Efficiency; what efficiency? A question from a detached youth work conference.

As ever, the voices of detached youth workers offered a direct line to social reality. When will those who speculate on young people’s lives (policy makers, commissioners, and the like) learn to listen to those whose experience is based on being with young people on a daily basis, and on working in places few others are prepared to tread?

Delegates at this year’s annual conference of the Federation for Detached Youth Work discussed the effect of social policy (and its diversity across the home nations) on young people and detached youth work practices. They considered also ways to influence decision-making on these matters.

Held in North Wales, with the much-welcomed support of the Welsh Government, the venue was Pontins’ Prestatyn Sands Holiday Park. While it was chosen, frankly, for its cheapness, many delegates recognised that this venue meant that they were in close proximity not only to regular holiday-makers for whom this might be their only break of the year, but also to a workforce typically representative of the working poor. Worse still, nigh all of these members of staff were working their last weekend, having been told that their services were no longer required. With no little sense of irony, delegates mused on the parallels with their plight, given they too are impacted on by new models of part-time, temporary, minimum wage, and short-term contract-based models of detached youth work foisted on them in the name of becoming a ‘flexible, nimble, agile, and economically efficient’ workforce. How these words have been abused by those who equate efficiency only with cost-savings!

The detached youth worker is, or should be, the first, and last, in line. Being present they can head off a crisis in hours, saving a fortune in grief and money in the long-term. It means also they are present when that young person has a dip (think ‘yo-yo’ not linearity when it comes to inclusion – exclusion). And they’re present again when those who’ve been supported become, with the confidence of their own experience, the ones to ‘signpost’ their peers (rather than the multiplicity of ‘services’ who prefer this to getting their own hands dirty). And then, and finally, they are the last in line, when such services have cast folk aside. Here it’s about dignity not economy; dead they’d be cheaper. Watch as economic incentivisation works its magic, or ‘time-limited recovery’ bears fruit. Or not, as the case will be.

Austerity is the rationale, and cuts the medicine. But what of the effect on young people and the practices of detached youth work (increasingly tasked to sort out the fallout and contribute to a solution)? In the first instance, there’s the emergence of a new form of ‘graduate entry’, but rather than this being to the workplace, it’s to the dole queue. The lucky few within this group create unlucky others as they squeeze out a swathe of lesser qualified young people from the traditional entry level jobs that gave them the hope that a reasonable future was possible. Forced then to endure an endless round of visits to not one but often several ‘employability initiatives’, at best they are supported in ‘pimping’ their CVs. At least the engagement figures look good; remember, its presentation that counts.

While many detached youth workers are drawn into this activating agenda, yet others are moved to the environments where the fallout occurs: the school, the home, and sites of anti-social behaviour. This might explain to some extent why the numbers of delegates were a few down on previous years; the Federation had had contact with those who attended before. They explained that the focus of their work had shifted to these ‘new’ agendas and managers now asserted that networking and training with the detached youth work community was no longer necessary. For others, there was, simply, no funding to support their participation. This leaves a third group; those now unemployed themselves, having lost their jobs because of ‘restructuring’, ‘rationalisation’ or ‘down-sizing’; the youth service often having been the first to go. We can say then the label ‘detached youth worker’ is less and less common, as services are refashioned.

Delegates took a close look at these new ways of working; all appear prey to the individualising thrust of social (sic.) policy. Working with individual families or ‘targeted youth support’ is the order of the day. But the ironies abound; individualisation creates new problems: perversely, problems that detached youth workers are then asked to solve. Targeting work at the ‘at risk’ (might ‘at riskism’ be the new prejudice?), rather than being effective merely extinguishes the potential of ‘normal’ peers and adults to provide valuable support. Not only does this represent an inefficient use of community resources, but it also deprives these others from learning the ways of support and developing the empathy this contact brings. Separation and segregation follow; just so the request that detached youth workers support ‘social mixing’ – the very thing these policies have inhibited. How efficient is that?

So too their incorporation into ‘community reassurance’ and ‘rapid response’ programmes is a symptom of wrong-headed policies elsewhere. Policies that invoke a society in which we are perpetually at risk from the other; where fear and intolerance grows not goes. So too abolishing housing benefit to the under 25s. “Go back to you mam’s” they say, but the street for many will become their home. And watch as the detached youth workers are asked to come back. How cyclic, and inefficient, this is.

Subjectivity in statute is everywhere (anti-social behaviour is defined as that that evokes ‘harassment, alarm of distress’) yet masquerades as science, thereby verifying the logic of control. These policies, that distract social professionals from doing anything social, are found to be less and less efficient, not more: cohesion, learning to rub along with difference is the casualty, not the prize. In sum, one branch of the policy agenda trying to fix the negative effects of another. How efficient is that?

So it was interesting to reflect on the  new murmurings of (albeit only a few) senior officers and commissioners who, having put all their eggs in the basket of ‘hub’ and ‘Myplace’ schemes, fear now being unable to meet their visitor targets. Its clear assumptions were made, that the youth would come in their droves: the little left over to promote engagement paid for no more than a few ineffectual fliers. Instrumental it may be, but overtures made to detached youth workers to support community engagement and outreach to fix this problem are welcomed. Could this be the phoenix of the tried and tested practice of community development emerging from the ashes of increasingly discredited and ineffective policy? Might there be some enlightenment in having shone a light in personal places – that community work is where it’s at? That its ‘pro-social’ interventions we need.

Of course, the spectre of hitting the target and missing the point will continue for a good while yet. The performative behaviours of favouring promotion and marketing than substance, in order to secure that contract; of picking so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’ to meet targets (thereby exacerbating the exclusion of others); and employing other such ‘smoke and mirrors’ devices need outing. Ethical reflection, one (I guess, naïvely) hopes, would be the catalyst; but maybe detached youth workers need to get beyond trade practices and be active some more in articulating the growing body of evidence that these neo-liberal ways (for that is what they must accurately be seen as) are, in fact, less efficient, not more. That is, if we dare to assume, that we are talking about the same thing here: social protection, welfare, education, and opportunity as the seed corn for a good society where economic well-being comes to all and not the few. Perish the thought though; perhaps the aims of policy makers are different …?

