tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/state-of-the-nation-15762/articlesState of the Nation – The Conversation2022-02-11T12:34:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769852022-02-11T12:34:14Z2022-02-11T12:34:14ZRamaphosa delivers clear analysis of South Africa’s problems. But will he act on them?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445888/original/file-20220211-17-bwo1g2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African president Cyril Ramaphosa delivering the 2022 state of the nation address.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/state-of-the-nation-addresses">State of the nation addresses</a> offer government an opportunity to speak directly to its citizens. It can offer reassurances that its policies and actions speak to issues of their greatest concern. </p>
<p>In South Africa, public opinion surveys have repeatedly shown that South Africans rank unemployment, crime and corruption as the three most important issues facing the country. Others include housing and water. In recent years corruption has moved up the list of priorities.</p>
<p>On reflection, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 6th <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">state of the nation address</a> offered an impassioned and detailed account of prospective policy interventions that promise to address these challenges. But to what extent is there scope for remedy? And do South Africans believe that government is up to the task?</p>
<p>The public are disinclined to believe that government can act decisively on critical problem areas. When asked how well or badly government had handled unemployment, crime and corruption, a 2021 survey by <a href="http://www.afrobarometer.org">Afrobarometer</a>, the independent pan-African surveys network, recorded the <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/publications/summary-results-afrobarometer-round-8-survey-south-africa-2021-0">worst ratings</a> for the government in these three areas. </p>
<p>Government’s handling of the economy was regarded as “very or fairly bad” by 68% of South Africans – up from 61% in 2018. Similarly, 86% thought government’s handling of job creation was weak. This was up from 76% in 2018. Public perceptions of government’s ability to fight crime were no better. The negative rating rose from 74% in 2018 to 79% in 2021.</p>
<p>Finally, government’s corruption-fighting abilities received a resoundingly pessimistic response by 76% of respondents (from 70% in 2018). This, despite the president’s ostensible support for the <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture</a>.</p>
<p>In short, the public’s perception is that government is at its weakest when faced with tackling the most important problems facing the country.</p>
<p>The widening trust deficit between government and citizens motivated Ramaphosa’s focus. With promises to push an inclusive agenda that left no one behind, his objective was to buy sufficient political scope and public support while he focused on rebuilding the state.</p>
<h2>Interventions and challenges</h2>
<p>To some extent, the public will welcome many of the policy interventions outlined in the president’s speech. The extension of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/services/social-benefits/social-relief-distress">special COVID-19 relief grant</a> to March 2023 brings immediate reprieve amid high and rising unemployment. It also offers the governing African National Congress (ANC) potential electoral dividends. </p>
<p>A social compact on economic growth, jobs and hunger, the removal of red tape for small businesses, the unbundling of the energy sector, and far reaching structural and economic reforms can only help to remove obstacles to job creation.</p>
<p>However, what the public really wanted to hear is how the president plans to create a conducive political environment for successful policy implementation. Much of South Africa’s progressive legislative and policy framework has unravelled at the door of an executive that is unable to realise the final phase of implementation needed to affect broader economic and social change.</p>
<p>The public has come to realise that, to a large extent, the failings of government can be attributed to an executive arm that is beholden to its governing party, the ANC. The ANC is preoccupied with its internal <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321223498_The_African_National_Congress_ANC_and_the_Cadre_Deployment_Policy_in_the_Postapartheid_South_Africa_A_Product_of_Democratic_Centralisation_or_a_Recipe_for_a_Constitutional_Crisis">deployment processes</a> and its own existential interests.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/documents">two recently released reports</a> from the commission of inquiry into state capture starkly illustrate the corrosive effect that corrupt party-state relations have had on the state’s capacity to perform.</p>
<p>A captured and deeply politicised state cannot act in the public’s best interest. The larger political culture that oversees the administration of government action has become, in the eyes of citizens, a corrupt and debilitating political culture. It devastates the state’s ability to deliver on its mandate. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa admitted as much. He recognised government’s culpability in both state capture and in <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/july-unrest-factional-battles-in-the-anc-have-become-a-serious-source-of-instability-expert-panel-20220208?utm_source=24.com&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=_3781_+_33669249_+_68504_&utm_term=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.news24.com%2Fnews24%2Fsouthafrica%2Fnews%2Fjuly-unrest-factional-battles-in-the-anc-have-become-a-serious-source-of-instability-expert-panel-20220208">the July 2021 riots</a>. The riots were sparked by the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court. They devastated parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, the country’s two key economic provinces. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-lies-behind-social-unrest-in-south-africa-and-what-might-be-done-about-it-166130">Over 300 people died</a>.</p>
<p>The most crucial section of <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2022-state-nation-address-10-feb-2022-0000">his speech</a> was towards the end where he outlined plans to remove political obstacles to effective governance and rebuild a “capable state”. He spoke of deepening the professionalisation of the public service, strengthening anti-corruption measures, fast-tracking corruption-related prosecutions, and leadership changes in the security services.</p>
<p>But without sweeping leadership changes within the executive, the president faces the limitations of <a href="https://press-admin.voteda.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/May-November-2018.pdf">cadre deployment</a> – the ANC’s policy of appointing its supporters and leaders to key government institutions, sometimes at the expense of ability – and a culture of mediocrity. </p>
<p>His most wicked challenge of all will be to install a culture of ethics and accountability in public life.</p>
<p>No doubt the president is aware of these constraints. But, in the absence of sweeping leadership changes across key portfolios, he will need to continue to centralise his authority and overrule obstructionist colleagues. He must also be willing to work closely with supportive elements in the private sector and elsewhere to force policy implementation.</p>
<p>As he reminded the nation at the beginning of his speech, trade-offs are essential for a new vision to be realised. To solve South Africa’s economic challenges, the president will need to reprioritise his political challenges. It is critical that he is equally willing to trade his party interests on occasion to avoid further losses.</p>
<h2>The threat to democracy</h2>
<p>Reviving the capacity of the state is also crucial to shoring up support for democracy in the long term. Democracies cannot exist without popular trust in their institutions and political actors. Citizen confidence and trust in key democratic institutions has <a href="https://afrobarometer.org/sites/default/files/publications/Dispatches/ad474-south_africans_trust_in_institutions_reaches_new_low-afrobarometer-20aug21.pdf">plummeted in recent years</a>. </p>
<p>When political trust starts to wane and citizens stop respecting the norms and principles of the democratic process, transitions to democracy can stall or even revert to authoritarianism, leading to a rejection of the democratic regime. Put bluntly, a decline in trust in political actors and institutions will have a detrimental effect on deep-seated support for the democratic regime in the long term. </p>
<p>A policy brief by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, an NGO, <a href="https://www.ijr.org.za/portfolio-items/state-of-the-nation-south-africa-2022/">released on the eve</a> of the president’s speech, confirmed an acceleration of this trend. It pointed to further declines in satisfaction with democracy over time.</p>
<p>Alarmingly, over two-thirds of South Africans declared in 2021 that they were willing to forgo elections in return for <a href="https://www.ijr.org.za/portfolio-items/state-of-the-nation-south-africa-2022/">improved service delivery</a>.</p>
<p>In this respect, the president’s pledge to the nation is as much about the durability of the country’s democratic project as it is about setting out short-term policy directives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Collette Schulz-Herzenberg receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). </span></em></p>Reviving the capacity of the state is also crucial to shoring up support for democracy in the long term.Collette Schulz-Herzenberg, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1192402019-06-21T08:17:58Z2019-06-21T08:17:58ZRamaphosa shows that he’s in control. But does he have what it takes to win?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280667/original/file-20190621-61733-gg4zgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Afriocan President Cyril Ramaphosa delivering his third state of the nation address.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Roger Bosch / Pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s third <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa%2C-parliament%2C-cape-town">State of the Nation Address </a> was longer on statecraft and strategy than his first of the year in February, even if it disappointed some critics with the lack of <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/06/21/pie-in-the-sky-opposition-parties-uninspired-by-cyril-ramaphosa-s-address">implementation detail</a>.</p>
<p>Much of the public commentary on these addresses past and present is ill-informed and, more importantly, ill-conceived. The State of the Nation Address should not be a dreary laundry list of everything the government intends to do.</p>
<p>Those looking for an <a href="http://www.capetalk.co.za/articles/352433/sona-encouraging-but-south-africans-need-details-of-an-action-plan">“action plan”</a> will inevitably be disappointed. It is not supposed to be such a thing. Instead, a good state of the nation address, such as Ramaphosa’s latest, will focus on the vision and the strategy. It needs to tell the watching and listening public that the President is in command and that he knows what needs to be done and why.</p>
<p>This is especially so in the current context of a divided governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). There remains an embedded but increasingly desperate fight-back campaign from former president <a href="https://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2019-06-20-zuma-cronies-in-stunning-comeback/">Jacob Zuma’s network</a> and other fellow ultra nationalist travellers. Their current crude approach is to derail Ramaphosa’s reform agenda and sabotage his strategy for attracting new investment in the economy, both domestic and international.</p>
<p>Hence, Ramaphosa had to offer convincing evidence that he is in control and not just in office.</p>
<p>He succeeded in this. And there was a clear narrative. </p>
<h2>The economy</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosas-critical-choices-to-get-south-africa-back-on-track-118466">economy</a> is in real trouble and <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-finance-minister-delivers-a-budget-designed-to-steady-the-ship-112162">so is the fiscus</a>. South Africa needs to act now or it’s in dire trouble. So the country needs to focus on the things that matter most. This includes the most productive parts of the economy with the greatest job-creating potential, and an efficient state.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ramaphosas-critical-choices-to-get-south-africa-back-on-track-118466">Ramaphosa's critical choices to get South Africa back on track</a>
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<p>Then South Africans need to stick to their guns and get it done.</p>
<p>It may not be to everyone’s taste, and predictably there were no bright new policy ideas and no sense that Ramaphosa is willing to look at the new ideas on economic policy. The question is whether what he’s set out is innovative enough to address the deep structural constraints that hamper South Africa’s economy. And to ignite sustainable, job-creating growth.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa offered five simple yet bold goals for the next ten years that cut across the social and economic structural constraints that inhibit South Africa’s potential, and deny so many citizens a decent, dignified existence: No person will go hungry; the economy will grow at a much faster rate than the population; two million more young people will be in employment; schools will have better educational outcomes and every 10-year-old will be able to read for meaning; violent crime will be halved.</p>
<p>On issues that have served to distract recently, such as the so-called call for ‘<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b5b7e8f2-8ac3-11e9-a24d-b42f641eca37">nationalisation</a>’ of the South African Reserve Bank, Ramaphosa could not have been more clear that he is the adult in the room. He confirmed unequivocally the Bank’s constitutional mandate, while deftly nodding to the fact that the Minister of Finance must consult with the Bank, and vice versa, to ensure that monetary policy is supportive of economic growth as well as price stability – around which topic there is an authentic debate to be had.</p>
<h2>The energy question</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa also spoke, using unprecedentedly and appropriately clear language, about the climate emergency that faces humanity, warning that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the extreme weather conditions associated with the warming of the atmosphere threaten our economy, they threaten the lives and the livelihoods of our people, and – unless we act now – will threaten our very existence.</p>
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<p>However, he did not take the next logical step, which is to conclude that South Africa’s duty is to urgently reduce its own emissions and, concomitantly, its own dependence on fossil fuels, especially coal.</p>
<p>This suggests that this is not a battle he is yet ready to have, even though he clearly gets the need to ramp up South Africa’s commitment to renewable energy – as well as the opportunity that this sector presents.</p>
<p>He was less clear on the subject of the country’s elephant in the room: the state power utility Eskom. While accepting the risk that the public utility’s precarious financial position presents to the economy and his government’s own commitment to saving the embattled power utility, Ramaphosa failed to provide a clear enough picture about how and when the unbundling process will begin – something the market was desperate to hear.</p>
<p>Nor did he confirm the name of the person who will fill the potentially critical role of chief restructuring officer. Clearly, the unbundling cannot really get going until that position is filled, but why the delay?</p>
<p>This is a prime example of the political fact that what matters next is sticking to the strategy and getting the job done. That will require even more statecraft and leadership. It is about political management – of government and more so of Ramaphosa’s ‘Monday job’, namely coping with an unruly and ill-disciplined governing party. (He spends much of Monday at Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, as its president).</p>
<h2>More tests to come</h2>
<p>Ramaphosa will face many more tests of his leadership and power in the days and weeks to come. Since he has never been more powerful and may never be so powerful again, having arrested the ANC’s electoral decline at the recent national and provincial election, he will need to confront his opponents and ruthlessly crush them.</p>
<p>This may not be Ramaphosa’s style. He prefers to win by putting in place careful processes and then striking when he can and when he thinks he has built enough of a consensus to act.</p>
<p>On both fronts – the ANC and government – Ramaphosa may now face choices on which no sufficient consensus can be built. And so he may need to adjust his leadership to accommodate the urgency of the moment, to take greater risks in executing his reform agenda.</p>
<p>He will need to show that he has what it takes to win.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119240/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Calland has received funding from various grant-makers to the University of Cape Town. He is Partner of The Paternoster Group and a member of the Advisory Council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Council. </span></em></p>Ramaphosa offered five simple yet bold goals for the next ten years that cut across the social and economic structural constraints that inhibit South Africa’s potential.Richard Calland, Associate Professor in Public Law, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1153042019-04-15T14:59:48Z2019-04-15T14:59:48ZForeign policy priorities South Africa should pursue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268805/original/file-20190411-44814-1s6bux4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's International Relations and Cooperation minister, Lindiwe Sisulu (second left) with ministers from Brazil and India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">DIRCO</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa continues to enjoy an unusual degree of international prominence normally accorded to states that are more powerful, prosperous, or strategically located than it.</p>
<p>Following its first democratic election in 1994, the country quickly went from being an apartheid pariah state to one of the world’s most active and leading multi-lateralists.</p>
<p>For example, it’s the only African member of the <a href="http://g20.org.tr/about-g20/">G20</a>. This international forum of governments and central banks is responsible for 90% of the gross world product and 80% of world trade. South Africa was also invited to join Brazil, Russia, India and China to form the BRICS group. </p>
<p>The pattern hasn’t ended, yet. For the third time in 12 years it has been elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, for 2019 and 2020. Next year it will concurrently chair the African Union. </p>
<p>South Africa’s prominence may be partly explained as the afterglow of the country’s generally peaceful democratic political transformation. Last July former US President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629862434/transcript-obamas-speech-at-the-2018-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture">extolled</a> the enduring virtues of this process in the first public lecture of his post-presidency, delivered in Johannesburg. Two months later a “Mandela Peace Summit” <a href="https://www.un.org/pga/73/event/nelson-mandela-peace-summit/">was held</a> in New York at the start of the UN General Assembly. </p>
<p>In my view there are three urgent issues at the interplay of foreign and domestic affairs that will be of strategic long-term importance to South Africa and Africa.</p>
<p>These are what it should do to avoid being hurt by bilateral trade disputes between the US and China; mitigate and adapt to effects of climate change; and, defend South Africa’s liberal values and policy of pressing for multilateral solutions – short of regime change – in countries where human rights abuses are rampant.</p>
<h2>Trade</h2>
<p>Expanding South African trade and attracting greater foreign investment for jobs and development was the only major international issue in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/president-cyril-ramaphosa-2019-state-nation-address-7-feb-2019-0000">State of the Nation Address</a>. </p>
<p>The foreign policy and diplomatic aspects of trade have become more pronounced in the wake of the dispute between the US and China. </p>
<p>South Africa has already suffered collateral damage. For example, the US has unilaterally raised duties on steel and aluminium imports. There’s also a potential collateral threat from brewing disputes over domination and regulation of the digital economy, use of robotics and artificial intelligence. </p>
<p>Another top long-term priority on the trade front must involve ensuring the World Trade Organisation is modernised and empowered to mediate these disputes by democratic consensus. </p>
<p>More immediately, South Africa is rightly pursuing economic integration with its neighbours. It’s also celebrating the <a href="https://au.int/en/ti/cfta/about">imminent establishment</a> of an African Continental Free Trade area. Such cooperation should benefit the country and strengthen Africa’s position in global trading negotiations.</p>
<h2>Climate change</h2>
<p>South Africa’s biggest and broadest long-term diplomatic challenge is climate change. It must engage in the politics of dealing collectively with climate issues regionally and globally. The aim must be to ensure secure resources for the benefit of the most seriously affected.</p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/tropical-cyclone-idai-the-storm-that-knew-no-boundaries-113931">Cyclone Idai</a> was symptomatic of the extreme weather events linked to global warming. It was close to home for South Africa. Both the government as well as citizens <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/parliament-sandf-assistance-aftermath-tropical-cyclone-idai-29-mar-2019-0000">responded</a> quickly and effectively to help alleviate the suffering in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.</p>
<p>Preparing for – and dealing with – such disasters portends huge international political and diplomatic <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/rethinking-disaster-preparedness-southern-africa-after-cyclone-idai">challenges</a> for South Africa.</p>
<p>## Responsibility to protect</p>
<p>A third strategic issue is whether, when, and how to act in defence of what’s known as the <a href="http://www.globalr2p.org/about_r2p">Responsibility to Protect</a>. This is the obligation states have to protect their own populations – and those of in other countries – against the risk of genocide and other mass atrocities. </p>
<p>The approach stipulates three pillars of responsibility. First, every state must protect its populations from four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Secondly, the international community must encourage and assist individual states in meeting this responsibility. And finally, if a state manifestly fails to protect its population, the international community must be prepared to take appropriate collective action in accordance with the UN Charter.</p>
<p>Twenty-five years ago UN members could celebrate their efforts to help end apartheid. But they also mourned their failure to prevent or halt the 1994 Rwandan genocide. </p>
