RSA Comment



Archive for March, 2011

The Big Society: government strategy or resistance movement?

Thu 31st Mar 20119 Comments »

‘What on earth is the Big Society? Do you know anyone (outside politics) who has the faintest idea what Cameron’s Big Idea is all about?’ That was Janet Street-Porter not long ago in the Daily Mail.

Even if there are now plenty of people who understand roughly what the Big Society is about, generally it has been received with confusion, suspicion or apathy. Before you click away, this is not yet another attempt to define the Big Society. Rather, it is this reaction to ‘Cameron’s Big Idea’ that I’m interested in because of what it says about us.

The biggest problem faced by those trying to promote the Big Society is that it looks and sounds like a ‘Big Idea’. In Britain we have a spectacularly bad track record of coming together behind big ideas. What gets us going instead is an injustice or a threat to the status quo. For the Big Society to become the popular nationwide movement envisaged by its creators it needs to be reshaped accordingly. (more…)

A muddled model? A view of the Big Society from the coal-face

Fri 18th Mar 20113 Comments »

The Big Society concept is under fire. Harriet Riley argues the concept promises exciting possibilities for volunteer organisations and explores some of its implications for the charity sector.

If the government’s Big Society narrative survives the current onslaught, it could provide opportunities for developing new ways of delivering services, and the promotion of innovative and collaborative working practices. At the practical level, however, there is a great deal of confusion – and a degree of negativity – around the idea in some areas of the voluntary sector, probably reflecting what is being felt in many local authorities.

There seems to be a lack of support and guidance – either from central government, or locally – on what is being asked of these organisations. The RSA’s Jonathan Rowson’s provides a useful analogy for how many at the front line feel: a pressure to try to build some kind of bucolic idyll against a savage landscape of cuts is discomfiting. While reception in the voluntary sector is far from uniform, within some groups it risks being divisive.

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RSA Animate – The Internet in Society: Empowering and Censoring Citizen?

Thu 17th Mar 201139 Comments »

In this new RSAnimate adapted from a talk at the RSA, author and journalist Evgeny Morozov presents an alternative take on ‘cyber-utopianism’ – the seductive idea that the internet plays a largely empancipatory role in global politics.

An RSA Family of Schools?

Wed 16th Mar 20116 Comments »

The RSA has a long history of innovation in education. Becky Francis who runs its education team, explores changes in policy direction and the issues and opportunities this presents.

Education policy has developed rapidly under the coalition, with school autonomy and diversification of the state sector driving government thinking. Academies and ‘free schools’ – independent state schools no longer falling under local authority control – are central to the government’s vision, which aims to reduce bureaucracy and release creativity. Many head teachers have seized this opportunity through application for academy status.

The RSA needs to be involved in debating these changes, as well as adapting to and exploring opportunities that arise. The change in policy direction has been controversial. Whereas the original academies programme instigated by the last administration had focused on underperforming schools (which were reopened as academies with new buildings and sponsorship), the government’s initial approach was to invite all schools rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted to become academies. While the RSA recognises the value of autonomy in helping institutions to meet the needs of individuals and local communities, further advantaging already-thriving schools risks reintroducing the damaging division and isolationism that is widely accepted to have been a feature of the grant maintained school era.

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The Watch That Didn’t Tell the Time

Fri 11th Mar 20114 Comments »

Michael Reddy FRSA is an investor who’s got it in for his peers. Why? Because they are bewitched by promises of quick returns in a self-serving industry.

The Oxford Union once debated (it’s a long time ago now) that ‘All journalists should be hanged from lamp-posts not already occupied by scientists’. The formula is useful in allowing for innumerable variants, and making it convenient now to propose the motion that “all investors should be hanged from lamp-posts not already occupied by bankers”.

Admittedly the thesis is diluted by the fact that 90% of lamp-posts are already occupied by bankers and that there is limited space for anyone else. Not only that but a proportion of lamp-posts should always be reserved for journalists. Why would I focus the cross hairs of my Kalashnikov on the poor (rich) investor, especially given I am one myself?

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New Metrics for a New Era

Wed 9th Mar 20115 Comments »

An individual’s state of mind – good or bad – is contagious and, through an inevitable chain of events, affects classic economic outcomes argues Jim Clifton. People should be glad that the government is taking happiness seriously.

The British government, like most governments around the world, collects a tremendous amount of economic data every year. Leaders use this information to plan for, and react to, economic threats and opportunities. But most leaders overlook a key fact: every action that citizens take is in direct response to their state of mind and has a direct effect on their economic behaviour. Very few leaders, however, have data on their citizens’ states of mind.

To use Mathew Taylor’s metaphor for human behaviour – of an elephant being ridden through a cultivated jungle, in which the rider is our conscious thought, the elephant our automatic systems and the jungle our social context – governments have traditionally solely focused on the jungle.

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Raising Aspirations and the Glass Ceiling

Mon 7th Mar 20115 Comments »

A new report suggests that the glass ceiling for women at work is created by their own lack of confidence. If this is the case, asks Juliana Farha FRSA, what role can fathers play in their daughters’ lives?

As if women don’t agonise enough already about our career shortcomings, The Sunday Times dished out a real zinger recently. Just days before Lord Davies was to table his report on how to increase women’s presence in boardrooms, the newspaper reported that research from the Institute of Leadership and Management suggests the glass ceiling is a figment of women’s imaginations. It turns out the real obstacle to our career advancement is – you guessed it! – ourselves. Crippled by self-doubt, modesty and a lack of ambition, we sabotage our own working lives which – the article implies – the men around us would be delighted to help us progress if only we’d let them.

Now it’s easy to be scornful of these claims, and when I read them my head began buzzing with ‘buts’. After all, it’s a logical fallacy to claim that women’s self-doubt means a glass ceiling doesn’t exist. Still, I’m pretty circumspect about this sort of thing. I have three sisters and lots of women friends, and I’d be lying if I denied that fear, embarrassment and anxiety about being ‘nice’ often prevent us from putting ourselves forward.

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Driving Democracy

Fri 4th Mar 20116 Comments »

Holistic democracy is the way of the future for organisations in the 21st century argues Professor Philip Woods FRSA.

The events across the Middle East are a reminder of the power of the idea of democracy and the yearning of people for respect, freedom and a say in the decisions that shape their lives. It is a reminder too that democracy itself is evolving and grows from the experience of our everyday lives.

In organisations of the 21st century, where people expend so much of their time and energies, there are signs and signals of the potential for a fundamental, paradigmatic change in how we view and make organisations work. There is evidence of a shift away from the pyramidic hierarchy and towards democratic forms that enable people to flourish as whole people who are spiritually, socially and ecologically connected. This is a trend I discuss in my forthcoming book Transforming Education Policy: Shaping a democratic future.

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