Out of this despondency emerged a renewed spirit of optimism. Detached youth workers recognised the value of continuing to meet young people ‘where they’re at’, not just in physical spaces but also in terms of the wants, needs, interests and passions they present. There will be a new confidence in questioning models of pre-scripted outcomes that have sought to displace time-served processes of negotiation, and articulating the wider benefits of what was – and needs to become again – a community development practice, without which (if, for the meantime, we are constrained in this narrative for a while yet) ‘the system’ we have now will be less efficient, not more.

Much has been written about the Olympics, and doubtless more will be contributed in the future, especially about the much- vaunted ‘legacy’ and whether this comes to pass. Let me weigh in a few thoughts.

I’ve always been optimistic and positive about big projects. They seem to me to be emblematic of the grand narratives that have all but disappeared from contemporary politics; such is the obsession with re-packaging and spinning ‘what the people want’. The grand narrative, by design, implies leadership and conviction, especially in the face of criticism. You have to believe in what you are doing and worry less about what the cynics might say. And get on with it. Furthermore, they’re positive: “vote for me because I am going to do something good”, rather than negative: “vote for me and I’ll protect you from your neighbour”.

To me, hosting the Olympics is the sporting equivalent of, say, building the St. Pancras international rail terminal; somebody had to stick their neck out, say it was possible. And get on with it. You’ve got to respect that. The tangibility of these kinds of projects wows many, if not all. And so they should. And that’s a good thing. But their greater significance is they have a tendency to affect the many rather than the few.

All this should inspire us to think that other (big) things are possible. Neil Armstrong’s passing is poignant. I used to say that the early space programmes, and visiting the moon, were some of the worst things man had ever done, simply because they taught us to think that we could (relatively easily) achieve the seemingly unachievable. I worried that we’d started to believe a wider range of challenges, like combating famine or poverty, were considered just as easily resolvable. It’s as if we’d become complacent about our capabilities, and taken our foot of the gas both in terms of seeking solutions to these challenges and getting on, practically, with doing something about them. I’m a bit more philosophical now; we need these grand narratives and big activities to remind us that such interventions are possible. Hence, I now kind of see these things from a different stand-point – that we should do them, rather than not. But the substantive point remains; do we have the desire to do something about the myriad of big issues that affect the planet and its peoples, the things that affect the many rather than the few?

What then should be the Olympic legacy, and can it be realisable in these terms? And does the rationale for making it happen stack up?

We’re told health inequalities are increasing and that a swathe of the population appears all but immune to the warnings, seduced, it’s intimated, by a celebrity culture where there’s a sense that you don’t have to put in the graft. The messages are clear; think on about the four great evils of smoking, drinking too much, poor diet and sedentary lifestyles. I am most certainly not pointing a finger here – there’s plenty of folk only too happy to do that already. Rather I wanted to question the dominant orthodoxies of how society should respond. Seb Coe’s view that sporting excellence is the key driver of increased participation in sporting activity obviously deserves some respect. Not least because, sport seems to connect all four of these issues, especially if there’s a bit of competition involved (which could just as well be against yourself). Eating well and moderating alcohol tend to go hand-in-hand with being motivated to do well at whatever physical activity one chooses. Basically, we look after ourselves better when we enjoy our sport and want to do well at it. When it comes to smoking, you’d be hard pressed to find more than a handful of celebrity footballers. So smoking’s a no-no when sport is a motivator.

And yet, analysing Coe’s pronouncements, my sense is that they are the sporting equivalent of ‘trickle-down theory’.  And we know what those theories have done for the masses when applied more generally – pretty much nothing; rather they have tended to exacerbate inequalities. So berating folk for not heeding messages, whether they be from public information films or through the subliminal effect of watching our superstars, seems to miss the point. Something more structural is needed; which, as much as it pains me to say it (given the identities we share: Leeds, Yorkshire, fell-running), leads me to take issue with the Brownlees. My pride in their achievements is absolute but I’d happily argue with Alistair given his recent interview responses in which he said he said: “I’m a Conservative. I don’t believe there should be too many rules. There should be lower taxes.” I’d say he was, at best, misguided, and may well have conveniently forgot that taxation paid for the training of his teachers, paid for the facilities he’s used, supported his health care (and employed his parents). And contributed to the Olympics scholarship he received at Leeds University. And will likely support him further given the recently announced (and welcome) funding for elite sport, a significant proportion of which will come from the taxpayer. Will he reject this?

And what of rules; I can’t think of a sport that doesn’t need them, albeit (like Alistair) my exposure to fell running has taught me that we should strive for the minimum, and celebrate the acceptance of risk, given it is mitigated by the solidarity of each looking out for the other. But when it comes to the challenge of rousing the nation’s sedentary masses (whoever they may be) regulating those that pedal rampant consumerism is and will be necessary. Take ‘the sweet you can eat between meals’ and ‘do you want to supersize that?’ culture by way of examples. So ‘the rules’ can take many forms.  Which makes Gove’s linguistic sleight of hand in changing ‘the rules’ on the provision of school playing fields to one where ‘suitable’ will do smack of a decision where ideology has trumped good sense. In short, only a concerted policy agenda, backed by resources, investment and regulation will do. Note also, amongst further examples of the liberalisation of rules, the demise of the Schools Sports Partnerships and threats to the very disability benefits that made participation possible in the first place.