<p>Since then, when and how to invoke this responsibility has posed several daunting diplomatic challenges. This has been particularly true for South Africa, given its history of domestic repression and prominent advocacy for human rights.</p>
<p>Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, Lindiwe Sisulu, <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/south-african-institute-international-affairs-4-apr-2019-0000">explained</a> recently that Pretoria opposes regime change, especially if done unilaterally. An example was the 2003 US-led <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/war-in-iraq-begins">invasion</a> of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. </p>
<p>South Africa hasn’t always got its ducks in a row on this issue, as Sisulu candidly acknowledged. For example, it regrets initially backing a UN Security Council resolution to intervene to protect Libyan civilians. The reason for this was that the mission abruptly escalated. And it culminated in <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/muammar-al-qaddafi-39014">ending the regime</a> of Muamar Qaddafi. </p>
<p>Another example cited by Sisulu was Myanmar. She admitted that South Africa was initially wrong not to back stronger UN action to defend human rights.</p>
<p>One recent and rare instance of unilateral diplomatic action was South Africa’s decision to protest against Israel’s extreme human rights abuses of Palestinians. It did so by withdrawing its ambassador and downgrading its embassy to a liaison office. </p>
<p>Foreign policy controversies inevitably arise over how to redress the abuse of basic human rights within a sovereign state. A case in point was the world’s response during the struggles to end apartheid. </p>
<p>Now democratic, South Africa enjoys special respect for its political achievements. But it also carries an added burden in upholding these values locally and globally. Its history teaches us the wisdom – which can be applied to multilateral relations among states as much as to the wellbeing of people within them – of Rev Martin Luther King’s statement that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John J Stremlau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Three urgent issues at the interplay of foreign and domestic affairs will be of strategic long-term importance to South Africa and Africa.John J Stremlau, Visiting Professor of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114452019-02-12T12:48:26Z2019-02-12T12:48:26ZRamaphosa’s plans aren’t enough to adequately tackle violent crime in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257950/original/file-20190208-174867-jc3ofk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during his 2019 State of the Nation Address. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/governmentza/46971553832/">GCIS/GovernmentZA/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa used his <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/speeches/state-nation-address-president-cyril-ramaphosa%2C-parliament">State of the Nation Address</a> on February 7 to outline his relatively new government’s actions and plans. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa focused particularly on economic growth, investment and job creation. He also announced substantial investments in education, health and housing. But there was very limited focus on crime. Prevention strategies he outlined were somewhat stale. Most, especially those related to policing and gender-based violence, have been tried before. They yielded few positive results and there is no evidence to suggest that they’ll work any better now.</p>
<p>This, in a country whose levels of violent crime are <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-wont-become-less-violent-until-its-more-equal-103116">extremely high</a>. <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/Report-03-40-05/Report-03-40-05June2018.pdf">Gender-based violence</a> such as assault and rape, and violence <a href="http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/12218">against children</a> is common. And there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-police-at-times-proud-at-times-shamed-by-the-work-they-do-86249">very real problems</a> with how South Africa’s police operate.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa’s robust plans for the economy have the potential for reducing violent crime in the future. But, importantly, existing levels of violent crime can severely undermine his <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-is-set-on-fixing-its-economy-but-will-poor-people-benefit-106481">government’s efforts</a> to stimulate growth, increase investment and reduce poverty. There’s an urgent need for government to honesty reflect on its current approaches to crime prevention; and to adopt strategies that are based on evidence.</p>
<h2>The police</h2>
<p>Many of the determinants of violent crime in South Africa are beyond the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326462816_WHY_IS_CRIME_IN_SOUTH_AFRICA_SO_VIOLENT_Updated_Rapid_Evidence_Assessment_on_Violent_Crime_in_South_Africa">police’s control</a>. Crime and violence are shaped by a variety and combination of societal factors. These include inequality, societal norms that condone the use of violence, and alcohol and drug abuse. Despite this reality, the heavy lifting of crime control has fallen squarely on the shoulders of the South African Police Service (SAPS). </p>
<p>SAPS has developed various community policing approaches since the mid-1990s. These have been designed to try and work with communities to address crime’s societal drivers.</p>
<p>These strategies have included the creation of <a href="http://cvwa.org.za/community-police-forum/">community policing forums</a>. Another strategy was the implementation of “sector policing” – an approach that divides policing precincts into smaller parts, which would be actively patrolled by the same police personnel to improve police-community relations.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s little evidence to show that these approaches have done much to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275028465_The_Changing_Face_of_%27Community_Policing%27_in_South_Africa_Post-1994">bring down crime rates</a>. Why? Because communities, especially those where crime is high, don’t trust the police much. Another problem is that most community policing strategies are imposed on residents by SAPS without proper buy-in. Only certain groups, such as neighbourhood watches, are actively encouraged to participate. Other community-based organisations and NGOs are often excluded.</p>
<p>In his speech, Ramaphosa introduced a “new” <a href="https://www.gov.za/speeches/police-invites-media-national-launch-community-policing-strategy-20-oct-16-oct-2018-0000">SAPS Community Policing Strategy</a>. In fact, it appears to be a “business as usual” approach. Without important changes, it’s unlikely that this strategy will be any more effective than previous efforts.</p>
<p>Community policing interventions in some US cities, such as <a href="https://pioneerinstitute.org/better_government/community-policing-success-story/">Boston</a> and <a href="http://whatworksforhealth.wisc.edu/program.php?t1=20&t2=113&t3=101&id=626">Chicago</a> – and even in some parts of South Africa, such as <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/khayelitsha-police-community-and-activists-find-ways-tackle-crime_2486/">Khayelitsha</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308794994_Effective_community_policing_in_practice_The_Roodekrans_neighbourhood_watch_case_study_West_Rand">Roodekrans</a>, <a href="https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/What_Works_in_Community_Policing.pdf">have shown how it can be done</a>. </p>
<p>Building equal and mutually beneficial partnerships between police and communities is an effective way to fight crime. Sadly, those areas in South Africa which take this approach do so in an <em>ad hoc</em> way, driven almost entirely by individual police officers taking the initiative without instruction from their superiors.</p>
<h2>Allocating resources</h2>
<p>A recent <a href="https://acjr.org.za/news/equality-court-finds-unfair-discrimination-in-policing-allocation">judgment</a> by the Equality Court found the allocation of police resources in the Western Cape was skewed in favour of wealthier areas with lower crime rates. It’s highly likely that discriminatory allocations of police resources occur in other provinces. This state of affairs has reinforced established patterns of <a href="https://africacheck.org/factsheets/factsheet-south-africas-official-poverty-numbers/">poverty</a>, <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-04-04-poverty-shows-how-apartheid-legacy-endures-in-south-africa/">inequality</a> and violent crime.</p>
<p>Ramaphosa indicated in his speech that more resources would be made available for policing, but he was silent about where these would be allocated. This may help to improve community-police relations, but only if priority is given to those crime affected areas that need it the most.</p>
<h2>Gender-based violence</h2>
<p>For more than 20 years, the government has been aware of the complexity of interpersonal violence – a point Ramaphosa reiterated in his speech. Various crime prevention strategies and plans have been developed to address both violent crime in general as well as gender-based violence. Examples include <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-crime-prevention-strategy-summary">The National Crime Prevention Strategy (1996)</a>, the <a href="https://www.saferspaces.org.za/uploads/files/Integrated_SCP_Strategy_0.pdf">Integrated Social Crime Prevention Strategy (2011)</a>, and the Integrated Programme of Action Addressing Violence <a href="http://www.dsd.gov.za/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=607&Itemid=39">Against Women and Children (2014)</a>.</p>
<p>Available evidence suggests these strategies have not resulted in significant crime prevention. The reason is that these documents have tended to be overly ambitious. They envisioned an integrated, multi-sectoral response without an appreciation of the complexities involved in getting the relevant government departments and agencies to collaborate in implementing the strategies.</p>
<p>Even in well resourced countries with relatively low crime rates, such as <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cjccj.47.2.355">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/13639519910299571?fullSc=1&">Belgium</a> and <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/QWA_11632_2003/216673a5513529ac22fab118ad85071030038755">New Zealand</a>, integrated crime prevention approaches have failed to adequately translate into action. In Australia, for example, a <a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/cjccj.47.2.355">study</a> concluded that an integrated crime prevention effort failed because of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a lack of clear and coherent central leadership…, an emphasis on short-term goals and outcomes…, low levels of funding, and repeated radical changes in direction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It appears that the latest document which president Ramaphosa mentioned in his speech, the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/02/07/work-underway-to-implement-gender-summit-resolutions-ramaphosa">National Strategic Plan on Gender-based Violence</a>, will follow a similar approach to previous plans. If it’s to be effective, such a plan should rather prioritise a small number of key areas where there is a high probability of achieving positive results across society.</p>
<p>For example, there is increasing <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326462669_Towards_a_more_comprehensive_understanding_of_the_direct_and_indirect_determinants_of_violence_against_women_and_children_in_South_Africa_with_a_view_to_enhancing_violence_prevention">scholarly consensus</a> that childhood experiences of violence are among the greatest risk factors for such victims engaging in and perpetrating gender-based violence in future. Hence, child protection could be a particularly strategic focus area for such a plan.</p>
<p>President Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address underscored that “building a better South Africa” requires a collective action from all citizens. Indeed, this is imperative in preventing crime. But the government needs to ensure that effective structures and mechanisms are in place to allow for such collective involvement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111445/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many of the crime prevention strategies South African President Cyril Ramaphosa proposed have been tried, with few positive results.Guy Lamb, Director, Safety and Violence Initiaitive, University of Cape Town, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/728842017-02-13T15:02:06Z2017-02-13T15:02:06ZZuma’s speech was full of ‘alternative facts’ rather than a reflection of reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156607/original/image-20170213-15780-76orwx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Jacob Zuma delivers his State of the Nation Address (SONA).</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sumaya Hisham/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African President Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/president-jacob-zuma-2017-state-nation-address-9-feb-2017-0000">speech</a> will be followed by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s <a href="http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/6c2507004ff087b19481d52890c6dd6e/Gordhan-calls-for-tips-ahead-of-2017-Budget-speech">Budget speech</a> next week on February 22. They represent the country’s two main warring political blocs: patronage versus prudence. But after the “radical economic transformation” rhetoric was ratcheted up by the president, both men may soon stumble on a terrain potholed by what a Donald Trump aide approvingly terms <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/">“alternative facts”</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma at least did include a belated definition of what he means by radical economic transformation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership, management and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given Zuma’s distortions of reality, though, might this simply degenerate into another <a href="http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/BondTalkLeftWalkRight2ndedn.pdf">episode</a> of talk left, walk right?</p>
<h2>Labour-capital harmony</h2>
<p>Zuma’s hope is for a “Team South Africa” harmony model to emerge. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our labour market environment is also showing signs of stability, due to cooperation by social partners.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But workers are angry. The World Economic Forum’s 2016-17 Global Competitiveness Survey <a href="http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index/">ranked</a> South Africa’s “cooperation in labour-employee relations” worst anywhere in the world for the fourth straight year, with a rating that continues to sink. </p>
<p>The state’s cooperation with big business, meanwhile, is characterised by extreme corruption. Treasury’s procurement officer Kenneth Brown <a href="http://www.fin24.com/Economy/treasury-hunts-fraud-worth-r233bn-in-spending-20161006">revealed</a> last November that R233 billion per year (out of R600 billion in annual procurement) was lost to supplier overcharging. </p>
<p>And last year PricewaterhouseCooper <a href="http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/advisory/consulting/forensics/economic-crime-survey.html">ranked</a> South African corporations as the world’s most engaged in “economic crime” (at 69%, well ahead of the French and Kenyans). </p>
<p>Zuma hopes for a different reality:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Unity in action was also demonstrated again this week with the conclusion of the agreement on the National Minimum Wage and on measures to stabilise labour relations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the country’s largest trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/labour/2017-02-08-cosatu-scuppers-wage-agreement/">refused to support</a> the deal until minimum working hours and inflation adjustments are agreed. Labour also emphasises that the state’s attempt to impose a ballot prior to strikes will be opposed intensely.</p>
<p>What might Zuma do to reverse the recent increase in unemployment to more than 27%?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Government runs effective poverty alleviation programmes such as the Expanded Public Works Programme [which] has since 2014 created more than two million work opportunities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Even if there were <a href="https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/156682/the-truth-and-lies-of-zumas-sona-2017/">actually</a> 2.5 million such “opportunities” from 2014-16, they lasted only three months and amounted to only a fifth of the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/Executive%20Summary-NDP%202030%20-%20Our%20future%20-%20make%20it%20work.pdf">target set by</a> in the National Development Plan. The work pays just R84/day, half the R20/hour agreed as per the new minimum wage. And R20/hour still leaves a family of four below the poverty line.</p>
<h2>Housing and services</h2>
<p>Some of the president’s comments about housing and services were also fantasies.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Government… provided more than four million houses since 1994 … To date nearly seven million households have been connected to the grid and now have electricity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact, Africa Check <a href="https://africacheck.org/reports/facts-alternative-facts-zumas-10th-state-nation-address-checked/">found</a> that three (not four) million houses were produced in this period, although it pointed out that no formal audit has yet been done. Many require rebuilding due to structural defects.</p>
<p>As for electricity, Zuma argued that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Eskom’s build and maintenance programmes helped ensure stability and an end to load-shedding.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He neglected to mention the <a href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/south-africa/electricity-production">14% crash in electricity demand</a> led by mining and smelting firms. Power cuts ceased after the mid-2015 commodity price crash and the massive dumping of Chinese steel shuttered mines and smelters.</p>
<p>And true, millions of houses were indeed connected to the electricity grid since the early 1990s, but then how many millions were also disconnected due to inability to pay, especially after the 300% price hike since 2008? Last month, 34 municipalities faced <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2017-01-17-eskom-is-not-the-vatican-so-pay-up-or-get-cut-off">disconnection</a> by state utility Eskom due to arrears exceeding R10 billion.</p>
<p>The same problem occurred in 2014 when Zuma bragged that 95% of South Africans had clean water access, yet the next day, the main Water Department spokesperson <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-02-13-our-water-troubles-still-run-deep">admitted</a> it was only 65% due to disconnections and breakdowns.</p>
<p>When it came to water this year he avoided that inconvenient fact, and instead Zuma claimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Government is working hard to ensure reliable bulk water supply in the various areas of the country to support economic growth whilst increasing access to vulnerable and rural municipalities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For more than a year the national Department of Water and Sanitation has been <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2017-02-12-nomvula-mokonyanes-water-department-is-bankrupt?utm_source=Mail+%26+Guardian&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+newsletter&utm_term=http%3A%2F%2Fmg.co.za%2Farticle%2F2017-02-12-nomvula-mokonyanes-water-department-is-bankrupt">heading</a> into bankruptcy. Treasury is considering a formal administrative takeover and Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane and the police Special Investigating Unit are conducting enquiries into corruption. </p>
<h2>World economy</h2>
<p>Zuma was on perhaps shakiest ground with this prediction: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We will continue to partner with the United States and work together on issues of mutual interest such as the full renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The two-word corrective to this fantasy is <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Agoa-treaty-repeal-Trump/2560-3784086-i5xqqqz/index.html">Donald Trump</a>.</p>
<p>Zuma bragged:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We successfully avoided credit ratings downgrades.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>False, there were several downgrades in 2016. And although last December, Standard & Poor’s did not push the sovereign rating all the way to “junk” status, it came <a href="http://www.polity.org.za/article/south-africa-long-term-local-currency-rating-lowered-to-bbb-foreign-currency-ratings-affirmed-outlook-still-negative-2016-12-05">very close</a> when lowering the country’s long-term local currency rating on South Africa to “BBB”.</p>
<p>As for the supposed “decision to establish the BRICS Rating Agency” by the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa leaders in Goa last September, Zuma should have observed that the <a href="http://thebricspost.com/india-brics-ratings-agency-can-bypass-big-three-unfairness/#.WKAqR_JWIok">commitment</a> was merely to “explore the possibility of setting up an independent BRICS Rating Agency based on market-oriented principles”. This could well replicate a half-dozen <a href="https://theconversation.com/brics-wants-to-set-up-an-alternative-rating-agency-why-it-may-not-work-72382">prior failed attempts</a> to set up an alternative rating agency. </p>
<h2>Alternative facts face fiscal austerity</h2>
<p>A different narrative will enter the theatre, stage right, on February 22 when Gordhan delivers the budget speech. Given the adverse balance of forces – the finance minister is fending off attacks from Zuma’s allies, a downgrade by Standard & Poor’s still looms large, and pressure is rising from diverse leftist groups such as #FeesMustFall, trade unions and service delivery protesters – Treasury staff are hardly likely to radically transform anything.</p>
<p>Zuma’s most sobering thought from the state of the nation address should be the last word here, because it’s a sentiment that sounds dangerously ultra-leftist – but at least not alternative-facty, unlike so much else of what he claimed in his speech.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oliver Tambo [president of the ANC from 1967 to 1991] said, ‘It is inconceivable for liberation to have meaning without a return of the wealth of the country to the people as a whole. To allow the existing economic forces to retain their interests intact is to feed the roots of racial supremacy and exploitation, and does not represent even the shadow of liberation.’</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Bond does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, promised radical economic transformation in his 2017 state of the nation address. A lot of what he said in support of this promise is alternative facts.Patrick Bond, Professor of Political Economy, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/546592016-02-12T12:33:36Z2016-02-12T12:33:36ZZuma clearly hasn’t grasped the scale of the crisis facing universities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111287/original/image-20160212-29214-11dbeeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Jacob Zuma's fleeting mention of universities in his speech was merely political expediency.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Many South Africans hoped that President Jacob Zuma would use his 2016 State of the Nation Address to discuss what’s become known as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/feesmustfall">#FeesMustFall</a> movement. Since late 2015, university students have led a national call for a freeze on tuition fees and substantial changes to how universities are managed. Zuma spent to little time on the subject, and then spoke only in the vaguest terms. Conversation Africa education editor Natasha Joseph asked Professor Suellen Shay whether this was enough - and what Zuma should have said instead.</em></p>
