Rural proofing: magic bullet or rural vote-catcher?

Posted on 24 March, 2017 by Fiona

We all know that living in the countryside may mean having to travel further to access shops, schools, GP surgeries and hospitals, while some services available in urban areas are simply unobtainable. Communities may complain that they are overlooked and individuals sometimes feel isolated. Rural proofing is intended to address these kinds of inequalities but is it really the magic bullet that will solve everyone’s problems?

The UK Government defines the process thus: “Rural proofing is integral to the policy making cycle. It requires us to make sure that the needs and interests of rural people, communities and businesses in England are properly considered. This applies to the development and implementation of all policies and programmes. For central government, rural proofing means assessing policy options to be sure we get the fairest solutions in rural areas.”

What could be better or more desirable than ensuring fairness all round when you are designing policies? But like most things in life, the reality is much more complicated. The questions we should be asking seem simple: what is rural, who is disadvantaged and what are the problems policies need to address? Unfortunately this is seldom the starting point for policymaking.

In my career as a social scientist working in rural studies I have spent a lot of time looking at the ways in which governments try to design and implement policies that are “fair” to both urban and rural communities. It is a challenge that faces governments worldwide and rural proofing seems to offer a useful tool. But too easily it becomes an all-purpose mallet to be applied without precision across cultures and circumstances. In some instances it seems to miss the mark completely.

In 2015 I was able to spend a month in Monash University in Melbourne to do research on rural proofing there and to have discussions and to provide a briefing paper and presentations about it for policy makers. I quickly realised that their thinking about “rural” focused on what the Australians refer to as “the country”. It is a term that has a pleasant old world sound to it, a nod to European roots. But it fails to take into account the truly remote outback which is home to indigenous Australians or to consider the very real disadvantages they experience. In Australia – as in the UK – how you define “rural” is highly politicised.

Rural proofing as a concept originated with the English Rural White Paper in 2000. My colleagues here in the Centre for Rural Economy have long been concerned with rural proofing, and Jane Atterton wrote in 2008 that the concept needed to be reviewed. Since then more critical questions have been asked, by the House of Commons in 2009 and the OECD in 2011. It is an English concept, and applying it more widely is always destined to be problematic. But even in England such a blanket approach often feels inappropriate. In a recent Lords debate Lord Beith (formerly an MP for a rural constituency himself) argued in favour of rural proofing and observed “Surely we cannot allow ourselves to stumble into a situation where you have to be well off to live in the countryside”. Given the discrepancy between house prices in city and countryside, living in a rural area in England is already well beyond the pockets of many people. Indeed, England is an anomaly in having a countryside that represents aspiration more often than it does deprivation. Of course you will find some disadvantaged communities and individuals there, but can rural proofing address such specific needs? Can it truly ensure that elusive “fairness”?

Scotland has always been more wary of rural proofing, arguing for a much more targeted approach via its Highland and Islands Council. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, is currently developing a guidance framework for rural proofing, very much following the English model, but related to its own Rural Needs Act. In work I am carrying out with colleagues at the Northern Ireland Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute for the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, we have highlighted concerns that such a blanket approach could result in unrealistic wish lists, regardless of practical and resource constraints. Providing “equitable” services cannot mean providing the same services in town and country. A small rural school or health provider may be popular locally but provide a poor service when measured against what is available in urban areas. If this is the case, local facilities should not automatically be protected via rural proofing, rather than being amalgamated in order to achieve improved services.

Rural areas are different from towns and cities and the needs of their residents are often different. But relying on rural proofing to address every rural problem will not ensure fairness. All too often it is a process implemented as a rural vote-catcher by governments as they approach election time. A more useful strategy would be to identify specific problems then design the policy to address those. If you do not know what needs fixing, how can you target an effective solution?

Sally Shortall is the Duke of Northumberland Professor of Rural Economy, in Newcastle University’s Centre for Rural Economy

Might Canada be a good model for Scottish cultural policy post-Brexit?

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Posted on 24 February, 2017 by Fiona

Dr Simon McKerrell, Newcastle University, January 2017

An effective cultural policy should do many things, but one thing that we could do better is policy for the arts. Good arts policy depends upon a range of artists, deep communities of practice, some public support and private success, amongst many other things. But the most important bit which sometimes gets lost, especially in amongst the razzmatazz of Celtic Connections or the Edinburgh Festivals in the summer is aesthetically (or artistically) transformational experiences for the Scottish public. Art has many values from the personal to the public, but changing the way we see, feel and hear the world through artistic experience is one of the most vital. One way in which this actually happens is when cultural policy connects the local to the global, and we might be able to learn a few lessons from other countries post-Brexit about this, particularly Canada.

The decade 2010-2020 in the UK has, and will show a continuous retreat and downsizing of the state in relation to cultural and arts policy and financial support. This is a real, live problem in Scotland and across the UK because Local Authorities are still the largest funders of arts in the UK. In England for instance (where we have figures) we know that since 2010, local authority spending on the arts has declined by 17% (£236m). In Scotland there is a similar picture. Much intellectual energy and scholarly discourse has been devoted to national cultural policy structures for the arts in the UK and elsewhere over the last twenty years. This has involved large and intensive debates about complex transdisciplinary areas such as: the social impact of the arts; the regenerative agency of creative place-making; cultural capital; the equitable distribution of state funding to different genres and regions of the UK, and; the relationship(s) between the intrinsic and instrumental value of the arts. All against a public background and political narrative of austerity. We know from much of the research that has emerged that the arts can have a transformative positive effect on individuals and communities given the right conditions, but this often happens at the personal and/or very local level.