So, when it comes to the structural, structures matter. One of the Olympic tickets I was lucky enough to procure (by gum, I tried to get others – but failed) was for the sprint kayaking at Eton Dorney. Who could not be impressed at this facility, and yet amazed that this was initiated by teachers whose aim it was to construct a high-quality rowing course for Eton College pupils? Therein the debate about whether the kind of school pupil attends is significant in fulfilling their sporting potential. The devil is in the detail of course. More than half of all rowers went to private school (albeit those privately educated making up only 7% of the population), whereas boxers are a different kettle of fish. Says something I guess. And yet if we look at those schooled in the state sector (and remember they were many, and perhaps the most acclaimed: Ennis, Farah, Pendleton and Wiggins, to name but a few) there are other details to behold: an influential teacher, a supportive parent (who might well have supplied a few useful genes to boot), but also, something as simple as proximity to a decent facility (take Wiggo and Herne Hill velodrome as an example). All this is critical if it is widening participation that we have in mind.

So structures are important, but people matter also. I remember well a conversation with my brother regarding a sports teacher we’d both had. I thought he was an odious man, a show off, lacking in the basic capacity to encourage. Trev was dumfounded; this guy was a hero, someone who had gone out of his way to support him and nourish his obvious talents (in this case, as a spring-board diver). But perhaps this was the point; such as it ever was, the system was geared to spot, and enable, the few rather than the many. Talent, when spotted, motivated this man; mediocrity was something to ridicule. God knows how many he put off; amongst the handful he could claim as his prodigies. Now then we can say it’s not just people, but a particular way of see the world that’s going to matter in inspiring a generation.

Which takes me nicely to a theme that’s been debated extensively this last few weeks; the values articulated by the Olympics. There can be few who have failed to notice that our great Olympians, when interviewed about their successes (or indeed their relative failures) speak first (and often only) about the fact that it’s the many others in their story that they want to thank – their parents, teachers, coaches, physios and so on.  Take Wiggo during the Tour, never once did he employ the personal pronoun ‘I’. It was always ‘we’. Says something that, especially when the dominant narrative in our culture has been ‘I’ for a good while now. Of course, there’s a complexity to this also. Old Wiggo, or indeed any Olympian on the planet, could never have gotten to where they are without their personal application and dedication. And they know this, as well as knowing that they, and their successes, are products of the endeavours of these Others.

Taken in the round, we might have a model here. One where the structures and people we put in place are there to create a framework, in which that application, that commitment from the individual can be ignited, nourished, brought out, as the case may be. Individual sporting greatness, we see then, is a product of a community, collaboration, support structures, inter-dependence … and individual application.

I wonder now whether there is some wider learning to be had? If this resonates, for example, with talk of prevention, of obesity, ill health, and so on, then maybe I’m on the money – and all well and good. In this case, prevention takes on an extraordinary level of complexity. For one, it seems to works best when, perhaps ironically, it’s appreciated that one never quite knows who or what is going to happen. That is, it can’t be predicted with certainty; it always has to be sympathetic and responsive to context. All this is a world away from an agenda that invokes the need for ‘early intervention’ and targeting those ‘at risk’, as if we know, with certainty, who is ‘troubled’ (or maybe more accurately trouble for others) and how to ‘fix’ them.

As above, this smacks of ideology first, and reasonableness second. As Polly Toynbee says, we’re living in an era of ‘evidence-free policy’. What we hear (‘the rationale’) is that there’s limited resources, so we need to get them to those who need them most. Certainly it’s persuasive but in thinking critically we can see universal services matter most. Once again, when thinking about legacy, we need something that affects the many, rather than the few. Thinking further, the reality is that ‘good’ services have always had a preventive function (and thereby save money in the long run). It’s easy to forget also that universal services offer the greater capacity for that other thing that seems in retreat: social mixing … without which the development of a wider sense of solidarity and unity is impossible. And the supportiveness of Otherness is diminished.  There might be more to this than meets the eye. For pupils, sport can be a foil for being picked on for academic achievement; it can protect from negative peer pressure. Conversely, the two are often synergous; do well at sport and the cerebral benefits also. Let’s go on; are there not tales to tell about team work (Together Everyone Achieves More, as my son defines it); about working with others (and across ethnicities and cultures)? Therein the collective dimensions of the pursuit of excellence, that foster also the virtues of dialogically inspired self-assessment and self-correction; and remind us of the value of criticism in defining objectives, deconstructing what needs to be done (analysing and evidence-seeking); seeking marginal gains ( if that’s the only thing possible, which is rarely the case when we consider the big issues). Evaluation counts also, but for improvements sake rather than to demonstrate only accountability. Ask (only) what is good; what’s bad; what improvements need to be made. And get on with it.

All of this we’ve seen in spades from both our Olympians and within the project as a whole. It’s what, I hope, we will all remember the Olympics for. This model then has two sides; on the one, structures, people, opportunities matter. On the other, there’s something about us as individuals, our circumstances, our context. Think of Usain Bolt. They said he was too big, wouldn’t be able to run successfully the way that he did. You can’t run like that was the cry, you need to change; you have to follow the rule book. But, now we know, it’s the paradigm shifts that have the greatest impact, and it’s standardisation that inhibits the creativity this demands. We need trust then in people to make the call as to what is needed for improvement, as individuals, and as groups and communities. So, in aiming to inspire a generation, perhaps we should look also to widening participation in decision-making, which is democracy by name. Now that would be an Olympic legacy worthy of the name.

I’m not an economist, but so what; it seems pretty much anyone can claim to be one these days. A bit like someone who knows a few kids and, when questioned by the press, is identified as a youth worker – regardless of whether it’s their profession or not. In fact, I’m not even sure what economics is; which is probably something else economics has in common with youth work. So, forgive this foray into uncharted territory; if you’re here because you follow my commentary on youth and community work, perhaps there’s something in this for you also?