<p><strong>Was such a brief mention of #FeesMustFall and university funding sufficient?</strong></p>
<p>Of course it is not enough. The social movement led by students rocked the country last year and dominated the media as much as any other news item of 2015. To spend so little time telling South Africans what we already knew was insulting.</p>
<p><strong>How ought the President to have dealt with this issue in his speech? As someone working in the higher education space, how would you have liked to see him tackle it?</strong></p>
<p>I think what I would have liked to hear firstly is less about substantive issues affecting higher education, and education more broadly, and something more about the president himself. </p>
<p>I would like to have seen evidence in his address that he has listened. That he has listened to people on the ground – students, parents, families. That he has listened to workers and vice chancellors. That he has listened to academics. That he has listened to good, hard-working people in his own ministry of higher education and training and the Council of Higher Education. That he has respectfully listened to so many in the country who have given their lives to make South Africa’s education system a success.</p>
<p>Then out of that listening I would have liked to have heard some empathy or even sympathy for the anger and frustration of students, the desperation of parents, the deep concerns and anxiety of higher education managers, the low morale of academics and workers. </p>
<p>But perhaps out of that listening he would also have been deeply proud of the South African higher education system and its many achievements. There are some top ranking, globally recognised universities in a relatively small system.</p>
<p>While critics would say the system in “untransformed”, it depends how and where you look. In some respects our system has experienced <a href="http://chet.org.za/papers/free-higher-education">a “revolution”</a> in growth of enrolments and demographic change in a very short space of time.</p>
<p>Following from that, I would have liked to see some evidence that the President understands something about the complexity and the urgency of the problems we face. The one minute the President devoted to higher education was political expediency. The problems are historical, deep and far-reaching. </p>
<p>It would have been good to hear him link the importance of higher education to the growth of our economy – that the economic problems we face today can partly be addressed if South Africa invested today in a higher education system that produced a much greater number of highly skilled graduates. In contrast, the current system is highly inefficient, with a <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20140425131554856">low</a> participation rate and <a href="http://www.enca.com/south-africa/student-dropout-rate-high">high</a> drop out rates.</p>
<p><strong>What about issues of policy, or any potential solutions to the many problems you’ve outlined here?</strong></p>
<p>Of course it would have been good to hear some proposed solutions or proposals. This would not have been difficult to do. South Africa has no shortage of good higher education policy starting with the <a href="http://www.education.gov.za/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=jc97Bom2utk%3d&tabid=191&mid=484">1997 White Paper</a> to the more recent White Paper on Post-School Education and Training <a href="http://www.dhet.gov.za/SiteAssets/Latest%20News/White%20paper%20for%20post-school%20education%20and%20training.pdf">from 2013</a>. There is also the <a href="http://www.gov.za/issues/national-development-plan-2030">National Development Plan</a>. </p>
<p>The President could have given just some small reassurance that he knows those policies, he knows what commitments we currently have to fulfil. What I would have liked to hear is that he has pulled together the best of South African minds, including student leaders, alongside international experts to advise him on a clear strategy of implementation - which of these commitments do we need to prioritise now in 2016 and how?</p>
<p>From what I heard last night, it feels like the higher education sector is on its own. It will need to find visionary and insightful, courageous and bold leadership within its own ranks. And also, if it succeeds, that might be in spite of the State.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
There was nothing in President Zuma’s speech to suggest that he’d really listened to people’s concerns about higher education - nor to suggest that any solutions will be forthcoming.Natasha Joseph, Commissioning EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/545762016-02-12T04:42:15Z2016-02-12T04:42:15ZState of the Nation Address 2016 was much talk – but not enough action<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111229/original/image-20160211-29175-urlelz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address didn't suggest any real urgency or energy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rodger Bosch/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South African President Jacob Zuma has delivered his annual State of the Nation address in the country’s parliament. After more than an hour of disruptions and interruptions, mostly by members of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters, Zuma finally got <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/president-jacob-zuma-state-nation-address-2016-11-feb-2016-0000">down to business</a>. Or did he?</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation Africa’s Politics and Society editor Thabo Leshilo and Voice of Wits presenter Tsholofelo Semenya put some questions to Professor Susan Booysen. You can listen to the audio or read the transcript below.</em></p>
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<p><strong>Taking off your professional hat for a moment, what did you make of Zuma’s speech as a citizen?</strong></p>
<p>The frustration index was very high. South Africa is facing a massive crisis in so many respects, and Zuma didn’t quite rise up to the occasion. But then the entertainment index was very high for all South Africans, whether they are interested in parliament and politics or not. </p>
<p>The Economic Freedom Fighters in some ways <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/eff-disrupts-sona-ordered-leave-parliament">lived up to expectations</a> and provided the entertainment.</p>
<p><strong>What did you think of the substance of Zuma’s speech?</strong></p>
<p>There was really no meat around the bone. It felt like he made many old announcements, talking about things we already know about. And MPs applauded around issues of history – things South Africans have known already for a year or two. It was canned applause.</p>
<p>There was no urgency, no enthusiasm. If things are going to be done differently (in future), the speech didn’t put that across. Zuma repeatedly said “we must look at it” and “we must do”, or “there is a task team, there is a commission”. We are beyond that time of deliberation. We need action.</p>
<p>It’s been the standard fallback of the Zuma years – “we’re busy” – but the action is not there.</p>
<p>I was monitoring the rand/dollar exchange rate during the course of the speech. It was R15.69 to the dollar when he started. By the time he finished it was R15.84. That’s not huge, but it almost reflects the speech. There wasn’t wild enthusiasm, a sense that we’re getting the answers we’ve waited for – or that things are going to turn around.</p>
<p><strong>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa/topics/feesmustfall">#FeesMustFall movement</a> and student protests were mentioned just once in the speech, and only briefly. This angered people on Twitter, with some saying the protests had brought government to its knees and Zuma barely mentioned them. What did you think?</strong></p>
<p>To be frank, I was shocked at the lack of recognition for that huge and ongoing moment. It forced the government to implement existing policy and to somewhat change policy. It had deeper repercussions; (it opened up issues of) deeper transformation and the anger of young people.</p>
<p>I don’t think government was quite brought to its knees, but its knees were bending. It really is an ongoing moment.</p>
<p><strong>Local government elections are coming up later this year. How does the governing African National Congress (ANC) look in those polls, considering <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africans-need-to-fight-for-change-on-the-streets-and-through-the-ballot-53506">how important they are</a>?</strong></p>
<p>The ANC has never in its 22 years in power looked as weak as it does at the moment. It looks weak as a governing party. It is riven by factions. There are wars at local level. There is such discontent in the ANC.</p>
<p>These elections will be about building hope, and about making sure that citizens and voters still feel the ANC can bring them that hope as the liberation party. </p>
<p>This was not a moment of generating hope.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Booysen receives funding from Wits University, and in its funding Wits draws on, amongst others, state research funding.</span></em></p>With South African local government elections coming up later in 2016, Jacob Zuma and his governing ANC must ensure that citizens still look to them as a party of hope.Susan Booysen, Professor in the Wits School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/546292016-02-12T04:41:41Z2016-02-12T04:41:41ZStrategic direction around South Africa’s health policy has deteriorated to almost nothing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111231/original/image-20160211-28676-10duhcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's strategic direction around health policy has deteriorated to almost nothing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Health did not get significant attention in South African President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation address. The main points he mentioned included the fact that life expectancy had significantly improved to 62 years across all genders; that the HIV policy introduced in 2009 had led to massive increases in testing and treatment for the 3.2 million people who are on ARVs and that a white paper on National Health Insurance had been released in December 2015 to improve health care for everyone.</em></p>
<p><em>Health and Medicine editor Candice Bailey spoke to Professor Alex van den Heever to probe the health issues facing South Africa. You can listen to the interview and read our transcript below.</em> </p>
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<p><strong>Did the president say anything significant about health?</strong> </p>
<p>The president has provided information that you can get on a website and has not been able to appropriately outline a strategic policy direction going forward. It shows that the strategic direction around health policy has deteriorated to almost nothing.</p>
<p>There was a loose mention of the white paper, which is something that will only be implemented in 25 years from now. There will be five government terms before the promises can be tested. What we need are plans for the next five years and not plans that are so far in the future that they are meaningless. </p>
<p>The country cannot afford to have a failing health system, whether it is in the public or private sector. The issues the president mentioned are peripheral initiatives and do not address many of the systemic problems that are the major concerns facing the health system now. </p>
<p><strong>What are some of the problems in the health sector at the moment?</strong> </p>
<ul>
<li><p>We have not implemented the district health system policy recommendations, which were first introduced in 1994. These would give districts the power to make local operational decisions around the provision of health care and strengthen the performance of clinics and their related referral services. </p></li>
<li><p>There are structural workforce problems which result in poor management of staff. In certain provinces, specialists are spending up to 40% of their time working improperly in the private sector. There is systemic abuse by nurses, who are absent from the public sector because they are contracted to work in the private or in another area of the public sector. This has a major impact on the quality of care. </p></li>
<li><p>There are billions of rands in contingent liabilities that are building up as a result of poor nursing and medical staff that are not on site. This results in the medical negligence cases that now cost billions.</p></li>
<li><p>We have an under-performing emergency care system where many trauma patients are treated too late. And there is an inadequate information system so we cannot even manage health care problems efficiently – or even know where they are. It means that the public also can’t assess what is going on. </p></li>
<li><p>The community is excluded from the oversight of the public service and they should be centrally involved in the delivery of health care. It entrenches accountability in the system. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>If I were making strategic policy these would be some of the considerations. Zuma’s approach suggests there is no strategic policy underway. </p>
<p><strong>The president mentioned a massive HIV prevention campaign that will be launched soon. What do you make of this?</strong></p>
<p>South Africa had a prioritised prevention campaign between 1994 and 2002. That was all they did. After 2002 they introduced treatment as well. What we need to know is what is new that is going to be done. </p>
<p>Prevention is obviously an important measure but there are so many other critical issues to address. This should be part of a coherent package of reforms.</p>
<p><strong>The president said the Department of Social Development and National Treasury would create a comprehensive social security reform paper. Why is this important?</strong></p>
<p>This issue was first introduced in a State of the Nation address in 2007 and then in the budget speech of the same year but nothing has ever come of it. It is an important matter because it is contained in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, along with health care. </p>
<p>The government has taken no reasonable steps to implement these provisions, which would ensure a basic system of appropriate income protection for every South African resident. This would include protection against death, disability, illnesses, poverty and unemployment via a harmonised system of state and regulated private benefits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex van den Heever does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Jacob Zuma failed to focus on reforms that fix any of the health care in South Africa in the next five years.Alex van den Heever, Chair of Social Security Systems Administration and Management Studies, Adjunct Professor in the School of Governance, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/436522015-06-24T00:03:13Z2015-06-24T00:03:13ZThe new economy - how do we get there from here?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86063/original/image-20150623-19411-lj8px6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The real answer to what the economy might look like in 30-50 years is that none of us really know.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mccaffrey_uk/3207277407">Flickr/Bob McCaffrey</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.ceda.com.au/events/son">2015 CEDA State of the Nation</a> Old Economy/New Economy conference posed the question to delegates of what the new economy might look like and the challenges in getting to it. </p>
<p>The real answer to what the economy might look like in 30-50 years is that none of us really know. However, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t address the challenges facing the economy and society in locating ourselves as well as possible to take advantage of the opportunities that will invariably arise.</p>
<p>In my comments to the State of Nation conference I decided to use one word to sum up the necessary features of the future, and that is “nimble”. Throughout history our economy has been refocused by a global environment which is largely outside our capacity to control – rapid shifts in terms of trade are not a new feature. What we need is the ability to respond quickly and adroitly. </p>
<p>This has quite a few implications. First, when we talk about labour productivity perhaps we should be thinking about the ability of labour to re-purpose quickly, to be able to actively transfer skills from one problem to another without serious damage to either the individuals and families caught in transitions, and without threatening our fiscal sustainability with long term support for unemployment or industry assistance through periods of adjustment. </p>
<p>This requires significant thought as to what the future worker might look like and how we might actively invest in skills development through our education sector. </p>
<p>The education system is one of the most important levers we have in adjusting our productivity. The CEDA conference delegates spoke repeatedly about the need for more investment in STEM-based (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) skills for all levels of education. </p>
<p>I would like to push further in this direction by suggesting that we need the future workforce to be skilled in both the evidence-based decision making and technical development skills that STEM promotes, and equivalently to recognise that these need to be coupled with skills for understanding and promoting decisions in a social context. Also, that innovation requires creative skills that are lurking in unopened corners. </p>
<p>Encouraging both the creative and technical aspects of education will allow Australians to be the leaders in the development of new ideas, rather than the followers. Think for example of the great merits of; the engineer who is fluent in Chinese; the biochemist who understands patent law; the mathematician who communicates with the fluency of an actor; the economist who understands marine ecology; the visualisation skills of an artist combined with physiotherapy. </p>
<p>And these are people who already exist – but they are the exceptions not the rule, and often did not acquire all of their distinct skill sets within the formal education sector. </p>
<p>While the education sector, including tertiary education, are making steps in this direction with breadth units and combined degrees, this needs to become the norm. Specialisation by division into STEM and other areas will result in missed opportunities. </p>
<p>My advice to those seeking to obtain an education to set themselves up for a productive, job-ready life of varied employment and opportunities, is to get skills in STEM areas and something else. </p>
<p>Addressing opportunities for education remain key in addressing inequality. We face decisions about income inequality, wealth inequality and intergenerational inequality. We can address these issues, but we need to decide on our priorities and communicate clearly to the politicians how much we value them. </p>
<p>Reform of the tax system should be undertaken with this in mind. A good example is the discussion on land taxes, which is a relatively “good” tax in terms of its efficiency. The biggest problem it faces is that it is politically scary. </p>
<p>However, if we wish to provide even a reduced menu of the current government services on offer in a fiscally sustainable manner, while promoting a competitive environment for the companies which drive employment, we must broaden the tax base at the same time as we consolidate spending. </p>
<p>And while there are undoubtedly more savings which can be made in the fiscal sector, it is almost inevitable that we will wish to pursue projects such as education, infrastructure, environmental issues, health and aged care. Tax reform and the widening of the tax base are necessary. We need to decide to get on with it. </p>
<p>By sending a strong message to politicians that Australians care about our long term goals, even in the short term, we can encourage our politicians to have courage. We require our political leaders to shape and progress our agenda beyond the individual electoral cycle. Solely short-term behaviour should result in short-term political tenure.</p>
<p><em>Professor Mardi Dungey was a keynote speaker at the CEDA State of the Nation conference, held on June 22 in Canberra.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mardi Dungey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR). She is a member of the CEDA Council on Economic Policy.</span></em></p>As Australia leaves the old economy behind, the word we must embrace for the new is “nimble”.Mardi Dungey, Professor of Economics and Finance, Associate Dean of Research, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/392762015-04-17T05:24:06Z2015-04-17T05:24:06ZState of the Nation: Britain’s role in the world just keeps shrinking<p><em>Welcome to our State of the Nation series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of vital policy areas. Maxine David looks at Britain’s diminishing role in world affairs.</em></p>
<p>The coalition’s five years in power have included a few real foreign policy triumphs, most recently with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-celebrates-historic-nuclear-deal-all-eyes-now-on-supreme-leader-39528">Iran nuclear deal framework</a> and the British <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/british-troops-sent-fight-ebola-sierra-leone">contribution to efforts against Ebola</a> but also in the early days with David Cameron’s triumphant <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14926308">2011 visit to Tripoli</a>. </p>
<p>Seen in the round though, there is little to inspire confidence – unless a reduced role for Britain in the world is our preferred direction of travel. The UK’s retreat from leadership in world affairs has only hastened these last five years, and there’s no sign the country will change course any time soon.</p>
<h2>Island mentality</h2>
<p>The coalition’s austerity politics have undoubtedly affected its foreign and defence policies, as the 2010 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-budget-cut-by-eight-per-cent">Defence Spending Review</a> demonstrated. But the diminishing role of Britain abroad is also a consequence of other pressures, especially past failures such as Iraq and Afghanistan, which have greatly reduced the British <a href="https://theconversation.com/britain-must-figure-out-its-place-in-the-world-before-intervening-25963">appetite</a> for military adventures abroad. </p>
<p>The shadow of recent military campaigns has also made itself felt at home in a rising <a href="https://theconversation.com/nasty-piece-of-work-the-suns-nationalism-is-doing-england-great-harm-28426">nationalist</a> rhetoric and rejections of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cameron-my-war-on-multiculturalism-2205074.html">multiculturalism</a>. </p>