In amongst all the macro debates about UK cultural policy, not much attention has been paid to those smaller, local communities of artistic practice, that carry on their production and consumption of culture beyond the reach of the state or its quangos. The continuing delivery of arts projects in Scotland and elsewhere across the UK mostly happens at the local level, even when it is supported through national or local authority arts funding. Increasingly, studies of globalization and culture have pointed out that the local and global are interdependent upon each other, and that most forms of belonging are inherently local, but increasingly mediatized through global means such as social media, websites, fora, and online news and television. It is the local arena then, where local artistic practice across musical, narrative, dance, visual or even gastronomic traditions are actually practised. Indeed, when one remembers that in Scotland, the most popular cultural attendance context is a visit to the local library (more than cinema or live music) one of the obvious post-Brexit answers for cultural policy is staring us in the face.

Moreover, in Scotland, the Scottish Government now has recently moved into a third successive term of SNP administration, which continues to explicitly develop ‘The Scottish Approach’ to delivering policy and to devolving decision making ‘with’ the community. In a number of non-UK contexts, local government has been, and continues to be, key stakeholders in the development of musical communities. Recent shifts in government policy in both in the UK (instrumentalization of the arts under New Labour) and particularly in Scotland (widening of the wellbeing and health policy agenda to include prevention) now mean that participation is viewed as a contributing factor across a number of domains beyond the artistic. The arts are now present in various social cohesion, health, wellbeing, economic growth and sustainability strategies across the UK and much of this work is being carried out via non-arts and non-cultural policy officers within local authorities.

These reasons amongst others, underscore the importance of understanding how local participation and delivery of arts projects across varied urban and rural landscapes in Scotland relate to cultural policy in a rapidly changing context. Too much has been made of professional ‘high quality’ arts in Scotland. Local, and less glamorous activities across the nation give much more bang for the Scottish buck in terms of transformational artistic experience: The retirees choir rehearsing their ‘Passion’; the rural fiddle group meeting weekly on a Thursday night to exchange tunes and fun; the urban dramatic society bringing together the generations for a performance of Noel Coward’s ‘Blythe Spirit’ for a week in December, or; the central belt pipe band preparing boys and girls for the competition season in the summer.

These local groups are not in direct competition with the professional artists, but in many ways a pound spent there goes further and longer than a pound spent on the next elite performer’s tour, or orchestral production. A lot of this money comes from local authorities, and these local authorities have less to give but they already have a vast network of libraries where much cultural activity takes place. Could we not in a post-Brexit world set aside some money perhaps via ringfenced or Edinburgh distributed cultural funding, so that libraries could extend and reinvent their role in the local community as the arts hub? Public libraries are the natural home for local arts in the globalized Scottish 21^st century. They do it elsewhere and we could learn from them in a post-Brexit, or even post-UK context.

Canadians borrow from their public libraries twice as many books as they buy each year and 85% of their local communities have a Community Trust which acts as a focal point for local arts philanthropy and community engagement—local people coordinating and deciding how to pay for local arts from local money. In fact, libraries account for about 40% of provincial cultural spending by government in Canada, and they even have a publicly funded national encyclopaedia available digitally at their libraries (pretty good for tourism their too). At the federal level, the Canadian government is even spending $210 million dollars in 2017 alone on cultural heritage to celebrate their 150^th anniversary—a fraction of this spending on our Scottish cultural heritage at the local level would be hugely positive in Scotland. As it happens, neither the UK (including Scotland) or Canada have signed the UNESCO 2003 Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage and are unlikely to do so. They spend ringfenced money from central government on their traditional music, drama and dance; ours go into the general competition on artistic merit up against every other art form. Traditional arts could see a post-Brexit boom if we adopted a more Canadian approach. We spend a lot of money on the arts on national ‘glorious megafauna’. Even if we set aside £500K for each of the 32 Scottish local authorities ringfenced specifically for local arts, that would represent half of the annual budget we spend on the five national performing companies (RSNO, Scottish Ballet, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Opera and The National Theatre of Scotland). Yes, £16 million for arts in Scottish libraries for a new Scottish communities arts trust in 2017 would be a good place to start (and would represent about seven times as much as the CS Cashback for Creativity initiative has invested back into local arts in the last several years). In Scotland we spent last year a ‘whopping’ £250K via the Public Library Improvement Fund—and guess what—this piddling amount was only accessible through competitive tendering into a central pot.

Internationally, the United Kingdom has a comparatively weak local authority provision for the arts within an EU context, and both cultural growth of ominorousness and the continuing reduction in funding for local authorities makes investigating novel and innovative methods of community funding and sustainability for arts more urgent. Indeed, one of the explicit aims of a newly reframed post-Brexit cultural policy would be to tackle more effectively the question of how local communities of geography and practice can themselves sustainably support their arts activities beyond any whims of local or national government. There could be a test artistic sustainability; at the most basic level we could ask Creative Scotland and/or local authorities to tell us how effective the money they spend is. Similarly, within the arts world, there’s still too much of a banal position that posits capitalism in simple opposition to the flourishing of an idealized, community-based, egalitarian performing arts. When one examines the realities of artists’ lives, one can see that many of the disciplines, and to a certain extent the grey literature of cultural policy itself, have broadly taken a moral position that represents an idealized arts ecosystem that is somewhat adjacent to reality. Beginning by linking the Scottish Household Survey on arts participation to actual cultural policy might be a good place to start in Scotland post-Brexit. Going further than this and learning from elsewhere, we could adopt more innovative funding models: Canada, in addition to having funding for just about everything to do with the arts also has changed the tax laws via The Investment Canada Act which requires that foreign investments result in a net benefit to Canada and are compatible with national cultural policy objectives. We could do that in Scotland. Maybe the new ‘Creative Industries Advisory Group’ announced this month could do something like that. We could also ask artists to take government backed loans instead of grants putting more onus on commercial success—they also do that in Canada. It’s not just a good idea because we believe in libraries and artistic notions of the public good; many many jobs in a post-Brexit Scotland whether independent or not, will depend upon the creative industries. We should get a head start this year with some radical cultural policies that support the local and encourage the commercial.