The best I can fathom is that economics is something to do with the study of financial incentives. That’s something that has come to me in recent weeks, as the government dreams up more and more ways to try to incentivise people to behave in particular ways. It seems behavioural economics is their cup of tea. This includes the old favourite; pay the rich more to motivate them; and pay the poor less in order to do the same. And yet each and every political intervention made seems to spawn a new range of perverse effects, which goes a long way to substantiating my original thesis: no-one’s got much of a clue when it comes to economics, and less still when it comes to appreciating the fall out of economics-based social policy.

Many years ago (the mid to late 80s) I worked on a poorly paid four day a week contract in Tower Hamlets, East London, and went to university one day a week (for which I had to pay). Even though this was a professional contract (based on my existing professional (JNC) qualification) my income wasn’t sufficient to meet my basic outgoings. The system then was that I was able to access housing benefit to help me make up the difference – to make ends meet. I remember well that my meagre flat cost £455 a month. I was told this was the ‘going rate’ and reflected the fact that there was very little property available, even in this less sought after area of London (Hackney). Footnote: things have changed a lot, which makes me shudder to think what a flat would cost now.

Back to economics. The landlords knew well they could charge whatever they wanted. Fast forward to today; little seems to have changed, certainly not the structural issue of there being a limited housing stock. The chronology’s important. Right to Buy was in full swing (without any commitment to reinvest proceeds into new build), and the construction of new public housing had stalled. Plus ça change; today (or at least recently), and according to Ken, Boris presided over the building of only 56 affordable houses in London between April and October last year. Or, if you prefer Boris’s retort, the number was 2240 (although at least half are acknowledged by him to have been built by the private sector and, as such, unsubstantiated as ‘affordable’). Either way, this pales into insignificance compared to the 30,000 properties the National Federation of Housing says is needed.

Thinking about solutions is what’s animated many. Some suggest rent ceilings; regulation is what’s needed, they opine. But wouldn’t it be better to support the supply side, through liberating empty homes (see #emptyhomes on Twitter), building new social housing, enabling people to build their own, and encouraging sharing. Then again, if we think critically, doesn’t this situation say more about income levels? Just as I couldn’t sort out the numbers back then in London, so we find that there are seven million or so people in Britain reasonably defined as the ‘working poor’. Forgive me again, but surely the rhetoric of ‘being better off in work’ is plain rubbish? Hence, we go back to the same old story: many folk simply aren’t getting paid enough.

I’ve learnt from my work in Europe that the surest way of mitigating poverty is through the benefits system. What am I to believe then when my own political leaders tell me the exact opposite; it’s compassionate, they say, for people not to be on benefit? Sure, if they’ve got a job that pays enough to live on. So I say again, wages for many are just too low; and, in fact, decreasing. There are those that will tell you that they are earning as little as half that they did five years; and countless others who haven’t had a pay rise in ages. Perhaps that’s the eternal truth, employers, simply, don’t want to pay. Look at the supermarkets; I wonder how many who work there need their incomes topped up?

Of course many of these employers will say they can’t afford it, but is this where the behavioural responses to the incentives (my definition of economics, remember) come in? Constructing an employment regime based on part-time work looks like simply responding to (or taking advantage of, as the case may be) structural incentives (in this case, the very existence of a benefits system). Which is to say that what’s happening looks like it’s based on the knowledge that the state will pick up the slack. Or at least did. But not now. So can we conclude that wages will rise, as this wage subsidy disappears? I doubt it. Lest we forget that a good deal of folk working part-time would rather work full-time. Locate all this in the recent findings of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which illustrate that the average family needs to earn around £37k to have a decent standard of living, and it’s only too plain that things are bad, really bad. And that the current ‘economic’ plan is based on an understanding as far from this reality as can be imagined. What about a living wage?

Finally, I seem to have developed a special interest in the on-going story about the price of milk. Of all the examples you could find of economics, milk seems to be the one that has it all, and says it all. Perhaps it’s because the supermarkets are implicated here also. My sense of reality is that the people of Britain seem to identify milk (at least the liquid kind) as in the same category as housing, health and education; as a basic need. I don’t think I have ever considered its price; such is my sense that it is a necessity. But it’s when you go abroad, where it’s impossible to get ‘our milk’ that you realise how much it is part of our culture. And for those of us who appreciate the Great Outdoors, with its patchwork of farms, we once again realise that this is complex, but important. I figure we are fast approaching the situation where milk will come from overseas mega farms (or perhaps the supermarket’s own), with all the animal welfare implications that entails. Unless, of course, somebody does something, or at least gets a grip on the economics.

For someone who usually writes on social, especially educational, and especially youth issues, the subject of this piece might seem a bit of a departure. But I don’t think so. In fact, and notwithstanding my grave concern about youth unemployment, I’ve become very, very, interested in young people’s experience of work in these difficult times. Unpaid work, through volunteer programmes, internships, and the like, is increasingly common; as is illegal work, and the commendable, but worrying, efforts of young people to try to subsidise their workless families. All up, the new world of work is fraught with uncertainty (a concept I am generally enthusiastic about, but realistic enough to know that the employer’s language of flexible, adaptable, and agile workforces brings only benefits to them, and misery to those who have to work in this way). This is part of a culture in which the expectations of young people are often far beyond that that they signed up for. Which is an extraordinary indictment of how the positive language of ‘raising expectations’ can be so abused. Perhaps you know of similar stories, and are motivated to bear witness? I am trying to get into contact with workers who can help tell this important story. Working with a documentary team, we hope to speak to young people and those working with them. Drop me a line if you’d like to get involved.

Let me conclude by saying that thinking about these issues further confirms that as citizens, as workers, as a society, we have to think deeply about what we really want, what we really need, and how we want to live. And we have to find an economic system that reflects that. And if there is one thing I have worked out about economics it is this: it is not some system, like the Hidden Hand, that we have no control over. Therein the key point, all is political; we have to commit more and more to public debate and democratic activity as, ultimately, we are going to get the kind of world we deserve. One in which people come before profit is possible, and one in which complexity, and values, are factored in and celebrated, rather than left to the simplicity of ‘the market’.