<p>The coalition has responded to these pressures by focusing on domestic politics, and re-orienting Britain’s foreign policy towards trade and cultural relations.</p>
<p>It was to be expected that the focus on cutting the deficit would impact on the full range of policy areas and certainly spending on foreign and defence policies becomes harder when vital services at home are being cut. </p>
<p>That is particularly so in the UK, where the tabloids are powerful influencers of public opinion and largely opposed to government spending abroad, which they generally decry for <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2343683/Britains-foreign-aid-madness-Cuts-home-STILL-hand-G8-country.html">coming at the expense of British citizens</a>. Accordingly, development assistance, foreign aid, and military interventions have all been under harsh scrutiny in the last five years, with the government all too often reacting to rather than leading the charge. </p>
<p>This was not the case in the early days of the coalition, where developments in both foreign and defence policies reflected a definite vision of what Britain’s role in the world would be. </p>
<p>In an early interview as foreign secretary, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/william-hague/7856769/Hague-tears-up-the-book-on-foreign-policy.html">William Hague</a> signalled that Britain would turn its foreign policy attentions to developing trade, educational and cultural ties by capitalising on past relations with states such as India while forging new links to previously neglected countries like Brazil. The idea was to finally get Britain out from under the yoke of US foreign policy, and to reduce its dependence on European markets by forging stronger bonds beyond the continent.</p>
<p>But five years later, the US and Europe still account for the lion’s share of Britain’s <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/itis/international-trade-in-services/2011/sty-international-trade-in-services.html">trade</a>, and while there is some speculation that the “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/02/syria-america-uk-relationship-over_n_3856298.html">special relationship</a>” is no more, it hinges more on the dynamics of the Obama-Cameron relationship than any actual policy pivot away from Washington. </p>
<p>Some attention-grabbing new ventures on the African continent have been launched, most famously at the William Hague-Angelina Jolie summit on <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-messages-about-rape-were-welcome-at-hague-and-jolies-sexual-violence-summit-27945">sexual violence in conflict</a>. But real strategic objectives there are unclear, and the comprehensive and sustained concentration of efforts and attention required to be able to claim the UK is a major player in even small pockets of Africa have not been in evidence. </p>
<h2>On the way out</h2>
<p>As foreign policy became trade policy, swingeing cuts hit the defence budget and the numbers of British military personnel and Ministry of Defence civilian personnel through the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. It has been calculated that, as a result, <a href="http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33105.pdf">conventional military combat capability</a> has decreased by 20-30% and that defence spending will shortly fall below the NATO benchmark of 2% GDP. </p>
<p>A new spending review is expected after May 7, but no-one knows what the results will be. What is clear is that Britain’s capacity to project force abroad has already been drastically reduced. This is already colouring Downing Street’s relationship with the White House. </p>
<p>The UK has traditionally been the principal amplifier of America’s voice in Europe, and has reliably kept up its share of defence spending, usually exceeding the 2% benchmark. But given the extent of Britain’s fiscal retrenchment, the US is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31695082">justifiably concerned</a> that in the longer term it will have to look elsewhere. And as if to prove it right, Britain has done little to assert leadership in Europe, or in any of the multilateral organisations to which it belongs. </p>
<p>The crisis in Ukraine was a big opportunity to tackle the increasingly aggressive behaviour of Russia, which Foreign Secretary <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/foreign-secretary-intelligence-and-security-speech">Philip Hammond</a> said had “the potential to pose the single greatest threat to our security”. But even as Europe, not the US, took the diplomatic lead on the crisis, it was <a href="http://www.dw.de/summer-of-unrest-sharpens-french-german-diplomacy/a-17881095">French and German diplomacy</a> that led the charge. </p>
<p>The government was left to fend off <a href="http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2015-03-24a.1322.7&s=speaker%3A13140#g1368.0">criticism from its own</a> that it has become “<a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1154ad18-ae0e-11e4-919e-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Wcoufg37">a foreign policy irrelevance</a>”.</p>
<p>Over Ukraine, therefore, Britain missed a valuable opportunity to work more closely with its European neighbours and to provide the EU with the strength and clarity that many, Britain among them, accuse it of lacking. </p>
<p>This belies the coalition’s commitment to reforming the EU from within, and it also suggests that there was never a well-thought out strategy for coping with the negative effects of the SDSR. </p>
<p>The government could have responded to the need for deep cuts to the defence budget by refocusing foreign and defence policy firmly on co-operation with other EU and NATO member states; instead, it has remained strangely committed to taking a stand with diminished resources.</p>
<h2>From triumph to humiliation</h2>
<p>This rather despondent and feeble atmosphere is a far cry from the exuberant interventionism of 2011, when Cameron and the Nicolas Sarkozy jostled for credit over who was the first to support actions to oust Libya’s Colonel Qaddafi. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-ministers-statement-on-libya--2">February 2011 statement</a> to the House of Commons, Cameron spoke of Britain taking the lead in supporting those seeking democratic change in the Middle East, and boasted of London’s close working relationship with its allies and the UN. The UK described in that speech understood it had a vital role to play in global affairs, and a moral duty to do so. It was a speech that stood in stark contrast to that of Hague in June 2010. It was a speech also that would come back to haunt Cameron.</p>
<p>In 2011 itself, the NATO action enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was hailed as a major success. In September of the same year, Cameron and Sarkozy were feted as <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/sarkozy-and-cameron-in-libya-heroes-for-a-day-a-786527.html">heroes</a> when they visited Tripoli.</p>
<p>But the picture had changed dramatically by 2013, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/libya-is-a-disaster-but-its-too-easy-to-just-blame-the-west-29857">Libya in disarray</a> and the region unstable. The intractable conflict in Syria deteriorated spectacularly, and there seemed to be the clearest evidence possible that the regime of Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons against his own people. </p>
<p>David Cameron stood with the US in a determination to take action against Assad. In August 2013, however, the government’s motion to assist the US and intervene in Syria suffered a <a href="https://theconversation.com/commons-rejects-cameron-plea-for-syria-strikes-rewrites-special-relationship-17674">humiliating defeat</a> as 285 MPs voted against it, expressing Britain’s reluctance to engage in further military interventions. </p>
<p>The vote a year later to <a href="https://theconversation.com/iraq-air-strikes-vote-reveals-a-contradiction-at-heart-of-uk-law-32253">join in the US-led air strikes on Iraq and Syria</a>, intended in Obama’s words to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State, signed Britain back up for a major foreign intervention – but confined to the air and with a relatively small British involvement among a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/09/25/what-the-60-members-of-the-anti-islamic-state-coalition-are-doing/">partner force of 60 states</a>.</p>
<h2>Bent out of shape</h2>
<p>The coalition’s foreign policy has been badly distorted by pressures at home. The rise of UKIP has forced the Conservatives in particular to think local rather than global, forcing them into promising a referendum on UK membership of the EU. This may be enough to rescue some votes from UKIP, but it makes for a terrible international image.</p>
<p>Combined with Cameron’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/camerons-attempt-to-block-juncker-is-a-masterclass-in-how-to-lose-friends-in-europe-28483">futile opposition to the appointment of Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker</a> as European Commission president, this has left Britain <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/cameron-and-juncker-fight-over-role-in-european-commission-a-975528.html">more isolated in Europe than ever</a>. </p>
<p>British anti-immigration rhetoric has taken on an ever more xenophobic tone, but the coalition has apparently failed to understand how this connects to foreign policy. Some of the worst effects of this bigoted talk could be alleviated through a robust and responsible foreign policy strategy – but we just do not have one.</p>
<p>And it doesn’t seem like one is on the horizon either. In the party leaders’ <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-debate-cameron-coasts-farage-falls-flat-and-sturgeon-steals-the-show-39727">pre-election debate on April 2 2015</a>, not a single direct question about foreign or defence policy was asked, and the closest the debate came to these issues was immigration and Britain’s membership of the EU. </p>
<p>Few voters would be able to tell you what any of the parties intends to deliver in terms of future foreign or defence policies. Given what these policy areas say about what Britain is and what it stands for in the world, this is worrying – and more than a little dangerous.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39276/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxine David does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The coalition has presided over a muddled and reactionary foreign policy, and has done little to strengthen Britain’s independent voice in the world.Maxine David, Lecturer in European politics, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/391942015-04-16T05:21:19Z2015-04-16T05:21:19ZState of the Nation: welfare shifts towards the working poor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77508/original/image-20150409-15250-1qlgwc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">No laughing matter. Workers with benefits.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gordon_mckinlay/13778089774/in/photolist-jByEda-jRoYm8-mZwj4Y-4Xryrv-cfCKAo-qUKVh-b1Yzw2-7hnLiN-mkBZWv-rcU9rp-myC9rP-4uQW3o-4uLKzt-eRPJq-7zx7hL-47NgC9-miuyC1-8AgG4j">Gordon McKinlay</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of vital policy areas. Paul Gregg looks at Britain’s biggest political footballs: the welfare state.</em></p>
<p>For the past five years, Britain’s welfare state has been undergoing a sustained and profound change. Consider that all the major benefits for the working age population and children are being merged into <a href="https://www.gov.uk/universal-credit">a single system called Universal Credit</a> which will aim to use monthly wage feeds from employers to make timely and accurate payments to nine million families.</p>
<p>While this is a major shift in the structure of benefits, it isn’t the transformation I’m talking about. That is the steady and sustained switch of welfare away from supporting jobless people and families toward supporting incomes of those in work – the working poor. </p>
<p>Welfare spending came in at £251bn in 2013-14, which is about 37% of total <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7424">public spending of £686bn</a> (before accounting adjustments). Around half of this goes toward the elderly, the bulk of which is the state pension. This proportion is rising steadily because of the ageing population and the generous treatment of the state pension by the government. Many people, and especially pensioners, don’t think of this as welfare; they paid in to the system when working in order to get support in their retirement. </p>
<h2>The rise of in-work welfare support</h2>
<p>The real welfare revolution over the past 20 years has been the growth of support for working families. The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/feb/14/tax-credits-everything-you-need-to-know">tax credit system</a> expanded greatly under Labour to support low income working families. More recently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/31/real-wages-falling-longest-period-ons-record">the fall in real wages</a> has meant that this part of the welfare safety net has expanded again. Combined with this has been the increase in housing support for working families who rent. This reflects the expansion of private renting (and decline of owner occupation among the young) while rents <a href="http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2837678/Private-rents-England-set-double-growth-wages-2040-claims-study.html">rise a little faster than wages</a> and has all meant a sharp increase in payments of housing benefit to those in work.</p>
<p>With child benefit, that now means that around half of the non-pensioner welfare bill is designed to address working poverty. The Institute for Fiscal Studies <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7424">breaks down the numbers for us</a> on welfare spending as a share of total spending and the split between pensioners and working age. Poverty alleviation charity Elizabeth Finn Care has usefully <a href="http://www.turn2us.org.uk/pdf/Mythbusting.pdf">detailed the in-work and out-of-work split</a> as it seeks to challenge persistent myths around benefits. </p>
<p>The story then is that the image of welfare being about those out of work, <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-full-employment-to-curb-benefits-street-wealth-gap-22204">as you may have seen on TV</a>, is rapidly becoming dated. Unemployment has been strongly cyclical with large increases in the 1980s and 1990s recessions and a far more modest one in the recent financial crisis. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77511/original/image-20150409-15250-1fccb40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate">www.tradingeconomics.com, Office for National Statistics</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Out of work benefit receipt</h2>
<p>Levels of unemployment benefit receipt remain higher than pre-crash but in part this reflects changes in lone parent benefits which have migrated many lone parents onto unemployment benefits. From 2008 to 2012 the age of youngest child that meant a lone parent was not treated as a regular unemployed claimant (or less commonly as disabled) was lowered from age 16 to five. </p>
<p>Claims for <a href="http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/financial-help-for-lone-parents">lone parent benefits</a> rose through the 1980s as a result of higher separation among couples but also due to falls in employment rates among lone mothers (largely reflecting having younger children). By the early 1990s the employment rate of lone mothers was under 40%. It has now reached 62% and actually rose through the recent recession, a staggering change in just 20 years. This change in status of many lone parents now counting as unemployed should be considered together when making comparisons overtime. The chart below thus shows that the proportion of the population on one of these two benefits is now at levels akin to 1981, just as unemployment was starting to rise rapidly in the 1980’s recession. It is already below our own pre-recession levels. So reliance on out of work benefits for reasons of unemployment and lone parenthood is at its lowest level for 35 years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75674/original/image-20150323-17680-1wda6nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Note: ‘Working-age’ covers men aged 16-64 and women aged 16-59.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregg (2009) & ONS, Labour Market Statistics, YBTF</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reason overall benefit claims still stand at four million is that disability benefit receipt rose steadily through the 1980s and 90s and has only fallen fractionally since. In the 1980s the rise in part reflected declining employment opportunities for men aged over 50 in the depressed coal mining areas and northern cities. But this group has long since retired.</p>
<p>Disability claims are now less focused on the over-50s and the reason for claiming has shifted toward mental health related issues like depression or anxiety. There have been efforts to reduce disability claims by tightening the testing procedures, limiting access to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) through a contributions-led system rather than assessed need, and efforts to support those with less severe problems back into work. But these have all proven insufficient to reduce claimant numbers. This is increasingly the major policy challenge to be faced to further reduce welfare reliance in the UK. </p>
<h2>Children in jobless households</h2>
<p>Despite this poorer picture for disability claims, the central message is the reliance on out of work benefits is at its lowest since 1982 as a proportion of the working age population. This long-term trend decline in reliance on out of work benefits has occurred despite the fact that since 2002 the employment rate in the working age population has been broadly stable, hovering around 73% apart from a small blip around the financial crisis. So the UK has combined a good jobs record, given the severity of the crash, with the available employment working harder to reduce welfare reliance than was previously the case. This has been especially marked for families with children.</p>
<p>In 1996, just under one in five children lived in a workless household, way more that would be expected if available work was equally likely to be held by parents and other workers. This partly reflected very low employment of lone parents mentioned above but even among couples some one in eight couples with children were workless families, way more than in other developed countries. This has now fallen to 12.5% despite a steady increase in <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/working-and-workless-households/2014/stb-working-and-workless-households-2014.html">the proportion of children living with a single parent</a>. There are almost no workless couples with children now were no adult is disabled. </p>
<p>This long-term decline in out-of-work welfare reliance, especially for families with children, and the associated reduction in child poverty where the family is workless, reflects a policy drive to require and support active job search (making welfare conditional), improved incentives to work (for example, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/browse/benefits/tax-credits">tax credits</a>) and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/overview">help with childcare costs</a>. This has been a shared agenda between both the previous and the out-going government. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77840/original/image-20150413-24312-11ob33h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Happy days. Cameron and Clegg at the dawn of the coalition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/number10gov/4601556608/in/photolist-8WMqGV-8WMhF4-82koj8-aqfDtJ-8b3XPH-8WMsqK-81cXhZ-81z99e-7TKYP2-rnXvrt-7Zzxe3-81CtTm-81CbsU-81zoFM-8Q958m-hKobV1-hKnVoG-hKo5Jo-81CfvQ-81z8XH-81ChHW-rnR9RJ-75B9N7-8MKBTQ-81Cf6J-9tsve6-dBXpvc-dBXpUp-81Pphf-hRNXzX-hRNyum-hRN85x-hRNWt8-hRNyU9-hRNFoj-hRN6Ug-hRNW76-hRNVQ4-9tP8Rh-bkhovF-aNvffH-aNvfhR-rC7SmQ-81ChKC-81z96n-9LRCWM-bqiQgy-hRN7b8-9LPNrV-81NTui">Number 10</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A more controversial area has been the explosion in the use of welfare sanctions under the coalition government. This has been <a href="https://inequalitiesblog.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/benefits-food-banks-and-denial/">linked to the rise</a> in the use of emergency food banks by the <a href="http://www.trusselltrust.org/">Trussel Trust</a>, which operates many of them. However, its part in the improvements in welfare reliance is not clear.</p>
<h2>The challenge ahead</h2>
<p>With employment still rising rapidly, welfare challenges over the next parliament will be twofold. First, as noted above, the numbers claiming disability benefits have started to rise again and the re-testing regime and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13723477">welfare to work services</a> under the the coalition government’s Work Programme have clearly failed here. A new strategy to engage employers more when staff become longer term sick and to re-think the return to work is clearly needed. However, if the welfare bill is to be cut in order to fund pensions then it is the in-work financial support system where savings will have to be made. </p>
<p>This means that either there will be major cuts to the levels of financial support to low income working families, deepening working poverty, or the earnings of this group need to rise above those of other workers. This means in practice tackling low wages, tackling the low hours of work among some groups – especially increasing second earners among this group – and trying to keep rent increases below wage growth. Falling unemployment should help keep wages above inflation for the next few years, but there remains a concern over underlying real wage increases. All this means that whoever holds the keys to Number 10 some time in early May, they will find that the welfare challenge lies as much in the labour market and in housing as it lies in the welfare system itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Gregg receives funding from Resolution Foundation.</span></em></p>The problems with benefits lie outside the system, while more and more of us are being dragged into its orbit.Paul Gregg, Professor of Economic and Social Policy, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400642015-04-14T13:47:00Z2015-04-14T13:47:00ZState of the nation: the immigration numbers game<p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of key policy areas.</em></p>
<p>Few issues have defined the past five years of British politics as much as immigration.</p>
<p>Throughout the current parliament, immigration has jousted with the economy and the NHS for top billing. And while the economy dominated public concerns for most of the parliament, for seven out of the ten months since June 2014 immigration has been <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2905/Issues-Index-2012-onwards.aspx?view=wide">the most salient issue</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/reports/thinking-behind-numbers-understanding-public-opinion-immigration-britain">Migration Observatory analysis</a> has shown that the British public has a nuanced view of immigration though. It has different concerns about different migrant groups.</p>
<p>For example, asylum seekers and low-skilled workers elicit higher levels of concern than skilled workers, family migrants and particularly students. Views on immigration also differ slightly around the UK, with slightly lower levels of concern in <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/reports/scottish-public-opinion">Scotland</a> and <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/commentary/variations-enigma-regional-differences-support-reducing-immigration-uk">London</a> than in other parts of the UK.</p>