Dr Simon McKerrell is Head of Music at the International Centre for Music Studies at Newcastle University, in the School of Arts and Cultures. He’s also the Social Renewal Theme Champion for Arts and Culture in Social Renewal. Simon is interested in the social impact of music across three research topics: cultural heritage; sectarianism; and multimodal communication, and how these relate to policy.

21st Century Rural Development – learning from Scotland

Posted on 16 November, 2016 by Fiona

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE’s Closing Keynote Speech at Scottish Rural Parliament 2016

What does successful, community-led rural development look like in the globalised, networked world of the 21^st Century? This question faces rural communities and governments I meet around the world and I often respond with the suggestion that they look to learn from Scotland.

In the 1960s, in the early days of the Highlands & Islands Development Board (HIDB), the model of growth centres was in vogue – an aluminium smelter here, a pulp mill or a nuclear power station there, all part of a plan devised and imposed top-down. The strategy failed, largely because control lay far away, with too little input from those who lived in and knew these areas. Later, as a reaction to such failures, this was superseded in many countries by a model of “bottom-up” rural development (development from within), based on local assets, local knowledge and local action. The EU LEADER programme was seen as emblematic of such an approach, and this was more successful. However there were a number of issues even with the “bottom-up” approach.

One issue was that it proved hard to find examples of truly bottom-up development: usually initiatives, even if locally led, relied on external funding or networks. LEADER areas and groups, for example, were selected and approved by governments and disbursed EU funding according to EU budgetary rules and strategies in Brussels-approved business plans. Moreover they learned from one another through national and transnational networks, sharing external ideas and know-how.

Another problem was that inequality was built in, and in two respects. Localities whose capacity to act was greater, or where capacity had been built through earlier interventions, were better able to mobilise and capture further funding leading to a very uneven geography of development. And within localities it tended to be those already with capital and power who captured the lion’s share of the available funding – especially when these were in the form of capital grants. Then, as the world moved into an era of neoliberalism and rolling back of the state, it was all too easy for bottom-up development models to become ‘self-help’ remedies which allowed the state to withdraw.

Taking these issues on board, and also reflecting the transition to the ‘network society’ of the 21^st Century, a more helpful model is now that of “networked rural development.” In this approach, place-based strategies are led by local people but are acknowledged to involve external partners too. Moreover this approach draws not only on local assets and local knowledge but also makes use of external assets and knowledge to augment what is available locally. Most notably this recognises the necessary contribution of an enabling state (rather than an absent state leaving it to self-help), as well as the contributions of links with other rural communities, activists and researchers.

Scotland already exemplifies this approach. Take community land ownership, as one example, led and controlled by local communities of place, but helped and enabled by the state through land reform legislation, a community land fund and the community land unit, as well as activists and supporters with useful skills and contacts, and of course the mutual support and shared learning now offered through Community Land Scotland.

The Scottish Rural Parliament also exemplifies this approach. The idea came through learning from the experience of other countries (notably Sweden), facilitated by externally-funded studies and disseminated through various networks. Now the SRP functions at one level as a means for the people of rural Scotland to collectively articulate and present their manifesto to government and other authorities, calling for the state to play its part in enabling a better future for all parts of rural Scotland. At the same time, the SRP is a network for sharing and celebrating ideas and experience, which local people can then take back to their own communities to consider and to weave into their own strategies and actions.

Around the world many people in rural areas are interested in these ideas and Scottish experiences of networked rural development, and they draw strength and inspiration from them. But this is more than bottom-up rural development or self-help. A successful approach requires an enabling state, not an absent state leaving each community to sink or swim in a neoliberal world which would inevitably lead to widening inequalities and a two-speed countryside. Scotland is fortunate in having had successive governments which recognise that they must play their part. In addition this approach requires rural communities to think not only of the assets and knowledge within their locality and of building their capacity to mobilise for action; they must also consider their network resources, and how these can be used to draw in assets and knowledge from elsewhere and from one another as they seek to thrive in the networked world on the 21^st Century.

These lessons are especially important during the turbulent times ahead. In fashioning future rural policies outside the EU, both farming interests and environmental interests have powerful and effective lobbying capabilities which could easily crowd out rural development and rural community interests – along with many of the elements of the rural manifesto just agreed by the Scottish Rural Parliament. It is vital that the rural communities’ voices are also heard and that post-Brexit policies are informed by these lessons from Scottish experiences of rural development.

Professor Mark Shucksmith OBE is Director of the Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal. He was formerly Co-Director of the Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research at Aberdeen University. The ideas in this blog are elaborated in his report for the Carnegie UK Trust, Future Directions in Rural Development. http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/future-directions-in-rural-development-full-report/

You can also watch a video recording of Mark’s speech at the Scottish Rural Parliament.

Creativity and Education: Rethinking the EBacc

Posted on 13 October, 2016 by Fiona

On 14 July 2016, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced her new Cabinet, following a significant reshuffle and re-structure of Government. In this context, researchers from all over Newcastle University express their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the Government in the Ideas for May’s Ministers blog series, considering how individuals, communities and societies can thrive in times of rapid, transformational change. Dr Venda Louise Pollock, Director of Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice, targets art education in this idea for Justine Greening.

To: The Rt. Hon Justine Greening, MP, Secretary of State for Education.
From: Venda Louise Pollock, Director, Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice

The extraordinary cultural and creative talents we share contribute to the well-being of our society, our economic success, our national identity, and to the UK’s global influence. These are precious returns, a powerful cocktail of public good and commercial return.[1]

Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value

According to the GREAT Britain campaign,[2] launched in 2012 to build on the interest and success (economic and reputational) of the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics and Paralympics, culture and creativity are mainstays of what makes Britain distinctive. With posters boasting Quentin Blake’s illustrations of Roald Dahl’s stories to headlines celebrating Shakespeare, and partners drawn from a breadth of creative fields – Aston Martin and Mulberry to name but two – the campaign has secured a confirmed economic return of £1.9bn to date. This is only part of the story.