The ‘key’ issues on the streets of Bradford West at the time of the recent by-election were many, and have been many, for a good while now. From drugs, crime and violence, to jobs and the failure to regenerate the city, to The Wars, the people (youth in particular) asked: are these the key issues for you as politicians, or have you other things on your mind – like getting re-elected?

Those in solidarity with the youth, a state-of-being which comes from proximity to their social realities, felt compelled to vote likewise; discontent spreads faster amongst those working with young people and their wider communities. These are the kind of people politicians of all persuasions should have the greatest respect for, and realise they’re those politics can’t do without.

But don’t be naïve, or prejudiced, in thinking that this was just young, disenfranchised, working-class Muslims who voted. Lawyers and doctors voted for Respect too. Conversely, the Muslim perspective is important, not least because it reminds and inspires us to be cognisant of global perspectives. But, lest we forget, there are plenty of non-Muslims who have a similar global consciousness. Rescinding the pledge to spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid (for many, a sole redeeming feature of the Coalition government) will do it more harm than they possibly imagine. Likewise, The War does matter to others.

These are unhappy, maybe even angry, people, turned off by the failures and arrogance of mainstream politicians. They’re fed up with politics, whether local or national, at risk of losing hope.  ‘It’s the same old crap’, they say, doubting, through experience, the claims of improvement. This is the failure of politics; the wrong sort of politics. And of baraderi – village politics, which The Cantle report (2001) into the Bradford riots picked up on more than a decade ago: disaffection was such that Asian youth felt their, so-called, community leaders (surely a concept now, more than ever, reasonably contested) were also out of touch. Their votes can no longer be delivered en masse (Sieghart, 2012).

This is not to say, as Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, suggested, that they are somehow ‘disconnected’, which is the subliminal message in saying the Labour Party failed to connect [with the Asian community]. A more enlightened approach might be to stop calling ‘them’ Muslim, as if a singular definition will do. We need respect for all British subjects, and all people’s politics (as distinct from their faith), whoever they might be, and an appreciation (in this case) that not all Muslims think and believe the same. They have their own minds; they are not disconnected from politics. In sum, it’s the politicians who need to consider, for a moment at least, please, that it might be they who are disconnected, rather than a growing list of sections of society they identify, but whose real plight and circumstances they seem to ignore.

People in Bradford were saying ‘our city is in a mess’, and they should be listened to. ‘We have one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country, especially among the youth.’ (Indeed, Bradford topped the list of the fifty constituencies which have seen the biggest increase in young people claiming Job Seekers Allowance in the last year. In fact, the numbers on the dole long-term have shot up across the Bradford district by a staggering 314 per cent since this time last year). Galloway was surely right, and needed little of his boundless rhetoric to persuade people that ‘Youth unemployment could be a time bomb’. The Employment Opportunities Fund needs to be made to work, but first folk will need to have heard of it. Or we can wait for Workfare to work (sic.) its magic.

Listen on: ‘We are at the bottom of any assessment of how well education is performing. The city-centre is a hole. Who was/is/should be talking about these issues?’ And more: ‘they (mainstream politicians) are trapped in a bubble, unable to see out. So what’s to lose? They need a kick in the teeth; as do the chattering classes.’ And listen good.

The writing on the wall here is that voting for a mainstream party can no longer be presumed; stop being blasé; stop worrying about Mondeo Man. Voters hate being talked at or taken for granted. It’s the new Third Way. Be afraid, be very afraid, there’ll be an increasing interest in voting for minority parties, at both local and national levels. In contrast, many saw in Respect the embodiment of character, and guts; which is surely what politics needs more now than ever.

And don’t laugh at the concept of the Bradford Spring; a good deal of the processes we witnessed in the Maghreb were seen here. Especially, the Twitter, Facebook and wider social/multi-media onslaught that so captivated the youth. According to Sean Dolat, a young labour activist in Bradford West, Galloway trounced Labour in social media. On Twitter there were 10 pro-Galloway tweets by young Asian voters for every pro-Labour one. Dolat’s student friends were inundated with emails and texts from the Galloway camp. “Their campaign was so much better organised and so much more enthused”, he writes. “I’ve never seen anything like this in British politics. The communication between activists on the Galloway side was phenomenal”. And the events and festivals. Young people were engaged; who (now) says they are not interested in politics? There’s something to learn here, something that should challenge the orthodoxy that young people don’t matter, because they don’t vote.

Mainstream parties need to be self-critical. They need to listen attentively to their constituents and focus on addressing local concerns and dimensions beyond. This is a different and more worthy interpretation of Localism, Glocalism some say. Beware also campaigning locally on national issues; and especially against things. Negative politics, rather than a politics of hope, is part of the problem. And for Labour, in particular, think on, there is a desire (despite what Sieghart says) for something to the Left, and something positive; there’s a real message here: think about what happened, and learn from it.

There is much to commend in the language of Positive for Youth, particularly its enthusiasm for young people’s participation in decision-making and the emphasis on challenging the media’s proclivity for demonising ‘youth’. Ironic then that the government is often the worst offender; its analysis of the riots took us no further than a ‘feral, thieving underclass’. One worries then that, like a good deal of the coalition’s rhetoric, it will become a triumph of spin over substance. Worst still, it could mask the plain and simple vindictiveness and fondness for coercion that has become a hallmark of recent policy, as it has revealed itself in practice. Will we see support for youth work as a form of community work, as suggested, or a further extension of targeting with all the individualising (and depoliticising) effects that that entails?

Detached youth workers in particular, whilst always focussing their efforts on those experiencing exclusion, know full well that a social and democratic model works best. This means respecting voluntary association and ‘targeting through universalism’ – making youth work and support available to all but having an eye for those who need it most. This avoids stigmatisation and builds upon the reality that few young people choose social groups homogeneous in the sense that all are ‘excluded’. Targeting undermines the very group work methodologies that seek to draw upon the resources and positive influences of others.