<h2>The target</h2>
<p>Debates about migration policy since the 2010 election have been dominated by the Conservative party’s net migration target and by a series of measures that were introduced with the aim of reducing migration to the UK.</p>
<p>Net migration – which until relatively recently was a somewhat obscure metric – gained prominence in 2008 with the launch of a cross-party parliamentary group calling for “balanced migration” (essentially, near-zero net migration). Shortly afterwards the Conservative party also began to focus on net migration and promised in their <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/files/activist%20centre/press%20and%20policy/manifestos/manifesto2010">2010 manifesto</a> to reduce net migration to the “tens of thousands”, by 2015.</p>
<p>With the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition that emerged from the 2010 election, efforts to reduce net migration began, though it should be noted that <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2b6w4c_nick-clegg-lib-dems-opposed-net-migration-targets_news">the Lib Dems have distanced themselves</a> from the promises made at the time.</p>
<p>Policies were introduced to reduce non-EU migration from the three main routes – <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/immigration-category-workers-students-family-members-asylum-applicants">work, family and study migration</a>. European migration was not targeted because EU rules require the UK to provide these migrants with extensive rights.</p>
<h2>Migration for work</h2>
<p>The government brought in <a href="https://fullfact.org/immigration/migration_policy_since_election-41297">significant changes</a> to UK immigration policy.</p>
<p>The first dealt with <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/non-european-labour-migration-uk">non-EU skilled work migration</a>. A cap of 20,700 on employer-sponsored skilled migration was introduced in April 2011. The cap formed a major part of the discussion around how the government would reduce net migration.</p>
<p>In reality it has not directly reduced work-based migration so far because the annual number of applications has consistently been <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/commentary/loose-fitting-cap-why-limit-skilled-non-eu-workers-undersubscribed-0">less than the limit</a> – though in recent months demand has increased. The skills threshold for work visas was also increased, meaning that employers could sponsor workers for fewer positions than in the past. </p>
<p>Two other work routes – for skilled workers without a job offer and students hoping to stay and work after graduating – were closed. In their place, new visas were introduced to admit smaller numbers of graduate entrepreneurs and people with “exceptional talent”. </p>
<p>About 15,500 new visas had been <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-october-to-december-2014-data-tables">granted</a> in these two routes in 2010. This number was close to zero by 2014.</p>
<p>Reductions in visas issued in these two categories were were offset by <a href="https://fullfact.org/immigration/migration_policy_since_election-41297">increases in other areas</a>, however. In particular, the number of applications for skilled worker and intra-company transferee visas increased from 39,100 in 2010 to 51,900 in 2014 – a rise of 12,800.</p>
<p>Work visas granted to migrants already living in the UK did fall over the course of the parliament - by 38,400 from 2010 to 2014. This decline was driven by a fall in extensions under the two closed rules (for post-study work and skilled workers without a job offer).</p>
<h2>The student route</h2>
<p>Rather than attempting to limit numbers of international students directly, the government promised to address “abuse of the immigration system” via student routes, particularly where non-EEA migrants were suspected of coming to the UK with the primary intention of work rather than study.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/117974/changes-study-visa-soi.pdf">New measures</a> reduced the numbers of hours international student could work and raised language requirements for students at further education colleges. All education providers sponsoring non-EEA students to come to the UK were also required to apply for “highly trusted sponsor” status. To gain this status, they have to meet <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/381410/T4_Licence_and_HTS_28_November_2014_FINAL.pdf">criteria that include</a> a high rate of students completing courses and low rates of students having their visas refused.</p>
<p>Between May 2010 and October 2014, 836 education providers <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tier-4-sponsors-whose-status-appeared-as-revoked-from-2010-to-2014">lost their licences</a>. Not all of these licences were lost as a result of “abuse” directly identified by the Home Office. Many did not apply for trusted sponsor status, perhaps because they knew they didn’t meet the criteria. </p>
<p>The number of <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/non-european-student-migration-uk">student visas</a> issued to non-EU nationals fell from 254,000 in 2010 to 193,000 in 2012, before rebounding slightly to 200,000 in 2014. A decline in applications for study was driven by lower applications to further education colleges (a decrease of 46,000 applications from 2010 to 2014) and English language schools (a 15,900 decrease). Applications to UK-based higher education institutions, by contrast, increased (by 25,400 over the same period).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/reports/thinking-behind-numbers-understanding-public-opinion-immigration-britain">A 2011 analysis</a> by the Migration Observatory showed that despite being the largest group of non-EU migrants to the UK at the time, student migrants were the group about which there was the least public concern.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77814/original/image-20150413-24294-1tmw9re.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Migration Observatory/Ipsos MORI</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Family ties</h2>
<p>When the coalition came to power, a person who wished to bring a spouse or other dependent family member to the UK was required to have a post tax income of <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn06724.pdf">£5,500 per year excluding housing costs</a>.</p>
<p>From 9 July 2012 this was <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/commentary/love-and-money-how-immigration-policy-discriminates-between-families">raised substantially</a>. Now, any non-EU or British nationals applying to bring a non-EEA national partner to the UK is required to have a minimum annual income of £18,600. The required amount increases to £22,400 if they want to bring one child, and each extra child adds a further £2,400 to the requirement.</p>
<p>Migration Observatory analysis of 2014 data shows <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/commentary/love-and-money-how-immigration-policy-discriminates-between-families">43% of working British nationals</a> don’t earn enough to sponsor a non-EEA spouse. This share is higher for groups that tend to have lower incomes, such as women (57% not eligible), young people in their 20s (60%) and ethnic minorities (51%).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77816/original/image-20150413-24325-u1hz33.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Migration Observatory/Labour Force Survey</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Targets missed</h2>
<p>Despite efforts to reduce migration through all major non-EU routes, the net migration target of less than 100,000 by the end of this parliament has been missed by some distance.</p>
<p>According to the most recent available <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/migration1/migration-statistics-quarterly-report/february-2015/rft-provisional-estimates-of-ltim-year-ending-september-2014.xls">data</a>, net migration was an estimated 298,000 people during the year ending September 2014. This compares to 244,000 in the year ending June 2010.</p>
<p>Net migration of non-EU citizens was estimated at 196,000 in the year ending June 2010. It fell sharply in 2012 and 2013, but rebounded to 190,000 by the year ending September 2014. The initial decline was driven by lower numbers of students, and the rebound in 2014 was driven by higher levels of family and work-related migration.</p>
<p>On top of that, net migration of EU citizens more than doubled between June 2010 and September 2014, rising from 72,000 to 162,000.</p>
<p>The relative success of the UK economy when compared to other nations, in particular other EU member states, seems to be an important factor in the recent increases.</p>
<p>Emigration of non-British citizens remained broadly stable over the course of the parliament, fluctuating between 175,000 and 210,000 in the four years ending September 2014.</p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>Heading into the 2015 election, there are enormous uncertainties about what the next parliament will mean for migration policies in the UK. Not only is the outcome of the election itself uncertain, with the growth of parties such as UKIP, the Greens and the SNP making it even more difficult than usual to predict which party or combination of parties will hold power after May 7.</p>
<p>There are also several unresolved questions about the policy trajectory under any new government. Will the net migration target be adjusted, modified, or dropped? If numerical targets remain in place, how will the changing economy affect the new government’s ability to meet them? Will UK growth continue to drive both EU and non-EU migration?</p>
<p>And finally, will a referendum on EU membership go ahead? Will the terms of the relationship with Europe be renegotiated, and if so what would be the implications for migration? These questions are likely to play a key role in defining migration policy debates under the next government.</p>
<p><em>Rob McNeil also contributed to this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Migration Observatory receives funding from Unbound Philanthropy, Barrow Cadbury Trust, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. </span></em></p>Whoever wins the election, there are serious questions to answer on immigration.Madeleine Sumption, Director, Migration Observatory, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/397512015-04-13T05:31:45Z2015-04-13T05:31:45ZState of the Nation: government protection of the science budget has come at a cost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77336/original/image-20150408-18032-1susu0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Funding, steady as she goes.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">notes Alessandro Storniolo/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science and research were not at the front of the political debate in 2010. The first coalition government for a generation was cobbled together in the middle of a global economic recession and a domestic banking crisis which combined to put public spending under pressure.</p>
<p>The formal <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-coalition-documentation">coalition agreement</a> made only fleeting reference to university research. But the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties comprising the coalition made more detailed statements in which they expressed support for science. Has the past five years of government lived up to these signals? Certainly the government <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm101220/wmstext/101220m0001.htm">has protected and even expanded science funding</a> in the face of public spending cuts in most other areas. But achieving that outcome involved a hard ride through a land of smoke and mirrors, and the support has come with strings attached.</p>
<p>I don’t cling to every syllable uttered by politicians. They need the freedom to try out ideas and allow policy to evolve, with manifestos the place where the outcomes of those trials appear. The <a href="http://sciencecampaign.org.uk/">Campaign for Science and Engineering</a> (CaSE) invited the leaders of three political parties to set out their plans for science in more detail shortly before the 2010 election. The <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/thesword/2010/04/the-science-in-the-conservativ.html">responses</a> to this request were duly published and I treat them as equivalent to manifesto commitments.</p>
<p>During the election campaign, there was close alignment on science between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The Lib Dems were bolder and more explicit in their spending promises but it was clear that, like the Conservatives, they were approaching public finances with caution.</p>
<h2>Leaving scientists to choose priorities</h2>
<p>The coalition partners agreed that, with some specific exceptions, academic research should be prioritised by researchers. Some minor infringements of this long-standing <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmdius/168/16807.htm">Haldane Principle</a> by the previous administration made it an election issue. This principle – under which the government outlines research areas of strategic interest and leaves the details up to academics – might seem arcane, but adhering to it has underpinned the UK’s outstanding science and research performance. Most major economies spend more of their national income than the UK on science. Indeed, the UK’s science spending is mediocre by international standards. But not many countries share the ruthlessly meritocratic process by which the UK research community selects its projects, and only the US outperforms this country in terms of scientific excellence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77333/original/image-20150408-18057-1bpwngf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK punches above its weight considering the amount it spends on science.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graeme Reid/OECD</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps because this was a cost-neutral policy commitment, the independence of science found its way into the coalition agreement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We will ensure that public funding mechanisms for university research safeguard its academic integrity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before the end of 2010, Ministers David Willetts and Vince Cable had jointly published a “clarifying” statement, which explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Decisions on individual research proposals are best taken by researchers themselves through peer review. The Coalition government supports this principle as vital for the protection of academic independence and excellence. We all benefit from its application in the UK.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Protecting investment in science</h2>
<p>The previous Labour government had been strong supporters of science, with funding growing via a ten-year science and innovation policy developed by the then chancellor Gordon Brown and science and innovation minister David (Lord) Sainsbury. While researchers kept quiet during the election campaign there was unease over the prospect of funding cuts as the country entered an era of austerity.</p>
<p>As newly appointed ministers soon discovered, many researchers across medicine, the environment, the arts, agriculture, engineering and economics joined together when threatened with cuts. High-profile global corporations made it clear that the UK’s strong research base was one reason they invested here. Charities expressed fears that science cuts would undermine their relationships with donors and universities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/77244/original/image-20150407-26481-1fcgx2z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science budgets have not fallen over five years, relatively speaking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Graeme Reid/HM Treasury</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In an effort to stimulate growth and build confidence in a flagging economy, the coalition latched onto strong evidence of science as an engine of growth. Science funding bodies sought more social and economic impact from the fruits of UK research, an agenda that was gaining prominence coincidentally just as it was needed. Protecting science funding was about more than just calming the academic community: it was about the future of the economy. David Willetts was already a fan of blue-skies research, and by connecting science to the economic agenda he won George Osborne’s support and enthusiasm. This crystallised in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11569160/">October 2010 Spending Review</a>. While most government departments faced 20% cuts, Osborne announced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A ring fence will be maintained to ensure continuity of investment in science and research… To support long term growth, the government will prioritise support for world class science [and] maintain resource spending in cash terms.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The cuts affecting other departments had been dodged and a ringfence placed around £4.6 billion each year for science and research until 2015. A wonderful outcome for science. Then we read the small print.</p>
<h2>The small print</h2>
<p>First, the good news applied only to recurrent expenditure. This meant researchers salaries and project funding remained intact but the annual rate of capital investment was to be cut by almost 40% by 2015, reducing investment in science research facilities by £1.5 billion. The long-term nature of capital investment increased the effect of this sudden withdrawal – having taken into account existing commitments to capital investment, there was hardly any money for new facilities.</p>
<p>It also emerged that the protected part of the budget would be stretched to cover costs of the <a href="http://www.ukspace.org/space-organisations/uk-space-agency/">UK Space Agency</a>, which had previously been funded from elsewhere. There were also cuts of 40% (or “cumulative real growth of -40%”, as the review put it) to administration budgets over the five year parliament. </p>
<h2>Marrying science to the economy</h2>
<p>By 2011 it was clear that the economic downturn was stubborn. The government was looking for new ways to kickstart growth without leaving its policy of fiscal restraint. A desire to avoid recreating a finance-centric, London-focused economy as existed before the crash led to frequent speeches about improving the diversity of the economy and re-balancing it regionally beyond the southeast.</p>
<p>But what could government actually do to stimulate long-term growth and high quality jobs? How about making capital investments in science and research? That’s a good idea.</p>
<p>So in the March 2011 budget the chancellor <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/31584/2011budget_growth.pdf">announced new investments</a> in high-performance computing, space technology and research campuses in Edinburgh, Oxfordshire, Norwich and Cheshire – details specified by ministers, albeit on scientific advice. More were announced in the autumn statement later that year.</p>
<p>In the 2012 budget there was a further emphasis on science, with the chancellor creating the £100m <a href="https://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2012/201212/">Research Partnership investment Fund</a> (RPIF) for businesses and charities to invest alongside universities in major scientific facilities. Successive budgets and autumn statements followed a similar theme, with the 2015 budget including the announcement of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/04/alan-turing-institute-big-data-knowledge-quarter-london">Alan Turing Institute</a> at the British Library in London.</p>
<h2>More cash, but at a price</h2>
<p>Direct capital investment from government has made good the 2010 cuts and increased the annual rate of investment to £1.1 billion, some 20% higher in cash terms than in 2010. It has also committed to maintain that level until the end of the next Parliament in 2020-21. RPIF alone has led to more than £1 billion investment in scientific infrastructure, two-thirds of which comes from businesses and charities. This scheme has been extended until at least 2017 so we can expect even more of these investment partnerships.</p>
<p>This adds up to substantial investment in modern scientific facilities with higher levels of ministerial engagement in priority-setting and specifying the locations for facilities around the UK. In effect the science community was offered money – lots of it – at a time of public spending cuts in return for accepting closer ties to political priorities. This is not blunt political direction of science but nor is it the full independence to which the science community had grown accustomed.</p>
<p>So where are we now? Funding for scientific research projects is still based on merit and managed by independent peer review. The level of this recurrent funding has remained fixed since 2010, as per signals from the coalition on entering office. Of course the spending power of that funding has been eroded by inflation. This raises questions about how the operation of new capital facilities are going to be funded.</p>
<p>Lord Krebs, until recently chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, described a “damaging disconnect” between recurrent budgets and capital investments. Along with CaSE, Krebs is among those calling for a long term science funding strategy and greater transparency in the decisions involved. This would give researchers the opportunity to plan for the future, increase the appeal of UK science to business and charity partners, and offer attractive career options to ensure a continued stream of talented new scientists and researchers. </p>
<p>The outgoing government seemed to recognise this issue in its <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/our-plan-for-growth-science-and-innovation">Plan for Growth: Science and Innovation</a> published at the end of last year. Whether the next government will continue this approach is something we will shortly discover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graeme Reid is Professor of Science and Research Policy at UCL. He is also Chairman of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, a Trustee of the Association of Medical Research Charities and Strategic Advisor to the National Centre for Universities and Business.. Before taking up these positions in 2014, he was Head of Research Funding at the Department for Business Universities and Skills.</span></em></p>Science and research were not at the front of the political debate in 2010. So how has science funding fared under the coalition government?Graeme Reid, Professor of Science and Research Policy, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/396752015-04-09T05:32:48Z2015-04-09T05:32:48ZState of the Nation: a dismal record for the UK economy<p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of key policy areas.</em></p>
<p>The state of the economy has already proven to be a key battleground in the build up to the UK election. The problem is that the country’s economic performance can be spun in different ways. Positive signs of recovery can mask real underlying weaknesses that current policy is failing to address. And the rhetoric of recovery can prevent us from identifying different policies that are urgently needed to secure a more sustainable and fairer economy.</p>