Creative industries are worth almost £10m per hour to the nation’s economy with an overall worth of £84.1bn per year.[3] The sector is growing at almost twice the rate of the wider UK economy and, at the launch of the recent DCMS report in January 2016, Ed Vaizey pledged that the government was ‘determined to ensure its continued growth and success.’[4]

Too often our appreciation of culture and creativity is premised on instrumental rather than intrinsic terms. The AHRC’s recent Cultural Value Report[5] speaks of the “imperative to reposition first-hand, individual experience of arts and culture at the heart of the inquiry into cultural value” and goes on to acknowledge the ability of arts and cultural engagement to “help shape reflective individuals”, and produce engaged citizens. Thinking specifically about education, the report shows, as many other studies have, how arts make an important contribution to learning through their impact on cognitive abilities, skills in problem solving and communication, as well as improving students’ confidence.

This is all in addition to the simple fact that creativity and culture enhance our lives, often in ways we cannot explain or articulate but which are fundamental.

If the government is determined to ensure the growth and success of our creative and cultural sector, this support should be embedded within our education system by not introducing the EBacc in its current form – for the young people of today are those who will shape futures, just as you, now, are shaping theirs.

As a performance measure (not a qualification in itself) that includes five ‘core’ academic subjects: English, Mathematics, History or Geography, the Sciences and a Language[6], the EBacc has created a value perception in our education system. While it is important to note that there is still room within the broader curriculum for students to take creative and technical subjects, not including them in the EBacc has sent a signal that these are not worthy of ‘performance managing’ or ensuring excellence within. This is having a significant impact. As widely reported at the time of the EBacc debate in Parliament (4^th July), there has been a significant decline in the uptake of arts and technical subjects. An IPSOS Mori study in 2012 also found that at key stage 4 drama and performing arts were no longer taught in nearly a quarter of schools, 17% had withdrawn arts courses and 14% design technology.[7]

Although students can still opt for creative subjects, in reality their choice will be limited by availability – and yet building on Michael Gove’s increasing parental choice,[8] the government wants to improve choice for students.[9] Some have argued that creative subjects are needed for weaker students, but, in a critique of the EBacc, the government’s former education secretary has acknowledged this is ‘narrow minded’ as countries with the lowest youth unemployment and highest skilled workforce are those where technical and academic subjects are studied together.[10]

At the Party Conference, it was outlined that linking paths from early years to apprenticeships was a crucial step to secure the building blocks underpinning educational reforms which aim to help young people achieve success in the future. In this context of joined up thinking it seems out of kilter to lessen emphasis on the subject areas that are, currently, major drivers of our economic growth. In creating a level playing field for students, we should do so for subject choice also.

In Scotland creativity is gaining increased importance within education with ministers endorsing a national Creative Learning Plan which recognizes that creativity skills help learners be motivated and ambitious for change, confident in their capabilities and own viewpoint, possess transferable skills, and work collaboratively.[11] In undertaking creative work, students will have to think well beyond the box to innovate, to collaborate, to rise to challenges, grow in confidence and learn from failure, to take risks, be self-motivated and disciplined. These are important skills regardless of where you end up in life. The Creative Learning Plan acknowledges that the skills learnt from creativity are needed to tackle life and work in an ‘increasingly uncertain and rapidly changing economic and social environment.’

Beyond skills, I don’t want my nephews growing up reading Shakespeare but being unable to imagine it or feel that embodied experience, to view art or listen to music without being able understand it as both expression and technical skill, or to read poetry without having themselves wrestled with words. We should aspire to excellence within our education system – in terms of creative teaching methods, the teaching of creative subjects and in exposing our young people to the best of culture.

I would recommend:

reconsideration of the introduction of the EBacc in its current form
the use of rigorous research to inform the development of policy with regard to the role and value of creativity and creative learning
an approach to education that recognizes, as Eric Booth, has argued, the potential for creativity to be the key that unlocks the Curriculum for Excellence[12]

[1] Warwick commission final report

[2] http://www.greatbritaincampaign.com/#!/home

[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/creative-industries-worth-almost-10-million-an-hour-to-economy

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/creative-industries-worth-almost-10-million-an-hour-to-economy

[5] http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/documents/publications/cultural-value-project-final-report/

[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/english-baccalaureate-ebacc/english-baccalaureate-ebacc

[7] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-effects-of-the-english-baccalaureate

[8] https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/nisr/category/ideas-for-mays-ministers/

[9] http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/full-text-education-secretary-justine-greenings-conference-speech/

[10] http://schoolsweek.co.uk/utcs-architect-slams-narrow-ebacc/

[11]http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningandteaching/approaches/creativity/about/

[12]http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/learningandteaching/approaches/creativity/about/

School choice reforms

Posted on 5 October, 2016 by Fiona

On 14 July 2016, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced her new Cabinet, following a significant reshuffle and re-structure of Government. In this context, researchers from all over Newcastle University express their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the Government in the Ideas for May’s Ministers blog series, considering how individuals, communities and societies can thrive in times of rapid, transformational change. Steve Humble and Prof Pauline Dixon from Newcastle School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences here consider choice in the education system.

To: The Rt. Hon Justine Greening, MP, Secretary of State for Education.
From: Steve Humble, MBE, Lecturer in Education and Professor Pauline Dixon, Professor of International Development and Education, Newcastle University.

Justine Greening has been given one of the toughest jobs in government. The current education system has been forged around the assumption that governments should regulate, fund and supply schooling. School reforms that challenge this assumption will be met with derision from those who benefit most from maintaining the status quo. Even when it may be in the interest of our children.

Following in Michael Gove’s footsteps, who has been called the ‘most radical education secretary of the past 50 years’, might engender caution. But, like him or not, Gove’s policies have seen an increase in parental choice.