Detached youth workers are concerned also about being further diverted from working in places where young people choose to be – into the institutionalised context of new style PRUs and family intervention. We know well that young people need a space – their space – beyond the home and school, if they are to become autonomous. And we doubt the conclusions drawn about ‘troubled families’ and the ‘underclass’ (as if their ‘aspirations, self esteem and parenting skills’ and lack of ‘character’ is where all fault lies). It’s as if policy makers are influenced more by watching Shameless than the evidence of the structural violence inflicted by policies. The effect of downsizing the public sector, the housing benefits cap, the closure of youth centres, removal of the EMA, and the ‘autonomy’ of the academies programme are all coming home to roost – exacerbating exclusion and child poverty and inhibiting social mixing. Social mobility, typically seen as the answer to everything, is actually in reverse. The youth recognise full well that the subliminal message is that you have to ‘get out to get on’. Wither community cohesion and regeneration.

As privileged witnesses of social reality, don’t doubt that detached youth workers will “feed back to local and central government on the needs of young people from socially excluded groups”. So as cuts bite and it gets even uglier we’ll certainly be looking to work with partners amongst all those identified in Positive for Youth to mitigate the social fall out caused by the wider policy agenda. Let’s hope the government is one of these partners, and resists invoking dodgy ‘evidence’ (watch out especially for a wider narrative on risk factors, pre-birth determinants and the ‘teen brain’ – and the ever earlier intervention and pharmaceutically-based conclusions that are likely to follow). Detached youth workers will continue to state that identifying needs independent of a dialogue with young people is deeply problematic. As ‘outcomes’ have become predetermined though performance and results-led regimes and prescriptive commissioning arrangements (especially those based on measurement rather than values) there is the concern that youth participation will be mere tokenism. And if a profit motive enters the equation there is likely to be further pressure on workers to engage in programme-led rather than negotiated practice. Detached youth workers especially will tell you ‘what works’ depends … on the individual, the community, the context, the culture, and a commitment to democratic ways of working. So let’s start realising that ‘evidence-based’ programmes are often tyrannical and not reasonably transferable to each and every street corner. And that outcomes are what comes out, and can never be pre-scribed or predetermined with the kind of certainty that the scienticism that belies this document suggests. The danger is that an ideological bent will conspire to raising thresholds to services rather than reducing them. If detached work is further pre-scripted its inherent flexibility will be undermined – simply making it less, rather than more, effective. Making interventions more ‘decisive’ and ‘assertive’ can only exacerbate this and undermine the relationships on which all good practice is based. It seems activation rather than education is the order of the day. We should remember that just because something works this doesn’t make it right. We need more low threshold practice, not less. Trust can be secured no other way.

As poverty and social exclusion increases, the danger is that those best equipped to help young people are to be further constrained by policy. We will be left with more rather than fewer young people attempting to navigate the world alone. Detached youth workers will need the freedom being muted for teachers, and tangible resources, if their capabilities are to be best utilised. No doubt what resourcing ‘sufficient activities for the improvement of well-being’ will reveal itself in good time. ‘So far as is reasonably practicable’ may well be the classic opt out clause. Let’s hope not. And let’s have a respect for all youth work as an educational endeavour – rather than, at best, a mere diversionary and compensatory programme; and, at worst, just control in another guise.

What about a small test of governmental sincerity? Just ban the Mosquito device; at least we might think politicians are serious about being Positive for Youth.

Previously I mused on an issue that seems to have occupied the mind of Eric Pickles, the Minister for Communities and Local Government (CLG), more than most: that of bin collections. We heard more of this this week with news that the government has found a quarter of a billion pounds to pay local authorities in England to retain or restore weekly bin collections, apparently from the CLG budget. As I pointed out before, and notwithstanding the question of where the hell they got the money from, this flies in the face of localism. But Pickles’ defence is that it does not. On Radio 4’s Today programme, you could almost feel him squirming as he tried to articulate this about turn as supportive of local decision making. And yet we all know that the neo liberal agenda of which he is a part employs ‘incentivisation’ at ever turn, in full knowledge that the local authorities they have plundered are desperate for any kind of funding. Centralist localism you might call it. And yet, my earlier blog attempted to make a more subtle point; this was a pronouncement that, deep down, recognises not just the political expediency of keeping the middle classes sweet but the reality that universal services are so often what’s best. In fact, Pickles’ went as far as saying “having one’s rubbish taken away weekly is a basic right”. One wonders whether there are other commitments he’d like to make to ‘rights’, which, by definition, are universal and not marketable.

If I was weighing in to the discussion on practicalities, I’d be happy to have my bin emptied fortnightly, but, please, could you take my recycling fortnightly also – rather than the once a month at present? That would truly be progressive, and get us back to that most pressing, and yet most relegated, agenda: the environment.

A colleague mailed me recently to express surprise that I had not been mentioned in the report on the Education Select Committee inquiry into services for young people. Perhaps he viewed my status in commenting on these matters more highly than was reasonable. Or perhaps the select committee didn’t like what I had said, and chose not to refer to it. Notwithstanding the anonymous submission I penned on behalf of the Federation for Detached Youth Work, I was actually mentioned, albeit only in the form of a foot note. This referred to a provocation I had offered relating to the thorny issue of how youth work should be evaluated. The footnote stated: ‘Graeme Tiffany wrote: “sometimes I think of youth workers as being a bit like vicars; how could you judge if a vicar was doing a good job without asking their parishioners?” [Ev w373]’.