<p>All the main political parties in the UK have bought into the idea of continued austerity. A narrative has been carefully cultivated by the coalition government – and subsequently supported by Labour – that the deficit must be quickly reduced and the books balanced. This narrative has crowded out alternative policy discussion around the merits and necessity of continued government spending in the UK.</p>
<p>The electorate is ultimately presented with a confusing and confused picture of the past, present, and future state of the UK economy. They are also presented with a limited and partial range of policy options – ultimately, continued austerity is the only option on the table. The need to present real alternatives to the pro-austerity agenda is more important now than ever before. But such alternatives remain sorely lacking at present.</p>
<p>So how has the UK economy been doing and how has it impacted the lives and living standards of the electorate? Here, is a whistlestop review of the coalition government’s economic record.</p>
<h2>1. The recovery</h2>
<p>Starting with the recovery, national income (GDP) is back to where it was before the 2007-08 crisis. But the recovery in GDP has been <a href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/elmr/economic-review/july-2013/art-economic-review--july-2013.html#tab-Summary">the slowest on record</a>. </p>
<p>This is partly the product of policy mistakes. The commitment to <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/?p=47444">extreme austerity</a> in the early years of its term of office took demand out of the economy just at a time when a demand injection from the government was urgently needed. Targeting the deficit ultimately <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-graph-george-osborne-doesnt-want-you-to-see-38925">delayed the recovery in the economy</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75064/original/image-20150317-22259-akvx7w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GDP has returned to pre-crisis levels, but growth was stunted by austerity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/datasets-and-tables/data-selector.html?cdid=IHXW&dataset=ukea&table-id=X11.">Office for National Statistics</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ironically, it was by not sticking to his targets for deficit reduction that George Osborne has helped to create more favourable conditions for recovery. </p>
<h2>2. Living standards</h2>
<p>But the recovery has done a poor job at raising living standards. The recent trumpeting of living standards <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32126073">returning to 2010 levels</a> does not change the fact that the past five years have coincided with real hardship for many. The latest ONS figures show that household disposable incomes at the end of 2014 were up 0.2% on 2010’s numbers. This is an extremely modest increase and reflects the effects of lower inflation rather than higher money wages. </p>
<p>Other evidence suggests that the real wages of the typical (median) worker have declined by almost 10% since 2008 and real incomes for families of working age <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/EA024.pdf">by nearly the same</a>. This is a dismal record. It shows how talk of recovery has a hollow ring for many millions of people in the UK. This must be one of the first recoveries in living memory where hardship has multiplied in society.</p>
<h2>3. Growth</h2>
<p>The drivers of growth have also been unbalanced in nature. Recovery has been secured for the most part by the increase in household consumption. The same old model of consumer-led growth has restored the level of GDP. But, given the decline in real wages, consumption has increased only because of households spending beyond their means and borrowing more. This is hardly a recipe for sustainable recovery. Indeed, the <a href="http://cdn.budgetresponsibility.independent.gov.uk/March2015EFO_18-03-webv1.pdf">latest OBR forecasts</a> expect the gross household debt to income ratio to rise back to pre-crisis levels by 2019. We could be set to repeat the crisis all over again.</p>
<p>Other parts of the economy that might have contributed to growth have been constrained. First, austerity and the rhetoric about reducing the deficit have ruled out expansionary fiscal policy. Cuts in government spending have often been presented as eliminating waste and unnecessary bureaucracy. But in practice they have included retrenchment in important public services as well as in infrastructure projects that meet vital human needs. </p>
<p>Growth has also been restricted by corporations holding back from investing in areas that would make them more productive. Lower real wages has increased the incentive to hire more labour as opposed to investing in new capital. The demands of shareholders for higher short-term profits have also tended to divert internal funds away from investment and towards higher dividend payments. </p>
<p><a href="http://quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/issue-4/britains-balance-of-payments-disaster/">The trade deficit has widened</a>. Higher consumption, as in the past, has fed through to higher imports. Although the focus has been on the budget deficit, arguably the bigger problem facing the UK economy is the trade deficit which acts as a major constraint on present and future growth prospects.</p>
<p>When the public and corporate sectors are net savers and the country is a net importer, the government must spend and run a deficit or the economy will shrink. Rapid deficit reduction therefore requires a corresponding drop in net imports and increases in private spending relative to savings if the economy is not to falter. <a href="http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economic-policies-public-expectations-by-robert-skidelsky-2015-03">This basic truth</a> has been missed under the coalition.</p>
<p>At present the main reason why the economy is growing is because of consumers spending beyond their means. The likelihood of growth being sustained very much depends on a recovery in real wages. The deeper issue for the UK is to find a more sustainable route to prosperity that does not rely – again – on debt-fuelled consumption growth.</p>
<h2>4. Employment</h2>
<p>The employment situation in the UK presents a mixed picture. On the one hand, the employment rate has reached a record level. Unemployment has also fallen to pre-crisis levels. On the other hand, employment has tended to be created in low paid sectors, including an <a href="http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/2475/New-figures-on-Zero-Hours-Contracts-produce-more-heat-than-light">increase in zero-hours contracts</a> and self-employment.</p>
<p>Plus, the growth in self-employment seems to reflect the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-look-behind-uks-impressive-unemployment-figures-shows-theyre-not-so-dazzling-33053">lack of alternative</a> well-paid employment opportunities rather than a new spirit of entrepreneurship. Generally, workers have had to accept lower real wages in return for higher employment.</p>
<h2>5. Productivity</h2>
<p>Another bleak spot is productivity. Historically, productivity in the UK has lagged behind other nations. But <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/ea021.pdf">this gap has tended to become more pronounced in recent years</a>. This reflects in part weak investment as well as changes in the composition of jobs in the economy (particularly the rise of low productivity jobs in the service sector). The persistence of low productivity means that real wages are unlikely to rise any time soon – a fact that is likely to make the recovery even more uncertain.</p>
<h2>6. Inflation</h2>
<p>The rate of inflation is now at 0%. This has been heralded as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32031473">“good news”</a> by the Coalition government. Yet, in truth, it marks a sign of policy failure. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetarypolicy/Pages/framework/framework.aspx">inflation target is 2%</a> – not 0% – and for good reason. The target of 2% allows room for price rises that help to stimulate demand and if below-target inflation turns into prolonged deflation then demand could be curtailed through a combination of delayed consumer spending and a rise in the real value of debt. Low inflation also provides an excuse for firms not to pay higher wages and in that sense it may prevent the required increase in real wages from materialising.</p>
<p>The dismal state of the UK economy exists and persists because of current policies. Five years of austerity, in short, have resulted in an economy that is just as unbalanced and unsustainable as immediately prior to the 2007-08 crisis.</p>
<h2>Promoting real alternatives</h2>
<p>The problems that beset the UK economy, in truth, are deep-rooted. They reflect the broader political economy of the UK – the dominance of financial interests (particularly the City of London), the relative weakness of industry and organised labour, and the hostility of the main political parties to any kind of interventionist policy agenda based on government spending. Yet, these problems need to be tackled if the UK is to achieve prosperity in ways that benefit all in society.</p>
<p>For a start, there needs to be a clear recognition that the state has an active and positive role to play in the economy not just as a provider of first aid when the economy is in a slump but also as a driver of long-term prosperity via its capacity to tackle deep-seated weaknesses in the economy – from low investment to high inequality. The issue of creating an active state that challenges the power of finance and instead looks to promote a more inclusive and fairer route to prosperity remains more urgent now than ever before.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, none of the main political parties in the UK are offering anything other than continued austerity. But the government’s finances are not like those of a household. The budget deficit has propped up the UK economy – without it, the UK would still be mired in recession.</p>
<h2>The state’s role</h2>
<p>The state has a <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/12/public-risks-private-rewards-how-innovative-state-can-tackle-inequality">positive role to play</a> in creating and sustaining an economy that meets the needs of all, not just an elite few. The state can also help tackle the so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-return-of-the-hand-car-wash-and-the-uks-productivity-puzzle-39594">“productivity puzzle”</a>, in part by addressing the entrenched power of shareholders that has blocked long-term investment.</p>
<p>The general election ideally should be a time to debate real alternatives to the way the economy is currently governed. Sadly, it mostly offers more stale debate over the amount of austerity that the UK economy (allegedly) needs to bear. The thirst for alternatives persists nonetheless – including <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-greens-have-the-economic-policies-to-ride-the-anti-austerity-popularity-wave-37122">the growth in support for the Green party</a> and the positive reception to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/04/nicola-sturgeon-snp-anti-austerity-message-tories">SNP’s own anti-austerity agenda</a>. </p>
<p>But real change that promotes real alternatives requires a radical change in the terms and content of debate about the state of the UK economy. Given the present situation, it may be some years before we obtain the radical change that is needed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Spencer receives funding from the EU FP7, EPSRC, and ESRC, but this article reflects the author's personal views.</span></em></p>The UK’s economic performance can be spun in different ways. Here, the Coalition’s economic record is broken down.David Spencer, Professor of Economics and Political Economy, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/397712015-04-08T05:32:06Z2015-04-08T05:32:06ZState of the Nation: inequality rising shows we’re not ‘all in this together’<p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of key policy areas.</em></p>
<p>In his first speech to the Conservative Party Conference as prime minister in 2010, David Cameron drew on the slogan: “We’re all in this together” in the face of the economic challenges facing Britain at that time. Five years later, however, it is clear that it is in fact the poorest who have paid most dearly as a result of various coalition tax and benefit changes. </p>
<p>In the immediate aftermath of the recession of 2008-2009, the social security system generally did its job of providing a safety net for people in need. Those on the lowest incomes were largely protected by the uprating of benefits in line with inflation, whereas income from earnings did not keep pace with price rises. So between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, for example, incomes fell generally for all groups but those at the top saw their incomes <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn19figs.xlsx">fall more than most</a>. </p>
<h2>Initial improvement</h2>
<p>The first couple of years of coalition government therefore witnessed a reduction of income inequality. Relative poverty also fell because average incomes were falling faster than incomes at the bottom, and this is <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/poverty-definitions.pdf">how relative poverty is measured</a>. But if we measure income changes against a fixed threshold we see an <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/WP11.pdf">increase in (absolute) poverty rates between 2009-2010 and 2012-2013</a>.</p>
<p>The changing levels of inequality in the first couple of years of the coalition government were not, however, due to coalition policy. They were a legacy of the previous Labour government’s policies, alongside economic trends such as increasing unemployment and wage stagnation. Rather than cut back on basic benefits in the aftermath of recession, the Labour government had protected these and raised revenue through a range of measures such as withdrawing the personal allowance for those with incomes over £100,000 and introducing a new marginal rate of income tax of 50% on incomes of more than £150,000.</p>
<h2>Increasing inequality</h2>
<p>Thus income inequality and relative poverty reduced during the first year or two of coalition government, due to a combination of economic trends and the previous government’s reforms. Since then, however, the coalition has introduced various policies which have started to – and look set to continue to – increase inequality. For example, it was only in 2013-2014 that we saw the introduction of a number of key reforms including: </p>
<ul>
<li>Increasing most working age benefits by a maximum of 1% instead of inflation</li>
<li>An annual benefit cap of £26,000 including housing benefit</li>
<li>The bedroom tax/spare room subsidy</li>
<li>Replacing council tax with (reduced) local support</li>
<li>Replacing Disability Living Allowance with Personal Independence. </li>
</ul>
<p>At the same time, the coalition cut income tax in 2013 for those earning more than £150,000, so the polarisation of earnings continues apace. </p>
<p>All these policies look set to increase inequality and the <a href="http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/WP11.pdf">LSE has modelled the effects</a> of all the tax and benefit changes during the coalition’s time in power. This modelling shows us that the country’s bottom 20% of earners have lost out more, as a proportion of income, than any other group. Their analysis also points out that food and fuel prices have risen over this time and so living standards will have fallen.</p>
<h2>Social divisions</h2>
<p>While differences between the various income groups are important to consider, other social divisions also emerge as a result of coalition policy. For example, there is a clear distinction being made between those over state pension age and those of working age. The coalition government have protected pensioners compared with others. For example, the basic state pension has improved, since 2011, according to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25609485">“triple lock” system</a>, which ensures the state pension goes up by whichever is higher – inflation, wages or 2.5%.</p>
<p>This has meant that pensions have risen both in real terms and in relation to earnings. Plus, Winter Fuel payments and free TV licences for those aged 75 or older have also been saved from the threat of means testing or other cuts. So, while state spending on pensioners has continued to increase between 2010-2014 in real terms, spending on those of working age, particularly those with children, has fallen.</p>
<h2>The long-term view</h2>
<p>Placing the coalition’s record into broader perspective shows that the rises we are seeing in inequality are not unprecedented, but also speaks to the power of the social security system to improve equality. During the 1980s we saw a <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/1768">dramatic increase in income inequality</a>: in 1979, the top 10% of the population received three times as much income as the bottom 10%. By 1989 the 90/10 income inequality ratio, which shows the difference in income between those above the 90th percentile – or the top 10% of earners – versus the bottom 10% of the population, had increased to over four times. Inequality then fluctuated a little but remained broadly at this level during the 1990s and throughout much of the Labour government’s time in power <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/6738">from 1997 to 2010</a>. </p>
<p>Following the economic crash of 2007-2008, however, the 90/10 ratio fell to below four times by 2010-2011 for the first time since the mid 1980s and it has stayed at this level for the past two years where we have data (to 2012-2013). Once again, though we do not have figures for the second half of the coalition’s time in power, we have been warned that the <a href="http://www.ifs.org.uk/pr/inequality_recession_june2013.pdf">poorest are about to be hit the hardest</a> by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, as a result of the numerous cuts introduced by the coalition.</p>
<h2>Social security’s insecure future</h2>
<p>The social security system lived up to its name in the immediate aftermath of the economic crash and recession. It largely protected the incomes of those at the bottom while some at the very top paid more, not least due to the Labour government’s tax increase for those with earnings over £150,000. </p>
<p>But welfare reforms since 2010 have started to erode this safety net. Benefit caps and cuts for those of working age are starting to take effect and we are already starting to see the impact of this in terms of increased use of food banks, <a href="http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-social-sciences/social-policy/CHASM/annual-reports/chasm-annual-monitoring-report-2014.pdf">alongside increases in problem debt and evictions</a>. The jobs growth of the past couple of years has not necessarily helped people escape poverty as wages are generally low. Half of all people in poverty are now living in families where <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/MPSE-2014-FULL.pdf">at least one person has a job</a>. And many people alternate between “no pay” and “low pay”. </p>
<p>So those with the broadest shoulders have not borne the greatest burden, despite the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, insisting this would be the case in his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/oct/20/spending-review-2010-osborne-cuts">2010 Spending Review</a>. The social security safety net is being dismantled and both inequality and poverty will rise if coalition policies are not reversed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Rowlingson receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the Friends Provident Foundation. She is a member of the Fabian Society.</span></em></p>Five years of Coalition government later, it is clear that the poorest have paid most dearly as a result of various tax and benefit changes.Karen Rowlingson, Professor of Social Policy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/395262015-04-02T05:28:53Z2015-04-02T05:28:53ZState of the Nation: impact of education reforms will take decades to play out<p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series. These pieces will provide a clear-eyed health check on the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of vital policy areas. Today, David Bell, former chief inspector of schools and permanent secretary at the Department for Education, looks at the legacy of the coalition’s school and university reforms.</em></p>
<p>I have been often asked about the part I played, as the then-permanent secretary at the Department for Education, in the weekend after the 2010 general election, as the coalition negotiations began. </p>
<p>To which I can only answer truthfully: I went home and mowed the lawn.</p>
<p>It seems naïve now, but few in the civil service had thought a full Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition possible. Certainly nobody believed it would last for five years. This time Whitehall will be prepared for all eventualities. Our political system is fracturing. And that means party manifestos will be the starting points for negotiation, not necessarily agendas for government.</p>
<p>Five years ago, many thought the outcome of those “five days in May” would result in timid government. Yet the pace of legislation and changes in education, in particular, have disproved forever the warnings that coalition government leads to paralysis.</p>
<h2>Fast-paced education reforms</h2>
<p>But in trying to judge the long-term impact of the changes in schools and higher education, I am reminded of the oft-misquoted quip by the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, when asked about the impact of the French Revolution: “<a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/74916db6-938d-11e0-922e-00144feab49a.html#axzz3Vai99QZG">It’s too early to say”</a>.</p>
<p>For the biggest societal, political and economic reforms do not fit into neat five-year electoral cycles. They take decades. And what feels like a seismic shift in the short term, may merely be a footnote in the long run.</p>
<p>One widely held view is that the coalition has led radical change in education. You can see why. Thousands of new academies – <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-academies-and-academy-projects-in-development">more than 4,500</a> in March 2015. Hundreds of new free schools – <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-open-schools-and-successful-applications">254 open</a> with many more due to launch in September. A new <a href="https://theconversation.com/ofsted-reforms-will-mean-better-inspection-for-all-except-some-private-schools-32768">inspection</a> regime. A complete overhaul of qualifications, tests and the national curriculum. New targets and league tables. A restructured school building programme. A new funding system. Performance-related pay. Pensions reform.</p>
<p>And in universities, “shock therapy” to open up the student market. Tuition fees trebled. The funding system totally overhauled. <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-may-seek-more-eu-students-once-controls-lifted-31859">Student number caps</a> abolished. Public funding cut. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10198076/David-Willetts-our-privately-funded-university-revolution.html">Barriers</a> to private sector provision removed.</p>
<h2>More of the same</h2>
<p>An alternative reading of the past five years, however, is that all these reforms are no more than a logical extension of existing policies.</p>