Under Gove’s watch, over 60% of state secondary schools have become academies. Regarding GCSE results in 2015, 63% of children studying in converter academies achieved 5 A*- C GCSE grades compared with 55% in maintained schools. The performance of sponsored academies has been shown to increase more than the performance in similar maintained schools.[i] The research of Professor Steve Machin at the LSE suggests that schools that have been academies the longest have the greatest impact on improvement.[ii]

Free schools have been opening at a rate of knots, and there are now over 500 ‘open’ or ‘approved to open’ free schools which will create 330,000 new school places[iii]. In 2011 seven secondary free schools opened. The GCSE results in 2016, for these students who have completed their entire secondary education in a free school, show ‘stellar performances’ including 37% at the West London Free School achieving A*/A.[iv]

Choice has also been supported through more transparent league tables. Information on schools is now easily available and in the public domain. This allows parents to make informed decisions as they are able to access reliable information.

But was Gove right?

In every aspect of our lives we act as informed choosers so why does the idea of parental choice in schooling cause so much debate?

Giving parents the right to choose reflects our modern societal wishes for autonomy, control and self-expression; allowing parents a voice that can articulate their family values and the aspirations they have for their children. Choice promotes greater equity and opportunity for all households, not just those who can afford to live in the right postcode area.

So Justine Greening would seem to have it simple. One could advise her to sit tight, ride on the back of Gove’s policies for now and enjoy the calm after the storm.

But what to do? – Be bold and brave or bide one’s time?

If Justine Greening wants to be bold or brave her next step to increase choice is to introduce a universal top up school vouchers scheme.

In many countries around the world school voucher schemes exist. From Colombia to the US from Pakistan to Sweden research shows that choice, through vouchers, is raising education standards amongst the poor.[v]

In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher was close to introducing school vouchers, but held back believing that the public were not ready.

Are we ready now?

We’d advise the Rt Hon Justine Greening:

Continue allowing for greater variety of school types;
Instigate a top-up voucher system in the UK. Give every child in the country an educational voucher. This would give parents complete choice on where they want to send their children. If an educational establishment costs more than the voucher, then they can choose to pay the additional amount;
Ask parents what they want. Commission household surveys in the UK to find out how and why, parents are choosing;
Look at gold standard research from around the world to help inform UK educational policy.

[i] https://fullfact.org/education/academies-and-maintained-schools-what-do-we-know/

[ii] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeduc/258/258.pdf

[iii] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-open-schools-and-successful-applications

[iv] http://www.newschoolsnetwork.org/what-are-free-schools/free-school-news/nsn-congratulates-pioneer-gcse-free-school-students

[v] https://www.povertyactionlab.org/partners/programa-de-ampliación-de-cobertura-de-la-educación-secundaria-paces and http://static.maciverinstitute.com/Policy%20Studies%20Journal%20SCDP.pdf

To manage or not to manage: What next for our ‘wild’ uplands?

Posted on 22 September, 2016 by Fiona

On 14 July 2016, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced her new Cabinet, following a significant reshuffle and re-structure of Government. In this context, researchers from all over Newcastle University express their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the Government in the Ideas for May’s Ministers blog series, considering how individuals, communities and societies can thrive in times of rapid, transformational change. Professor Mark Reed is the N8 Professor of Socio-Technical Innovation at Newcastle University, funded through the Agri-Food Resilience Programme, and a Professor in the Institute for Agri-Food Research & Innovation and Centre for Rural Economy at Newcastle University. Download his policy brief on this subject.

To: Andrea Leadsom, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
From: Professor Mark Reed, Newcastle School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development

Depending on the policy decisions made in the next weeks and months, we may be about to embark of one of the biggest ‘experiments’ our country has ever known.

It will affect the UK’s rural communities, environment, water supplies, wildlife, recreation and cultural heritage and the consequences of getting it wrong are unthinkable.

And the question? In light of Brexit and the inevitable changes to funding, do we continue to actively manage the peatlands of upland Britain?

There are so many unknowns, how we take this forward is still up for debate. What is certain is that we can’t do nothing.

Without support, historically degraded peatlands in our uplands will continue to deteriorate, losing biodiversity as well as vast quantities of carbon to the atmosphere, degrading water quality and imposing higher water treatment costs on water companies, and subsequently on consumers.

The UK Government has argued consistently for the EU’s bloated Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to be slimmed down but as yet there have been no indications whether farmers will receive less after the current guarantee on payments runs out in 2020.

Almost 40% of the EU’s budget is devoted to the CAP, which is designed to provide stable, sustainable and safe food supplies, whilst maintaining farm incomes.

If there is a reduction in funding, then there is a good chance that farmers in the lowlands will adapt, as long as there are favorable trade deals.

However, a small change in payments could have a significant impact on the viability of land management operations across many UK uplands, given the precarious nature of many upland enterprises that currently depend on EU subsidies.

Leaving aside the wider political arguments, the withdrawal of the UK from the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy after Brexit represents an opportunity to develop new agricultural policies that are better value for taxpayers, protect nature and support rural communities. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the basis on which we pay farmers and others who manage our land, to reward them for the environmental benefits that we all depend on, but often take for granted.

Peatlands represent an important opportunity for this new approach, given the considerable benefits provided by these habitats to the UK.

Research into post-Brexit policy options on peatlands, a large portion of our uplands, leads me to two key conclusions:

There is strong evidence that paying for restoration and active management for conservation could provide benefits for wildlife, water quality, reduced flooding and climate. Meanwhile, we know little about the effects of large-scale withdrawal of management from peatlands.
There is uncertain and often-contested evidence over the potential effects of policies that lead to a large-scale, significant reduction in active management. Taking, a Precautionary Approach would retain farm incomes but provide a renewed focus on the delivery of wider public benefits.