My sense was that it had been interpreted as positing a participative form of evaluation, i.e. one in which young people were substantively involved. Indeed it was. In training workers I have often argued that we should take very seriously young people’s responses to three very simple evaluation based questions: what’s good, what’s bad, what needs to change? Despite their tone, you should know that these came to me on the basis of a good deal of time spent thinking about evaluation. I came to realise that the classic youth work question: ‘what do you want to do?’ really wasn’t a good one. And for this reason: it is a future question. Rather, we should invite exploration of the here and now; it is in the processing of lived experience that we often get to a more reasonable assessment of where we might wish to go. To jump straight to the future is to invite that typical response: ‘I dunno’, which is one that often exacerbates negative stereotypes of young people. In sum, we need time and a stimulus to process our experiences, before the question about the future has resonance. Therein, one of the key roles of youth work. 

But my statement had a second purpose, something that might well have gone over the heads of the great and the good on the Select Committee. This was to draw attention to the actual substance of what we take to be valuable, in an attempt to argue in favour of ‘values’, rather than simply ‘value’. It was a deliberate attempt to challenge the perceived centrality of ‘value for money’.

This week an actual Vicar said this far better than I ever could. These were the words of the Reverend Martin Perry, of the parish in which the tragedy at the Gleision mine in South Wales occurred. When asked what he could do in trying to help the families of those bereaved, he said:

“There are times when it is simply a case of listening. It’s important to allow people to express themselves and to begin to talk about things. It’s about spending time with people, which is just a way of saying: you’re important, you matter”.

I doubt you’d find a youth worker who wouldn’t articulate these sentiments in a statement of values. I’m sure you get my point, and understand then why we speak of the tyranny of this reductive shift to mere ‘value’.

Many of these issues are explored in the submission I mentioned above. Having discussed the Select Committee report at a recent executive committee meeting of the Federation for Detached Youth Work I’ll be penning a response to that also. Watch this space.

Previously in this blog I reflected on the thorny issue of ‘what works?’ in public service and the contribution research makes to informing such judgements. A good deal of this came back to me last week, given a series of experiences. The first was my participation in the annual conference of BERA, the British Educational Research Association. There I heard a good deal of ‘evidence’ about what works, and what doesn’t, and, indeed, the things that appear to be positively harmful in ‘education’. Therein the crux of the matter: all hangs on what we take the concept of education to mean, and what we consider its aims to be. Thankfully, there were philosophers in the audience able to point this out. One wonders how we will fare if their practice is extinguished in train with that of others working in the humanities and social sciences.

On Monday, some apparent, answers, from our dear Prime Minister, who in a speech on education confidently asserted: “These debates are over – because it’s clear what works. Discipline works. Rigour works. Freedom for schools works. Having high expectations works. Now we’ve got to get on with it – and we don’t have any time to lose.”

I was reminded of Francis Fukuyama’s seminal ‘The End of History and the Last Man’: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” In this he argued free market-based liberal democracy was an end game in the development process, and all states would ultimately take on these characteristics. And yet, in the light of 9/11 and subsequent wars, Fukuyama appeared to review his presumption – suggesting, in the light of events, he had been misplaced in making such a bold statement.

Fukuyama has returned to the stage again recently to suggest that, in the fullness of time, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, 9/11 and the war on terror will be seen as “a mere blip or diversion”. In an historical context, he doubts whether anyone will remember. I guess now he doubts his earlier doubts on the end of history.

So back to Cameron, might there be any doubts in his conclusion, now or in the future? Somehow, it seems unlikely, given the history of ‘not for turning’ sentiments he shares with one of his notable predecessors. Which is instructive as, for all claims to be a new kind of caring conservativism, these guys have reverted to type very quickly. Rather, as Alvin Hall powerfully illustrates, they have taken this project, initiated by Thatcher and continued by Blair, even further forward. Let us name it for what it is: neo liberalism, which, should you be in any doubt as to its definition, let Robert McChesney, in his introduction to Noam Chomsky’s ‘Profit Over People’ enlighten you: “Neoliberal initiatives are characterized as free market policies that encourage private enterprise and consumer choice, reward personal responsibility and entrepreneurial initiative, and undermine the dead hand of the incompetent, bureaucratic and parasitic government, that can never do good even if well intended, which it rarely is.”

This only leaves the many hundreds of educational researchers who attended the conference, and the countless thousands elsewhere, seemingly stranded in a profession for which parliamentarians have no future need. So a few thoughts from a couple of them might be a fitting epitaph. One, having considered the rise in obligation of educators to work in ‘flexible and adaptable ways’ (another hallmark of neo liberalism) demonstrated a correlation between this and the emergence of new classes of untrained or poorly trained educators. The recent House of Commons Education Committee report on Services for young people illustrates this well: “we are not aware of any research that shows definitively that higher levels of qualifications in youth work lead to better outcomes for young people”. Said researcher, Stephen Ball, makes the point that such practitioners become “unencumbered by reflection”, which is, of course, something that the few ‘critical pedagogues’ in the audience have long since promoted. Which only leaves the last word to a visiting colleague from Austria, who asked me why we used the rider ‘critical’ in the first place. “Isn’t all pedagogy, all education, supposed to be critical?’ Well, apparently not, and especially with neo liberals running the country.

This said, my own thesis on ‘pragmatic Romanticism’ suggests they haven’t quite got control over the educational project just yet; and won’t if I, and a good deal of other folk, have anything to do with it – especially if we socialise (namely, democratise) our practice.

It might be crass to suggest it, but, in considering something of the magnitude as the future of education we might all need to decide which side we stand on. A luta continua.

A week ago I had a pop at speaking about a subject that has really got under my skin recently. I’d been invited to speak at the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Youth Studies SIG (special interest group). My presentation, ‘Explaining the difference we make: an eternal paradox?’ had been first stimulated by the outburst (which is what I, at least, took it to be) of Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the Education Select Committee, when presiding over the recent enquiry into services for young people. In a tone that will resonate for a good while to come, he remonstrated to representatives (‘witnesses’) of the Youth Service that: “It does seem an extraordinary failure that you can’t make a better fist at explaining the difference you make”.