<p>In schools, one can draw a more or less straight line from the Conservatives’ <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/40/contents">“Great” Education Act of 1988</a> onwards. More and more power has been devolved to schools from local authorities, there has been a push for greater transparency and accountability through league tables and schools inspectorate Ofsted, and parents given a greater choice.</p>
<p>In higher education, “marketisation” could be said to build on the huge expansion in university numbers, when the old polytechnics were given <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/sep/03/polytechnics-became-universities-1992-differentiation">degree-awarding powers in 1992</a>. And the principle that students should share the financial burden of undertaking a university education was introduced <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7928436.stm">in the late 1990s</a> by Tony Blair’s first administration.</p>
<h2>Set up to fail?</h2>
<p>But yet another, third reading, is that the coalition’s urgency to reform has unwittingly set the system up to fail in the coming years.</p>
<p>In schools, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/timeline-of-changes-to-gcses-as-and-a-levels">overhauling exams at 16 and 18 in parallel</a> might well end in tears – an experiment conducted with thousands of schools and hundreds of thousands of pupils, that we do not actually know will work. The lesson from the first year after GCSEs replaced the old O-levels in 1988, and the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmeduski/153/15302.htm">current model of A-levels were introduced in 2002</a>, is that major reforms always have unexpected consequences.</p>
<p>Or in higher education, there is a huge concern that the current changes will risk the financial situation of at least some of our 150 universities. In a market not everyone can be a winner. Some in the university sector are worried that the result of creating a system based on student demand, at a time of ever tighter public finances, is that some institutions will start to wither and – who knows – eventually collapse.</p>
<p>Will all or any of these changes work? It is simply too early to say, despite the mudflinging at ministers this week from a succession of teacher union conferences. We are only just about able to assess the impact of the previous Labour government’s schools reforms, including the <a href="https://ioelondonblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/exporting-london-challenge-is-complex-and-challenging/">London Challenge</a>, City Academies and <a href="http://www.ness.bbk.ac.uk/">Sure Start</a>. This summer’s A-level cohort are the living embodiment of “Blair’s generation” having been born in 1997 – but it will take 20 to 30 years to properly understand whether they are truly socially mobile.</p>
<h2>No evidence yet of impact</h2>
<p>A more sensible approach then is to divorce policy analysis from electoral cycles.</p>
<p>Love them or loathe them, former secretary of education Michael Gove and higher education minister David Willetts came into government with a clear vision and agenda for schools and universities respectively. And both, arguably,<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28302487"> were jettisoned from their ministerial posts</a> last year because their reforms had longer trajectories than the next polling day. Whatever you think of what they were trying to do, they were both focused on long-term legacy and delivery, not necessarily winning votes in the short term.</p>
<p>One can see the problem with this in how the current government is now presenting its education achievements to the electorate. For while ministers can reel off lists of new academies and free schools, they cannot yet point to clear evidence that any of it has <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-are-free-schools-raising-education-standards-38547">had a tangible impact</a>.</p>
<p>This leads to a slightly perverse situation where ministers simultaneously welcome a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11180505/Nick-Gibb-Why-a-drop-in-the-core-GCSE-pass-rate-is-a-good-thing.html">drop in national five A* to C GCSE results</a> as a sign of tougher standards; hail 250,000 fewer children being <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/250000-fewer-pupils-in-underperforming-secondary-schools">taught in underperforming schools</a>; and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/higher-standards-as-thousands-more-take-gcses-at-the-right-time">welcome more pupils studying history, geography and languages</a>.</p>
<p>They have based all three of these boasts on children who took exams in an <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130611/debtext/130611-0001.htm#13061171000002">system they regard as flawed and not fit for purpose</a>.</p>
<p>As Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31993610">told his annual conference</a> this month: “we do not know how well our system is performing … and may not for some years to come.” A bizarre situation to be in.</p>
<h2>An end to ministerial tinkering</h2>
<p>That is why I and <a href="http://www.ascl.org.uk/news-and-views/blueprint-for-selfimproving-system/blueprint-for-selfimproving-system.html">others</a> have been putting forward ideas to <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR618539.aspxhttp:/www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30711726">“depoliticise”</a> education policy – keeping ministers accountable but giving the system long-term stability and consistency.</p>
<p>A moratorium for the next parliament on new legislation and major structural changes. Slimming down the DfE’s remit to focus on overall strategy, not day-to-day management of schools. A permanent, independent commission to steer curriculum and assessment, looking ahead ten to 20 years – not five. A cross-party backed review on university funding and structure, to create consensus on how to strengthen and sustain higher education in the long-term.</p>
<p>The new secretary of state for education, Nicky Morgan, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32000083">told the</a> same ASCL conference that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What children learn in schools must be something that is decided by democratically elected representatives. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>As permanent secretary, I might have agreed but my view now is that the way Whitehall “does” policy is outdated. How accountable can governments be, if constant change means the public is never a position to judge their performance fairly?</p>
<p>So it is time for the politicians to be brave. There is something in the air in Westminster which compels ministers to meddle, to act as commentators not leaders, to be driven by short-term political tactics not long-term strategy. It even makes some ministers feel the need to sit in their offices drafting curricula and syllabi. Teaching practice, knowledge and skills evolve faster and more organically than remote, monolithic government departments can possibly direct.</p>
<p>So my plea for the next set of ministers is not to go back to square one after the election. Education and skills are as much part of our national infrastructure as transport, energy, industry and urban regeneration – all requiring serious long-term planning. If we can set up an <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/airports-commission">independent inquiry</a> to look coolly and rationally at runway capacity in the south of England, then we can surely do likewise with our nation’s curriculum and examination system. We need to base policy decisions on clear, hard-headed evidence, data and analysis not ministerial whims.</p>
<p>An education system without the short-term politics: that would be a revolution worth waiting for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39526/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bell is the former Chief Inspector of Schools (2002-2005), Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education (2005-2011) and is now Vice-Chancellor at the University of Reading (2012-present). He is President of the Association of Science Education in 2015.</span></em></p>The shock therapy of changes in schools and universities may feel like a seismic shift. But it’s the direction we were already travelling in.David Bell, Vice-Chancellor, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/391392015-04-01T05:36:01Z2015-04-01T05:36:01ZState of the Nation: from riots to policing cuts, the coalition has a criminal record<p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of key policy areas.</em></p>
<p>The coalition government saw crime and disorder placed firmly on its agenda almost immediately after taking office. The summer of 2011 brought violent riots across the country following a police shooting and, arguably, the UK is still <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/mark-duggan-whitewash-death-knell-for-ipcc-police">dealing with the consequences</a>.</p>
<p>But even while the courts were still handing down some of the toughest ever “riot” related sentences, the political focus was shifting to budget cuts. The final years of this coalition government are witnessing some dramatic shifts in the way policing, justice and offender management are delivered in the UK. </p>
<p>To understand how the coalition has approached crime and justice, it is worth looking back at previous Conservative governments.</p>
<p>Despite a reputation for tough, confrontational politics, the Thatcher governments were <a href="http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/3/550.full.pdf+html">rather less innovative</a> in rolling out punitive new criminal justice policies than is sometimes assumed. In fact, it seems as though the iron fist was only brought to law and order later. And when a tougher stance was taken, it was to deal with the disorderly consequences of Thatcherism. The whirlwinds caused by rising inequality, benefit cuts, social division, mass unemployment, sink estates, homelessness, and hollowed out inner cities meant that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6906554.stm">crime rose significantly</a> in the decade after 1979.</p>
<p>One important contrast between the Thatcher era and the coalition government’s tenure is that recorded crime appears to have been consistently falling since the mid-1990s – although the prison population hit record levels of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/apr/23/early-release-prison-numbers">85,000</a> in 2010 and was predicted to continue to rise.</p>
<p>On a more positive note, the onset of austerity in 2008-2009 seems to have coincided with the beginning of a sustained fall in the youth custody population, a decline which has continued.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, even such apparently solid figures conceal profound uncertainties. There remains, for example, widespread public and political scepticism about the reliability of the falling crime figures. Concerns have been raised that between 20-25% of reported violent and sexual crimes have gone <a href="https://theconversation.com/unreported-crime-stats-show-a-fundamental-problem-cant-be-fixed-with-efficiency-33770">unrecorded by police</a>.</p>
<p>More generally, the shape of the crime problem is changing fast. Offences using the internet are growing at exponential rates scarcely captured by British crime recording.</p>
<h2>Thin blue budget line</h2>
<p>There are many parallels to be drawn between the riots of the Thatcher years and the 2011 London riots, not least in the rhetoric deployed by both governments about “mindless violence”, the tough sentences handed down to convicted rioters and declarations of support for robust policing.</p>
<p>But there are subtle differences too. In the wake of the 2011 riots, senior politicians advocated even more robust policing tactics than police managers considered appropriate. And, unusually for a minister keen to get tough on crime, the home secretary, Theresa May, was already on a collision course with police forces over plans to cut <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/15/theresa-may-police-pay-conditions">20% from their budget</a>.</p>
<p>All over the UK, police forces are getting by with less. For many this has meant arguing for greater civic responsibility. Local people are being urged to be more vigilant and invest more in their own security because a police officer may no longer always be a simple phone call away. Others are experimenting with advice lines and other ways to ration demand for police intervention.</p>
<p>The government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-streamlined-approach-to-anti-social-behaviour">community trigger initiative</a> was intended to empower local people to demand action on the routine aggressive, intimidating or destructive behaviour that damaged their quality of life.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how this develops. Community is a much-abused concept in crime prevention – will the most dysfunctional communities even get to pull their triggers?</p>
<h2>Morale</h2>
<p>Austerity politics has clearly affected crime trends and public disorder. It has shaped police priorities and is now, arguably, affecting police morale. The Police Federation’s demand for <a href="https://theconversation.com/terrorism-is-not-a-good-reason-to-arm-the-police-with-tasers-37126">tasers</a> to be issued to all officers is a direct response to police “morale” issues and the perceived risks associated with the shift to single-crewing of police patrol cars. </p>
<p>As police attempt new ways to manage demands upon their services, and distance themselves from their <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-22480666">wider social service functions</a> they refer to putting solutions to social problems back where they “belong”. Unfortunately, mental health services, housing, family and children’s services and probation budgets are equally stretched just as the public are invited to demand more effective responses for the daily nuisances and disorders they experience. </p>
<p>Although the rhetoric speaks of choice, responsibility and community empowerment, this sounds less like the joined-up thinking and multi-agency provision that promised so much in the 1990s and more like silos and patchwork. A postcode lottery of frayed safety nets inevitably leaves the most intractable and routine problems of crime and disorder to fall upon the most vulnerable victims. Austerity generates inequality in safety and security just as much as it does in other areas of social provision.</p>
<h2>Legal aid and probation</h2>
<p>Further evidence of how the austerity agenda affected other areas of the criminal justice system might be gleaned from the proposed changes to legal aid and probation.</p>
<p>Since 2010 the coalition had been set on introducing <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/228970/7967.pdf">price-competitive tendering</a> for legal aid services but it faced opposition from the legal professions. In 2013 it proposed tighter restrictions and lower <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/jun/04/legal-aid-overhaul-changes-cuts">entitlement thresholds</a> for legal aid so that people with disposable household incomes of more than £37,500 could not get support. Again came a <a href="http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/policy-campaigns/campaigns/access-to-justice/">tirade of opposition</a>. It was claimed that standards would be sacrificed and that people accused of crimes would face limited choices when seeking representation.</p>
<p>Although much was made, earlier in the coalition government, of the “rehabilitation revolution”, probation and community justice also faced change. In 2013 the government <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/22/contents/enacted">legislated</a> to ensure that “a punitive element” be incorporated in all community penalties. An ambitious proposal to transform probation by the establishment of an <a href="https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Criminal%20Justice%20Report.pdf">offender management marketplace</a> funded on a “payment by results” basis was announced. A rump probation service would continue to manage the most dangerous offenders but private agencies could deliver offender management and electronic monitoring services for the others.</p>
<p>Transforming rehabilitation has taken second place to the creation of a corrections market in the UK. This has drawn many existing third sector agencies, including charities hitherto running support services for ex-offenders, into new partnerships with big private firms such as G4S and Serco, inevitably giving their service provisions a more custodial or disciplinary emphasis.</p>
<h2>Job done?</h2>
<p>Unlike the Thatcher administration, which acquired a tough reputation more for its disciplinarian law-and-order rhetoric than for its criminal justice innovations, the coalition government has already made significant radical changes that have affected the quality of criminal justice. Its austerity agenda risks transforming a more proactive and joined-up criminal justice system into a patchwork of selective services.</p>
<p>Austerity has unpicked some central assumptions about the relationships between community, police, correctional and support services while exposing the most vulnerable communities to greater risk and greater costs. All this with a side serving of rhetoric about choice, active citizenship and responsibility.</p>
<p>The combination of re-prioritising, risk delegation, growing inequality and market based criminal justice solutions creates a perfect storm for the rebalancing of the burdens of crime and disorder onto those least able to cope.</p>
<p>Evidence-led policy making also seems to have fallen by the wayside over the past five years when it comes to crime and punishment. Austerity has facilitated a new politics of civic retrenchment and the coalition government has exploited it to the full.</p>
<p>In so many ways, voices on the right have prepared the ground for a redistribution of criminalisation and victimisation with endless tirades against the poor, the unemployed, benefit claimants, immigrants and asylum seekers and, not least, working class youth.</p>
<p>And because the 2015 election campaign is largely being conducted as a battle for the “squeezed middle”, it seems unlikely to raise more fundamental questions about criminal and social justice that have been rather neglected over the past five years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Squires has previously received funding from the AHRC, ESRC and EPSRC to research crime and justice related matters. He is not currently in receipt of such funding and has no relevant conflicts of interest relating to this work. The views expressed in this article are his own.</span></em></p>The government faced civil unrest almost as soon as it came to office. Then it decided to cause some disruption of its own.Peter Squires, Professor of Criminology & Public Policy, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/390952015-03-31T05:32:01Z2015-03-31T05:32:01ZState of the Nation: the great European question<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75977/original/image-20150325-14488-13fqx8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it really the end of the affair?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/notarim/5570987182/in/photolist-9uhLp9-7ZT7io-5rfKpk-4uiE8q-b7T2L-9cWdt-bVjE9Y-3cFZyU-km5rRy-9vyYNJ-8GDLUy-8GDLRh-7y3GEX-ozZmhh-7ZPTci-6KnpEc-7ZPVED-RYp2E-4vVgzm-7uhdkL-q3T2W-7ZT5Ko-4Wd2aK-ozZ4pu-7ZPV4T-yd8uK-iaC3aH-7uhcYm-cCh9bw-6KnrKT-dWboHh-dW5LrX-bXofqs-tgow6-5xtMS8-4Vx8gi-nGb7MK-apHf2m-aJiueP-8rXnop-f2Sktp-6prwNb-RYoQ1-RYoUE-S1ncg-6KFk4A-dmN9fy-67Gy3p-5GQanw-dW9Suq">mark notari</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of key policy areas.</em></p>
<p>The UK’s place in Europe is one of the most divisive issues in the 2015 general election campaign. The Conservative Party and UKIP want an in/out referendum, Labour does not and the Liberal Democrats certainly recognise it as an important matter, even if leader <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/30/nick-clegg-liberal-democrats-conservatives-eu-referendum-backing">Nick Clegg</a> is refusing to come down on either side of the debate.</p>
<p>But when it comes to the detail, there is very little clarity from any party, even though the coalition government has been thinking about this issue for five years. There is a good reason for that.</p>
<p>Shortly after coming to power, the coalition government agreed to undertake what became the most comprehensive assessment ever to take place of the workings of the European Union. This was called the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/review-of-the-balance-of-competences">Balance of Competences Review</a>. The idea was to allow evidence-based deliberations over the government’s European policy.</p>
<p>Of course, the two coalition parties differed drastically about Europe from the outset. The Conservatives were largely eurosceptic, if not europhobic, and the Liberal Democrats firmly pro-European. Many Conservative MPs saw the review as an opportunity to gather information to back up their broad desires to repatriate various (unidentified) competences from the EU back to national governments.</p>
<p>At least the coalition partners could agree on this exercise to collect information. An open invitation was extended to any interested people or organisations to make submissions and the plan was to analyse and publish that evidence. It was agreed that the publications would not attempt to draw policy conclusions, obviously because the coalition partners did not want to face the prospect of negotiating these with each other. “Let the evidence speak for itself”, one or other of the party leaders may have said, and the other concurred. </p>
<p>In the end, 1,500 pieces of written evidence were submitted. These were distilled into 32 volumes of analysis, looking at individual sectors such as agriculture, energy and taxation. All in, it amounted to 3,000 carefully drafted pages.</p>
<p>For scholars of European affairs it was like manna from heaven. Her Majesty’s government had kindly undertaken a huge policy research effort, paid for entirely by the state. It had delivered the primary findings free of charge to anyone who wanted to get their hands on it and the field was wide open for whatever conclusions should be drawn.</p>
<p>The publication of the 32 volumes was completed in January 2015. Since then, there has been complete silence. The dog did not bark. The government was saying absolutely nothing about the implications of its own remarkable work.</p>
<p>Confused, the House of Lords set an inquiry into action via its <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/eu-select-committee-/inquiries/parliament-2010/review-of-the-balance-of-competences/">EU Select Committee</a>. On March 10, the committee asked David Lidington, minister for Europe at the Foreign Office, if it was really worth the expense of launching the project if no conclusions were to be drawn. His reply came straight out of Yes Minister:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The government felt it would not be right to draw conclusions that could not possibly do justice to the diversity of opinions expressed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The readers of the 32 volumes of evidence can do better than that. The central question for the review was whether the legal powers of the European Union are excessive and should be handed back to individual countries. In not one of the 32 volumes did the evidence support the repatriation of any of these powers.</p>
<p>Most of these powers, such as for the single market and related policies including energy, are legally shared with member states. The detail of the balances can be adjusted over time in light of experience. It can either be further centralised or decentralised.</p>