My idea for Andrea Leadsom MP (Environment Secretary) is that refocusing increased funding on restoration and environmental management could provide multiple benefits:

Damaged peatlands would be restored, providing benefits for climate, water quality and wildlife that depend on healthy peat bogs;
Recovery of native woodlands through targeted expansion on non-peat soils (e.g. in valley bottoms between deep peat areas), to provide biodiversity and wider benefits including shelter for livestock, reduce soil erosion and flood management benefits; and
Many of the jobs, rural communities and cultural heritage associated with peatland management would be retained.

In this way, we can support rural communities whilst restoring and improving our largest semi-natural environment, delivering more benefits for everyone in society than we currently get from the money we spend on peatlands through the Common Agricultural Policy.

Download Professor Mark Reed’s policy brief on this subject.

To engage in the conversation, please tweet us @Social_Renewal #IdeasforMaysMinisters

Rethinking a National Curriculum and finding space for the local

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Posted on 20 September, 2016 by Fiona

On 14 July 2016, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced her new Cabinet, following a significant reshuffle and re-structure of Government. In this context, researchers from all over Newcastle University express their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the Government in the Ideas for May’s Ministers blog series, considering how individuals, communities and societies can thrive in times of rapid, transformational change. Professor David Leat is Professor of Curriculum Innovation in Newcastle University, and he directs his Idea to Justine Greening.

From: Professor David Leat, Newcastle School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences
To: Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Education

One of the principles of a nation having a National Curriculum is that pupils can move from school to school with some continuity in their education. There is the added attraction to policy makers that they have more control over schools. However, the social and economic turmoil of the last ten years has moved the political goalposts as both radical right and left wing movements have proved attractive to many who feel that they have been left behind as social inequality grows. Political elites are rethinking and renegotiating the relationship between the nation and its component parts – regions, cities and communities. In England, we need our government to give the message to schools and teachers that they should be using ‘the local’ as one of the building blocks of the curriculum to put meaning back into learning.

Successive governments, however, have learned that exerting control by detailed specification of curriculum content has a considerable downside. They are open to attack from many quarters about too much content or the wrong content. As a result, they have shifted from ‘input regulation’ or the specification of content as a means of control, to ‘output regulation’ or the setting of exam targets as a means of control. The targets-related data has had the added incentive of helping to marketise education as it provides a means of comparing schools and ‘driving up standards’. However, there are signs of considerable collateral damage from this policy fix:

Teachers teach to the test and can lose sight of any wider purpose to education – a message which pupils internalise as education becomes a steeplechase of exam hurdles. This is a dangerous context for adolescent mental health and learning to learn.
Teachers are de-professionalised as their role is restricted to delivering content. Teachers who do not develop their own curriculum do NOT develop ownership of the curriculum. It is hardly surprising that so many teachers are leaving the profession. The National Union of Teachers data shows that 50,000 teachers (11% of the workforce) left the profession in 2015.
Young people are poorly prepared for further and higher education and indeed for the labour market as demonstrated by the Independent Advisory Group report (Anderson, 2014) commissioned by Pearsons Publishing
It tends to make schools look towards the DfE and Ofsted for all their cues and not to their locality and its resources. It is astonishing just how many organisations, businesses and individuals want to help shape the lives of young people and society in the most positive ways – but few get the chance.
As a consequence engagement is a serious issue. Across the developed world, there is strong evidence that pupils begin to lose interest in school work from the middle of primary school, even for many who are successful in the exam system (see for example Berliner, 2011). One of the reasons is that the curriculum lacks meaning for them, and they find precious few connections to their lives, despite the best efforts of dedicated teachers.

There are some real advantages in having a locality and community dimension to the curriculum, especially if there is a strong focus, through demanding projects, of going places, meeting people and making and doing things.

Horizons are broadened as pupils encounter people who have interesting jobs (not just professional jobs) and life histories – providing both role models and powerful raw material for developing their own identities. Pupils can take real pride and find meaning in the things that they make and do, both for and with the community. It should also be remembered that digital technology is changing the learning landscape as it provides the power to access, analyse and present information and understanding to a wide range of audiences through a variety of media. A local dimension to the curriculum can provide an element of service learning in which young people are given responsibility and make a contribution. Some of these principles are elucidated in the work of Mimi Ito and colleagues (see http://clrn.dmlhub.net/).

Gemma Parker, a Newcastle University doctoral student, has found that many more recently qualified teachers have no conception of curriculum, equating it to schemes of work or a yearly plan, usually ‘given’ to them to teach. Generally, they do not see themselves as having a role in curriculum development, which undermines their professional standing.

In the last 30 years the voices of government, of ministers, of the DfE and of Ofsted have become the dominant ones for teachers, and their vocabulary around ‘standards’ and ‘targets’ is repeated and relayed by senior leaders in school – ultimately this cramps thinking about what curriculum is possible in school. We need government to use different words, in order to give permission to teachers to take up the opportunities for demanding curriculum projects in their communities, localities and through digital technology. Teachers need to hear that voice.

We need good professional training and support so that there is rigour and challenge in community generated curriculums. In particular, many teachers will need to learn about the process of curriculum development, how best to work with community partners, how to find the balance between guiding work and allowing pupils to take greater responsibility for the pace and direction of their work, how to harness digital technology to its fullest and how to map projects back to important subject questions, methods, concepts and principles.

All across the world there are serious questions being asked about exam driven education. In response, there are also numerous organisations promoting and developing enquiry and project based learning and competence-based approaches. These include the International Baccalaureate (IB), Expeditionary Schools, Connected Learning, Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLEs), the Partnership for C21st Skills and Opening Minds. England could position itself as a world leader in educational practice if it embraced the principle of schools developing much of their curriculum through the medium of high quality locally generated and resourced projects.

References

Anderson, R. (2014) Careers 2020: Making Education Work, London: Pearson.

Berliner, D. (2011) Rational responses to high stakes testing: the case of curriculum narrowing and the harm that follows, Cambridge Journal of Education, 41:3, 287-302.

