quality. But abstract the point from restaurants to food in general (obviously a primary resource rather than a luxury): we have a market in food provision and I don’t think people seriously suggest nationalising supermarkets, shops and grocers. The debate is instead about giving everyone access to the food market and ensuring that monopolies do not develop.

By contrast, in education, the general assumption even on the liberal left up until recently is that education should be provided by a state monopoly (for which opting out of state provision is an expense only those with an especially high income can afford). As often happens in the case of near monopolies, provision has become quite poor, and this impacts on the low income families the worst because they lack the resources to supplement the education that they are offered by the state.

But I would recommend my report if you are interested in this debate since I do try to tackle exactly those questions that you are raising. Unity has reviewed it on here: http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/06/16/swedish-lesson/

I absolutley make no comment on the allegations surrounding Mr Lewis and his resignation however I must draw attention to the fact that a CRB Check does not only list convictions of an individual but many other types of reports (POVA, POCA, LIST 99, Cautions, warnings etc) from different agencies including the Police that can be used to judge the fitness of an individual to carry out different roles. In the roles that Mr. Lewis has been in throughout his career, I would have thought that not undertaking an Enhanced CRB check as soon as he was working with a organisation entitled to carry out the check would have been less than responsible if he has/had routine unsupervised access to persons deemed “vulnerable”.

I would say that perhaps, if not already, the Mayor’s Office should be reviewing it’s policy on who has/ should recieved a CRB check, enhanced or not if they are likely to come into regualr contact with people deemed “vulnerable” and that Mr Lewis would have definitely falllen into one of the groups listed here http://www.crb.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=1855

from the CRB website full details http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1871

“A CRB check can provide access to a range of different types of information, such as, information:

held on the Police National Computer (PNC), including Convictions, Cautions, Reprimands and Warnings in England and Wales, and most of the relevant convictions in Scotland and Northern Ireland may also be included. (The CRB reserves the right to add new data sources. For the most up to date list of data sources which are searched by the CRB click here):
held by local police forces and other agencies, relating to relevant non-conviction information;
from the Government’s Protection of Children Act List (PoCA), where applicable;
from the Government’s Protection of Vulnerable Adults List (PoVA), where applicable; and
held by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) under Section 142 of the Education Act 2002 (formerly known as List 99), where applicable. ”

http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1871

It’s perfectly possible to live a fulfilled life without entering a restaurant, even if almost all of us do so from time to time.

Education is completely different: it’s a need, like clean water, and any State which fails to organise the best available education for its young people may rightly be deemed a failed state. The other salient point is that you only get one childhood – go to a bad school and you’re knocked back, to a greater or lesser extent, for life. Go to a bad restaurant and at worst you’re ill for a few days.

That is not to say that the State should have a monopoly of provision, although that may indeed be necessary to achieve policy goals. But before we consider that, we need to look at those goals themselves. All sides in the debate agree that every child should have the best possible start in life. But one of the reasons why this is not so is that not every child has parents who take the same degree of interest in them, or their education – which is why “Sure Start” was founded.

The promotion of equality would imply discrimination in favour of children whose parents are wholly or emotionally absent. That has only to be stated for its absurdity, at the level of practical politics, to be apparent. So we must, sadly, accept that some children will be disadvantaged. How much control can politics exercise over that? How would we know when we had reduced the level of disadvantage to a minimum?

If anyone knows of an analysis that addresses these questions head-on, please point me towards it.

If I were put in the position of defending myself, I’d have thought that clearing the hurdle of magesterialism would be a pretty strong defence. Apparently, Ray and I are wrong.

In our report, I have suggested the opposite: Free schools should have no powers of selection (apart from schools for SEN children). They would admit pupils on a first-come-first-served basis, with the one exception of allowing siblings of children already attending a school a greater priority.

We have suggested a few other inclusion mechanisms as well, in order to ensure that lower income families have a greater chance of making a choice. If you send over someone to our office, I would be happy to give them a copy of the report. Otherwise, please email me on nick dot cowen at civitas dot org dot uk.

The analogy with restaurants is an interesting one. The state regulates to prevent food poisoning; it would need to guard against those who might. And that is broadly the way in which, say, weekend voluntary activities involving children – football clubs, and guides and scouts, and dance classes, etc – are regulated.

But are schools like that? If they are, why do we do something we don’t do for voluntary activities or restaurants, and make universal taxpayer-funded education available to all? Beyond that, education structures opportunity and access to positional goods in our society rather heavily. Restaurants reflect that; it is difficult to see that they shape it.

You suggest that ideas that most people disapprove of will, by definition, be marginal. But this goes to the heart of several contested debates: tensions between choice and integration, collective choices and minority rights. For example, would you allow schools schools to choose or admit pupils on any basis they wanted, or what restrictions would apply to that?

(2) perdix. Thanks. One of my questions is where is the evidence?

(3) inks – It has been reported – in the Standard and elsewhere that Lewis was arrested on one of the financial issues, and that this would have shown up on an enhanced CRB check. (I don’t have information to verify whether he was, so may be wrong about this). The broader point that the vetting was lax and insufficient has been accepted by those involved, based on what they have said to the Sunday papers.