<p>The actual sharing of competences between the EU and member states has mostly been refined through years of negotiation and experience to the point of reaching plausible balances. “About right” is the summary term used in many of the 32 review volumes to describe the current balance of competences.</p>
<h2>On the road to reform</h2>
<p>There are two other approaches for seeking a new settlement with the EU. These are encapsulated in the words “reform” and “renegotiation”. While the prime minister uses these two words rather loosely and even interchangeably, we can be more precise.</p>
<p>Reform is about improving the EU as a whole. Renegotiation is about getting special conditions for the UK on its own.</p>
<p>In 2013 Lord Nigel Lawson, announcing his move into the Brexit camp, said that the EU was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10040506/Lord-Lawson-David-Cameron-must-lead-Britain-out-of-the-EU.html">unreformable</a>. The evidence from the government’s review shows this to be simplistic and untrue. On the contrary, reform has been happening for a long time and continues to happen in almost every domain.</p>
<p>The UK attaches the highest priority to the single market, and has played a major role in its reform since the late 1980s. It is currently seen to be working as a promoter of more effective and enhanced (not diluted) EU policies in key single market sectors where there is important work in progress. That notably includes the single market for services, financial markets, energy and climate change, and the digital sector.</p>
<p>Two much-criticised sectors have undergone major reform too. Fisheries underwent key <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22717796">changes in 2013</a> which have enabled individual countries to have more control over fishing quotas in order to combat overfishing.</p>
<p>And agriculture has undergone significant change in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/common-agricultural-policy-reform">reforms</a> that started in the 1990s and went right up until 2013. There has been a consistent push to switch support for farmers from market intervention to income support. In the past market intervention lead to huge stockpiles of unwanted produce (the so-called <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/81314/EU-s-butter-mountain-costs-taxpayers-236m">“butter mountains”</a>), but this is now a thing of the past.</p>
<p>The EU now gives increasing priority to getting rid of unnecessary red tape. A new <a href="https://euobserver.com/tickers/126991">top-level appointment</a> has been made at the European Commission to oversee this, which corresponds to a key British demand. The era of Brussels banning bent bananas is over, if it ever existed beyond the headlines of the tabloid press. </p>
<h2>Special relationship</h2>
<p>The UK has already negotiated opt-outs or special arrangements for the EU policies that it does not want for itself. It has stayed out of the eurozone and is not part of the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/index_en.htm">Schengen area</a>, so it remains in control of its own borders.</p>
<p>A wider <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/2014opt-out">opt-out</a> from the entire domain of justice and home affairs is accompanied by the legally entrenched right to pick and choose which elements the UK wants to opt back into at any time. This shows remarkable flexibility on the part of the other European member states. If everyone was allowed to choose which policies they did and didn’t want, the EU simply couldn’t function.</p>
<p>The UK has also <a href="http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2011/03/01/the-eu-charter-are-we-in-or-out/">opted out</a> and then back in to the social charter which sets labour market norms.</p>
<h2>The deal breaker?</h2>
<p>Of all the issues that circulate in any discussion about Europe, immigration is the most high profile in the run up to the 2015 election. The Conservatives want to negotiate curbs on immigration from the rest of the EU and Labour has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25678829">hinted</a> that it might too.</p>
<p>But there are moderate ways of doing this that do not contradict the right to the freedom of movement – which states that European citizens are allowed to travel freely to live and work in other member states.</p>
<p>It was recently <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-11/cp140146en.pdf">ruled</a> in the European Court of Justice that it is member states, not Europe, who decide whether unemployed immigrants can stay in a country and whether they get benefits. The so-called problem of benefits tourism can be managed by member states without calling into question the red lines of freedom of movement or employment.</p>
<p>So even on immigration which is being presented as a deal-breaker issue that could leave the next UK government with no choice but to leave the union, there is plenty of room for manoeuvre. In this, like so many other areas, the UK has safeguards in place to protect its sovereign powers. These include, notably foreign and security policy and taxation. There is nothing to repatriate or renegotiate here.</p>
<h2>Empty threats</h2>
<p>Cameron made a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-speech-at-bloomberg">vague and rhetorical</a> speech about Europe in January 2013, suggesting that, from the outset, he didn’t really know what he wanted in operational terms.</p>
<p>The review was meant to inform him. It was supposed to show which areas could or should be reformed and which powers he should seek to repatriate. His silence since then seems to reflect the fact that the evidence did not correspond to the rhetorical demands of many Conservative Party MPs.</p>
<p>Overall, the evidence supports a common-sense view that British interests are best served by continuing membership of the European Union, combined with pushing ahead with reform processes, while retaining its important opt-outs. </p>
<p>If the Tories win, Cameron may be expected to lay out his objectives in operational terms soon after the May election if he is to have a referendum by 2017 at the latest.</p>
<p>By now it should be clear that he could point to a meaningful reform agenda that could have a good chance of winning considerable support from the rest of the EU, but that there is little room for renegotiation and none for repatriation of treaty-level competences.</p>
<p>Even if Cameron pretends to ignore the findings of his own review, because they do not correspond to the preconceptions of many Tory MPS, his negotiating position will have become informed by these findings which are published for all his EU partners to see. He will have the chance to fashion a progressive reform agenda, as long as he recognises that policy reform and improvement is a continuing process, not something that is a one-off job done just-in-time for a UK referendum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Emerson is a former EU ambassador to Moscow. CEPS is a politically and financially independent research institute.</span></em></p>After the 2010 election, the coalition promptly ordered a huge review of the EU. Then it spent years ignoring the findings.Michael Emerson, Associate Senior Research Fellow, Centre for European Policy StudiesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/393342015-03-30T05:28:09Z2015-03-30T05:28:09ZState of the Nation: ten things we’ve learned about the NHS under the coalition<p><em>Welcome to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/state-of-the-nation">State of the Nation</a> series, which looks at the coalition government’s progress over the past five years, across a range of key policy areas.</em></p>
<p>Coming in to the 2010 general election, most people thought that the NHS was in a good place. After significant under-investment over many years, the 2000s witnessed nearly <a href="http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/data-and-charts/spending-public-and-private-growth-rate">a decade of sustained growth</a>, extra staff, a significant focus on key clinical priorities (such as cancer, mental health and heart disease), greater emphasis on joint working with social care, a modernisation of buildings and infrastructure and – perhaps most impressive of all – a <a href="http://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/data-and-charts/waiting-times-hospital-treatment-england">radical improvement in waiting times</a> and access. </p>
<p>If someone had said in 1997 that waits would reduce from around two years in some instances to routinely under 18 weeks, most commentators (ourselves included) would have said it was impossible. And yet this is precisely what was delivered – public and patient satisfaction with the NHS was high and international comparisons were starting to look much more favourable. If ever there was a time for evolution rather than revolution, it was 2010.</p>
<p>With hindsight, this makes the massive (and arguably unnecessary) upheaval of then health secretary <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11395809/Did-Andrew-Lansley-kill-off-NHS-reform-for-good.html">Andrew Lansley’s reforms</a> even more tragic. Rather than building on what was working well and focusing on further improvement, the 2010 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213823/dh_117794.pdf">Liberating the NHS</a> white paper threw this all up in the air, introducing an almost completely new system which still few people understand and most think can’t possibly work. The NHS is also undoubtedly feeling the strain of an ageing population, rising need and demand, significant financial challenge and a workforce that is overloaded and weary of change. </p>
<p>Unlike in 2010, healthcare will be <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3508/NHS-leads-economy-and-immigration-as-top-votedeciding-issue.aspx">a key electoral battleground</a> this May – and all the signs are that this debate will be adversarial and bad-tempered. In thinking through how we got from the 2010 inheritance to now, here are ten things we didn’t know then but certainly know now.</p>
<h2>Promises can be reneged on</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76112/original/image-20150326-8689-15eg459.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1081&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ye olde tale of old.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/never-again-story-health-social-care-nicholas-timmins-jul12.pdf">N. Timmins/King's Fund/IoG</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What is said in opposition before the election and what happens in practice afterwards is often different: in the run up to 2010, the Conservatives promised there would be no top-down reorganisation of the NHS, before subsequently introducing the biggest top-down reorganisation in the history of the health service – one that NHS England’s former chief executive <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/12/nhs-chief-david-nicholson-tough-medicine-stands-down">said was</a> “so big you can see it from space”. (A similar story could be told about New Labour’s 1997 claim to end the internal market). </p>
<p>The story of this latest process <a href="http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/never-again-story-health-social-care-nicholas-timmins-jul12.pdf">is told in detail by Nick Timmins</a>, but it is sobering to see how reforms which hadn’t been set out in a manifesto – and which few people anticipated or understood – could be introduced at such pace and scale.</p>
<h2>Big structural change seldom delivers</h2>
<p>Sometimes there are aspects that need to evolve or see radical change but (repeated) whole-scale reorganisation doesn’t work: structural “solutions” are often tempting as they look big and bold, and as if genuine transformation is happening. In practice, they reduce morale and productivity, distract attention away from improving patient care and seldom deliver stated intentions. It’s hard to exaggerate just how damaging such reorganisations can be – and the NHS Confederation <a href="http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/2010/06/the-triumph-of-hope-over-experience">has helpfully drawn attention to</a> the constant “triumph of hope over experience” as we reorganise yet again.</p>
<p>Einstein wasn’t talking about the NHS when he described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting different results – but this seems a good case study to back up his point. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76113/original/image-20150326-8689-fbx2pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Could have been talking about the NHS.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dinocom/3197115279/in/photolist-5Sw3Ze-4vvCdv-pHw41u-5LFZ4B-EwrbB-4kxiL3-3PKdM-8rRLVB-eayHvj-xLHMD-694Ehb-4nVyAL-9mJG2h-4U3LBS-7iPPae-7iTH4q-2ojA8h-9Getrk-4jcurf-774FT-hB8Gf-4GcXZn-9yKeq3-qNXh8A-qNSoHZ-qNXh9s-qwAZfD-qNXh73-4UUeh6-5YoDKD-9Getri-qxcAH5-4SDs4f-8t1zEn-4GocT7-pm7fg4-RMY96-5gh6L2-9GeDNe-4CRBwS-3Xz4yd-4LvGNv-wTZK1-FMpu2-64wzo2-68dACf-iNu3r-4xSAq1-pdCRw-pkPZaF">Dinho Alves</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Standing still isn’t enough</h2>
<p>Ringfencing the NHS budget is still a cut in real terms if costs and demand are going up. Despite protecting the NHS from the cuts faced elsewhere, the health service still faces massive financial pressures (which in many ways spilled over during <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/aande-crisis">the A&E crisis</a>). </p>
<p>Analysis by the Health Foundation suggests that spending has actually increased by an annual average of 0.9% – but that an increase of nearly 4% per year is roughly the figure which the NHS has needed over time – effectively just to stand still in terms of the ageing population and technological developments. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76114/original/image-20150326-8716-1uve357.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Annual change in English NHS spending since 2009-10.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.health.org.uk/publications/funding-briefing-collection/">Health Foundation/Public Sector Statistical Analyses 2014 (HM Treasury); Autumn Statement 2014 (HM Treasury); ONS population estimates</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Listening to advice isn’t a bad thing</h2>
<p>Sometimes people who point out potential pitfalls might actually be trying to help. From the very start, the Conservatives seem to have felt that the previous New Labour government lost vital time early on by being too timid in its first term – and therefore were desperate to be quick out of the blocks in a number of key policy areas.</p>
<p>With political leaders unused to being in government after such a long New Labour administration, there were inevitable mistakes <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/may/31/coalition-u-turns-full-list">and U-turns</a> – and a tendency to assume that anyone offering advice about potential barriers and tensions was opposing reform. A greater commitment to listening – including to the concerns of the frontline staff and managers implementing reforms – rather than ploughing on regardless – might have yielded better results. A later “listening exercise” <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/apr/06/government-pause-listen-reflect-improve-nhs-reform">announced after mounting criticism</a> came somewhat belatedly.</p>
<h2>NHS ‘end is nigh’ is overstating it</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76117/original/image-20150326-8713-m6r7va.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Modern-day Savonarolas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/41099823@N00/315976143/in/photolist-moctfc-aZJyxF-7ifhQj-7ifbeh-7ibote-7ifbUE-7ibg3B-7ifahL-7ifczC-7ifb77-7ifixs-6NkHoJ-9ap78S-7ifbhA-7ifcu9-i7iVSt-HRe6Z-9PByJK-7ifbEf-tVsGx-7ifbzm-7ibhW6-54oBB5-7ibh28-7ibpT8-7ifiV3-7ibq9g-7ibi3c-7ifbtJ-7ifbH3-7tq8vV-7ifc9w-7ifb4u-7ibgC6-7ifaUd-7ifaE7-gRrX3K-eeMdQ4-i7aBEn-5xXvN2-4m21Mz-ahwerd-92aBPn-7cK7BX-92aBkZ-5y2UpL-5xXvQp-5xXvLp-5y2Ur9-5xXvPB">Ho Visto Nina Volare</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>No matter what pressures it faces, claims that this is “the end of the NHS as we know it” have so far proved wide of the mark. The NHS is so politically important that any debate about reform can quickly become polarised into a discussion about whether the changes amount to widespread “privatisation” (and about whether this undermines the founding principles of the health service). However, <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9281493">such terms are usually used</a> in a very imprecise manner, with little clarity as to what “privatisation” actually means. </p>
<p>For example, the most significant private providers of NHS care are GPs, who aren’t public servants in a traditional sense and have historically operated as independent small businesses who sell their services to the health service. Despite this, GPs are routinely identified as one of the most trusted professions – and they are often seen as the foundation of the NHS. It is also apparent that the public still support NHS principles <a href="http://www.health.org.uk/public/cms/75/76/313/5503/Public%20attitudes%20to%20the%20NHS.pdf?realName=ivdT6t.pdf">but are less concerned</a> about who provides the care.</p>
<h2>Local government has it worse</h2>
<p>However tough things are in the NHS, it’s worse in local government which is facing what one leader <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/16/birmingham-city-council-leader-ticking-timebomb-financial-cuts">described as</a> “the end of local government as we know it”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76268/original/image-20150327-16120-1mdw0se.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Local government has lost it’s bark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31363949@N02/14512878630/in/photolist-buRMeJ-o7sicm-dyarbF-8iVyob-5NUzYv-dyarEc-6qS2Fr-37HGkq-6Gicz2-6GowHQ-4Mnup9-cQ9R8y-cX8DDU-5Awh2H-6LvyL6-su8o1-6LzJgU-KqmUK-6C7ZVx-86sU2k-dyfURb-dyfUZU-4XwV1i-4XwUPv-4XR5Jx-8ZYpRz-8ZYpLH-ed7Dhf-7a5jq5-f86rAU-9zoGLs-6GowLq-5FzKbH-dzaC7n-hDmezZ-gnbzJ-feBrwb-dBNxcS-dbgQuY-o7ygwV-daW49q-6LzFz5-6RBkb7-af4CeF-pNBUW-af7mmS-af4wAk-9uYAs-6FNvoW-e3HVgC">Leonard Bentley</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Local authorities have tried hard to protect adult social care spending – but directors of adult social services estimate that spending has fallen by 12% in real terms since 2010, at a time when the population of those needing social care support has increased by 14%. Councils have had to make savings of £3.53 billion on adult social care, with <a href="http://www.adass.org.uk/adass-budget-survey-2014/">fewer people receiving support</a>.</p>
<h2>Actions speak louder than words</h2>
<p>Care scandals can happen at any time – but talking tough doesn’t help. Events at Mid-Staffordshire, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/26/winterbourne-view-care-staff-jailed">Winterbourne View</a> and Morecombe Bay are truly shocking – and rightly led to much public soul-searching about how such terrible things could happen in a caring service. However, public inquiries with hundreds of individual recommendations, beefing up inspection regimes and ending careers only makes people more defensive and less likely to admit and learn from their mistakes. </p>
<p>By contrast, <a href="http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/social-policy/staff/profile.aspx?ReferenceId=13903">Yvonne Sawbridge’s work</a> has demonstrated that an approach which pays proper attention to supporting frontline staff to deliver high-quality care is much more fruitful – and all <a href="http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hsdr/volume-2/issue-50#abstract">the evidence suggests</a> that happy, empowered staff achieve better outcomes for patients. </p>
<h2>An answer with no question</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/topics/integrated-care">Integration</a> might be the answer – but we don’t know what the question is. Following the 2011 “pause” in Lansley’s health reforms, the work of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/216422/dh_132085.pdf">NHS Future Forum</a> placed significant emphasis on the need for “integrated care” – joining up health and care services for older people and those with complex needs. </p>
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<p>Over time, this became a key policy priority – but <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/P/bo17996810.html">with very little clarity</a> as to what it actually means or how to achieve it in a system not designed with integration in mind. While some sort of joint working probably has to be part of the solution, integration is no panacea and the system currently feels less integrated now than ten years ago. In response, many frontline services are starting to adopt a more healthily sceptical stance. </p>
<h2>History shouldn’t define the future</h2>
<p>The only thing we learn from history is that no one learns from history. Debates about integrated care are a good example of the loss of organisational memory which has been increasing with the churn of managers, new regulatory regimes and performance measures. </p>
<p>The current “integrated care pioneers” established by government to explore new ways of working, for example, seem very similar to New Labour’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/215103/dh_133127.pdf">integrated care organisation pilots</a> (the results of which were underwhelming). Meanwhile the advent of clinical commissioning seems to overlook significant evidence around <a href="http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/01/20/bmb.ldq042.full.pdf">previous attempts at primary-care</a> led commissioning. Finding new ways to balance the triple aim (improving access, reducing costs and increasing quality) will be more difficult if we don’t start learning lessons from the past.</p>
<h2>Still delivering despite the struggle</h2>
<p>Luckily for all of us the NHS still manages to deliver (almost irrespective of national policy). In spite of all the pressures, turmoil and upheaval, care quality is high, access does well and the NHS still has <a href="https://theconversation.com/public-satisfaction-with-nhs-at-second-highest-level-in-30-years-but-are-we-really-happier-36859">significant public support</a>. Even during the recent pressures on A&E, most people continued to be seen in a timely manner – and it is <a href="https://theconversation.com/nhs-staff-do-a-fantastic-job-its-time-we-gave-them-more-credit-20804">testimony to the hard work and determination of staff</a> that they kept the show on the road in very difficult circumstances.</p>
<p>Internationally, the Commonwealth Fund recently <a href="http://www.health.org.uk/public/cms/75/76/313/5552/HowDoesTheNHSCompareWithHealthSystemsInOtherCountries.pdf?realName=rBtxgD.pdf">ranked the NHS first</a> in terms of quality of care, efficiency and cost (with the US coming last), an improvement since 2010 when the UK came second. </p>
<p>The NHS is definitely struggling as we head into the 2015 general election – but also still doing well when we put current performance in context. With an outcome too close to call, any incoming government will have much to learn from the 2010-15 experience and much to ponder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Glasby is an NHS Non-Executive Director and carries our regular research, teaching and consultancy with the NHS</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Exworthy has previously received funding from the Department of Health, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Commonwealth Fund of New York</span></em></p>As we go into the 2015 election what kind of NHS will a new government inherit?Jon Glasby, Professor of Health and Social Care, University of BirminghamMark Exworthy, Professor of Health Policy and Management, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.