My paper considered the ideological underpinnings of such a question: new business management; the idea that we can ‘measure’ everything; and suggested that democratic practices would always inhabit a different paradigm – hence the paradox. I proposed ways of ‘stretching the paradox’ if not solving it.

Certainly this was a tentative intervention based as much on my academic meanderings in the philosophy of education. And yet, if I appeared to lack any confidence in my position, it was affirmed this week as I read Tuesday’s Guardian – page 12 to be precise. A good half was given over to an advert but the space that  remained was crammed with three short articles that seemed to have something in common. The first spoke of a review of the controversial decision to do away with the Education Maintenance Allowance, or EMA. A report into this concluded ministers should have done more to acknowledge the EMA’s impact on participation, attainment and retention, before they decided how to restructure financial support. It seems ministers had simply rounded up the outcome of a study of barriers to participation and concluded the loss of the EMA would not be a substantive deterrent. The study’s author begged to differ. Commenting on this lack of coherency, Sally Hunt, secretary general of the college lecturers’ union, the UCU, accused the government of ‘cherry-picking’ research to drive through its agenda.

Adjacent to this article were tales of another select committee, this time in the Lords, and focussing on science and technology. The much vaunted ‘Nudge’ theories trumpeted by a surfeit of government ministers in relation to public health was deeply flawed, His Lordships argued: “The government has failed to base its policies on scientific evidence; it is not in accordance with that available about changing behaviour.”

The third saw us treated to the stats from a government watchdog on counter terrorism. Of 85,000 travellers randomly stopped at ports and airports, 2,687 were questioned and 466 were detained for up to nine hours. Whilst some were arrested and a few convicted these were for non-terrorism related offences. In fact, not a single person was convicted under the act. We should note also that Asian folk are 42 times more likely to be targeted under these powers.

While I’m on a roll, and because one of my lads reminds me to be just as concerned about animals as people, we might consider the proposals to cull badgers in order to reduce the incidence of bovine TB. The research suggests a cull could actually increase TB.

All coincidental perhaps? What ever happened to a commitment to science-based policies, I wonder? I’m minded by John Pitts’ important paper on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in which he concludes “policy decisions are made not on the basis of proven preventive and rehabilitative efficacy but rather constitute a means by which government policy, state services and professional practices can be articulated to achieve politically necessary systemic change”. Pitts’ title seems to sum up the whole debacle: ‘Who Cares What Works?

All in all, it seems a bit rich that the government demands ‘evidence’ when, it seems, they have pretty much made up their mind before anything is presented to them or, at best, simply select that that fits with their ideologies.

Last night I had intended attending a local ‘Politics Café’ debate on the effectiveness (or otherwise) of schools becoming academies. The speaker, it was advertised, was going to ‘examine research that questions the ability of academies and free schools to raise achievement’. Thankfully, I was too exhausted to go.

Time to re-visit my blog after a bit of a lay-off. Thanks to a small news item in The Daily Telegraph of 27 June for getting me going. And before you ask about my Telegraph reading habits, let me say it’s the only national paper to publish fell running results. Enough?

Anyway, said article was entitled ‘Why it’s no longer a crime to swear’. The Police have been ordered not to arrest people who verbally abuse them. The justification, it seems, is that the courts do not accept that being sworn at causes them harassment, alarm or distress. I’m minded immediately by the significance of these three words, for they were at the heart of the anti-social behaviour legislation. Testimony that one was harassed, alarmed or distressed by the behaviour of another was sufficient for that behaviour to be deemed by the authorities to be anti-social. Despite the subjectivity in all this, this was enough for ASBOs to be issued. And, on the basis of further transgressions, these behaviours became criminalised, with imprisonment the ultimate sanction. Thank goodness we’re seeing the end of all that.

I’m worried that swearing simply becomes acceptable but I am more concerned about the simplification and de-personalisation of these issues. A few tales to illustrate my point. Not so long ago, I managed a project that worked in a context of anti-social behaviour. But I was determined to reject the orthodoxy behind a whole series of interventions aimed at tackling this problem. All seemed to have one thing in common, they were designed to crack down, to enforce and to punish. It struck me as ironic that these were all intrinsically anti-social themselves: from the Dispersal Order that prevented people gathering to the high frequency emitting Mosquito Box that only young people could hear, and the move ‘em on capacity of classical music and acne lights (as used by dermatologists to identify skin problems) in subways.

Surely a more enlightened approach was needed: the use of pro-social interventions. Getting people together to explore and argue about their concerns; proactively using conflict in order to support its mediation. The active promotion of community conversations no less. A highlight was a philosophical enquiry in which police officers and young people examined the concept of anti-social behaviour. In this methodology a generative phase is employed; time is taken to decide what the theme of the enquiry should be. In this case, swearing was the issue that connected all participants. The police disliked being sworn at by young people; their riposte was that the Police did the same. An impasse? Not at all, the simple agreement that in street-corner confrontations all should commit to not swearing. The outcome? A general holding to account by all, but more importantly the diffusion of tension and the creation of a space where a reasonable conversation could take place. In sum, very effective.

As is the way of these things, I have come across a wealth of commentary on swearing in recent days. I was reminded of a young woman in a Youth Inclusion Programme (YIP) who seemed to use swearing as an everyday language. But when a group of builders turned up one day (a trade she had learnt something about due to her father’s work) she adopted the role of charge hand. Not an expletive all day. Engagement is crucial, it seems.

And expert advice for a verbally abused teacher in a recent TES magazine: excluding the perpetrator gives some pupils an open door to a day at home watching television (the anti-social response). Rather, stay connected to the incident, don’t pass responsibility over. The long-term solution lies in improving relationships with pupils; work toward a world in which we better understand each other (the pro-social response).

Thinking about the civility of civil society (rather than narrow interpretations of Big Society) might be a good place to start, for the police, the courts, politicians and policy makers, and, indeed, wider society.