To engage in the conversation, tweet @Social_Renewal #IdeasforMaysMinisters

The Trouble with Aid – Quantity, Institutions and Utopian Ideals

Posted on 13 September, 2016 by Fiona

On 14 July 2016, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced her new Cabinet, following a significant reshuffle and re-structure of Government. In this context, researchers from all over Newcastle University express their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for the Government in the Ideas for May’s Ministers blog series, considering how individuals, communities and societies can thrive in times of rapid, transformational change. Professor Pauline Dixon is Professor of International Development and Education at Newcastle University. Her book “International Aid and Private Schools for the Poor” was named one of the top 100 books in 2013 by the TLS.

To: Priti Patel, Secretary of State for International Development
From: Professor Pauline Dixon, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences

Just over a year before Priti Patel took up the post as Secretary of State for International Development, the Coalition Government brought into law the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015. The Act saw the enshrinement into law that 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) has to be spent on international aid. Priti Patel is required to ensure that the target is met in 2016 and in each ‘subsequent calendar year’.

It has been estimated in 2015 the UK spent £12.24 billion (0.71% GNI) in Official Development Assistance (ODA, i.e., international aid); in absolute terms the second largest in the world only to the US[1].

There are many groups with a vested interest in the aid industry, pushing for larger aid spending. However, it is not just the provision of aid that makes a difference. There needs to be a focus on making sure that aid is effective. Having a positive effect on economic growth and aiding the poorest is crucial; just giving money is not enough. The government’s introduction of spending targets could lead to waste and pressure to get rid of money.

When someone is put in a position of deciding what is good for others ‘the effect is to instil in the one group a feeling of almost God-like power; in the other, a feeling of childlike dependence’.[2] The result? The imposition of utopian colonial ideals, which are irrelevant in developing contexts.

Bearing this in mind can countries that continue to rely on and are given large amounts of ‘systematic’ or ‘bilateral’ aid, (that is the giving of aid to governments through government to government aid or institutions such as the World Bank) ever eradicate poverty?

Aid can make very little difference in countries where there are major barriers to development such as the environment being typically dominated by mismanaged, corrupt institutions created and perpetuated by elites. The lack of the rule of law and property rights along with inadequate governance and the lack of political freedom and the press all add to the inability for aid to engender sustained growth and a route out of poverty for its citizens.

As aid flows into a poor country that operates under autocratic regimes, those that benefit most according to the critics of aid are the wealthy political elite.[3] Even the World Bank acknowledges that corruption undermines Africa’s development with leaders, government officials, ministers and public servants lining their pockets with money destined for the poor.

One option would be to stop aid altogether.

But is there an answer or a way forward for international aid money? Is there a more productive way of channelling aid that could engender a positive effect on poverty alleviation, growth, focusing on the poorest?

One alternative is to look at market based solutions to poverty, ignoring the planners who do not have the knowledge to allocate resources, but listening to the searchers and Africa’s ‘cheetah generation’[4].The entrepreneurs and innovators, those operating and living at the grassroots level in the slums and shanty towns of developing countries. Here social media can play a role through economic empowerment, monitoring and reporting on corruption and mobilising public opinion.

Radical reforms are required to alter the way aid money is directed and transferred to the poor. If aid money is not directed at sustainable and scalable projects which focus on local entrepreneurs where communities are able to maintain the momentum once the aid has dried up, throwing good money after bad for the sake of it will perpetuate the ineffective, and sometimes damaging, consequences of aid. When aid agencies walk away, others need to be able to pick up the baton and run with it. The poor themselves are the solution.

Aid needs to start working and making a difference now more than ever before. Given a market focus it can. So what’s my advice to the Rt Hon Priti Patel?

Use gold standard research to inform policy not planners who think they know best.
Ask the poor what they want. From the slums of Nairobi to the shantytowns of Lagos, the poor aren’t waiting for aid agencies to rescue them. Visiting some of these thriving communities highlights what works for the poor by the poor;
Focus on market led initiatives and market based solutions encouraging entrepreneurship not dependency.

Sector Breakdown 2014 UK Bilateral IDA (£millions) (source DfID 2015)[5]

[1] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLE1

[2] Friedman, 1962 Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press p. 148

[3] Moyo, 2009 Dear Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another wy for Africa, Harmonsworth: Penguin

[4] Ayittey, George B.N. (2005), Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa’s Future, New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/482322/SID2015c.pdf

No more planning reforms, please!

Posted on 23 August, 2016 by Fiona

To: Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
From: Professor Simin Davoudi, Professor of Environmental Policy & Planning, Newcastle School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

On 12 May 2016, two months before Sajid Javid became the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Housing and Planning Act was given Royal Assent. Starter Homes were a key priority for the Housing and Planning Act but faced some of the strongest opposition on the ground that it adversely affects the availability of affordable housing. The Act also introduced changes to speed up and streamline the planning system so that permissions for development are granted faster and more often. Concerns over planning delays have been a force for legislative change since 1947. However, these acts often create more confusion and delay in the system they were hoping to reform.

The 2004 reform, for example, created a complex system with a host of new acronyms and terms that were incomprehensible even to professional planners, let alone members of the public they were trying to engage. Attempts by the government of the time to clarify things led to the publication of thousands of pages of good practice guidance. But, these only added to the confusion. The statements in the guidance were often complex and convoluted, such as this one:

‘The local development framework will be comprised of local development documents which include development plan documents, that are part of the statutory development plan and supplementary planning documents which expand policies set out in a development plan document or provide additional details’ [i]

In the last 12 years, the dizzying pace of reforms has itself become a key factor in slowing the system down because, before one set of reforms is fully operational, another one comes along and planners have to start all over again and all in the name of speeding up and streamlining the planning system.

So, my plea to Sajid Javid is twofold: first, please do not embark on new planning reforms and instead, allow the current one to bed down. Second, do not let the obsession with speeding up the decision-making get in the way of sound and well thought-out decisions. While nobody wishes to advocate inefficiencies and unjustifiable delays, the quest for speed needs to be kept in perspective. As a chief planner once put it, ‘it is easy to take a bad decision quickly and to repent at leisure; but it is doubtful whether people would regard this as good planning’[ii]. The developments of today will not be judged in the years to come by whether or not their planning applications were determined in eight weeks instead of ten. They will be judged on the soundness of the decision that allowed them to go ahead and on the quality of the outcome.

Have you ever seen a plaque put on a building to commemorate that the decision to build it was taken in eight weeks? Me neither.

It is wrong to think about speed in isolation from the purpose of planning which is about making better places. This implies that the performance of planning should be judged not just by how fast decisions are made and plans are produced, but also on the impacts of these decisions on places, and on people’s quality of life. The 2016 reform, like most of its predecessors, focuses too much on procedures and too little on outcomes. And, when outcomes are talked about, the focus is almost entirely on economic growth measured by the GDP, with little attention being paid to the role of planning in creating fairer and more sustainable places.

What people consider as good planning is its outcome delivered through a fair and efficient process. They want to see good development happening in the right places at the right scale and with high environmental and design standards. They want the process to inform them adequately, engage them properly, listen to their views carefully, and seek an outcome that responds constructively to what is said. All these require time, resources, expertise, skills and crucially a supporting environment which is appreciative of what planners try to achieve rather than demoralising them.

While nobody claims that our planning system has been an unqualified success, it is hard to imagine what would have happened without it. So, it is time to stop talking about planning as a burden and start utilising and mobilising planning as a positive force, and as a powerful means for meeting societal goals including the much needed affordable homes

Prof Simin Davoudi, Newcastle University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape

To engage in the conversation, please tweet us @Social_Renewal #IdeasforMaysMinisters

[i] Creating Local Development Frameworks: A Companion Guide to PPS12 (2004) para. 1.4, London: ODPM

[ii] Late Dr Ted Kitchen, former chief planner at Manchester City Council and professor at Sheffield Hallam University

Digital Innovation: tradition and potential in the history of cinema

Posted on 27 July, 2016 by Fiona

Jessica Crosby is a PhD Student in Newcastle University School of Arts and Cultures. Her PhD is in Media and Cultural Studies, and considers the millennial generation’s engagement in a digital dialogue with popular culture. Here, she explains what Social Renewal means to her, with particular reference to the theme of Digital Innovation.

How has digital technology changed cinema?

To me, social renewal means taking the old alongside the new. We’ve experienced such rapid digital innovation in such a small space of time that our cultural and social landscape has been dramatically changed; whether for the good or the bad, it’s clear that we need some new definitions for our current cultural state, as well as careful consideration of just what has been altered. My own research is an exploratory study of the contemporary film audience, and the ways in which active audience practices can be manifested by interaction on social networking sites. This work must involve an appreciation of the traditions and critical history of the cinema, which as a long-standing cultural institution has had a significant role to play in our day-to-day lives. However, it cannot be denied that the nature of our viewing experiences has changed, facilitated by innovations in mobile and entertainment technology, and the act of being ‘audience’ has become an altogether more transitive, collaborative, and immersive affair. I consider these changes in light of traditional definitions of film audiences, in order to establish the progression of our film viewing habits.

The act of being ‘audience’ has become an altogether more transitive, collaborative, and immersive affair.

Emerging findings from ethnographical study have already demonstrated some interesting trends in online audience interaction, including practices of ‘ownership’ over extended aspects of the film narrative, which brings forward some interesting questions about audience agency and power. These trends speak to larger issues with audience agency in film, which has long functioned on a background of textual pleasure and passivity. What I feel is most significant about this topic however, and indeed what is significant about the focus of social renewal overall, is the attention given to digital ‘inclusivity’. This is an acknowledgement that digital innovation does not function as merely an advancement of older technology, cultural institutions or practices, but as a relationship between traditional elements and future potentials. During my time at Newcastle University I have come across a number of fellow researchers and students, as well as institutions and societies, that have shared the same sense of excitement when discussing the possibilities of digital inclusivity.

Digital innovation does not function as merely an advancement of older technology, cultural institutions or practices, but as a relationship between traditional elements and future potentials.

I have been lucky in that my PhD journey so far has introduced me to a lot of like-minds, both in my own field and without, who have been positive in discussing the ‘potential’ for digital and technological innovation in the cultural field. Though there are apparent consequences to technological growth, the communicative function of digital tech is – in my experience – most often encouraged, particularly when considered also as an academic or networking tool. For example, social media, mobile technology and networking have all figured widely in discussions on research impact, a subject that was at the heart of the recent Humanities and Social Sciences research showcase, for which I was on the organisation committee. It was clear when speaking about individual (and collaborative) impact, the potential for expanding impact both within and beyond the academic sphere was very closely tied to concepts of inclusion, exchange, communication and social policy, making platforms such as social media an invaluable asset.

Whilst the case for digital advancement is by no means cut and dry, and there are factors of transformation in this regard which need careful and close consideration, it seems clear to me that the functionalities of digital technology have opened the floor for close discussion on social interaction and design. This discussion must make room for what has already been established in this field, as well as possible innovations and developments. Taking stock seems a simple act, but it is necessary in times of such rapid change. The work done in the Institute for Social Renewal, as in other sectors of the university, shows clearly the relationship between digital interactivity and cultural enterprise, as well as the more innovative possibilities of a relationship between tradition and potential.

Jessica Crosby, PhD student in Newcastle School of Arts and Cultures

Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal

We are the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal, Newcastle University

Author Archives: Fiona

Might Canada be a good model for Scottish cultural policy post-Brexit?

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To manage or not to manage: What next for our ‘wild’ uplands?

Rethinking a National Curriculum and finding space for the local

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The Trouble with Aid – Quantity, Institutions and Utopian Ideals

No more planning reforms, please!