Category Archives: Knowledge Ecology And Economy
Planning For Energy Futures With The CBI
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is warning us that posssible energy shortages mean a winter of discontent awaits. This is a matter of concern for everyone. When energy is taken by the banks and business as seriously in terms of analysis as finance, the notion of ‘Futures’ may help us to understand ‘Options’ in a whole new way.
My grasp of ‘Futures’, in the financial sense of the word, is slight; but I gather it’s all to do with large-scale ‘Options’ on investing by banks to produce decent returns later on. So far, so simple.
But isn’t this what we need to think about with energy futures, as well as financial ones? The CBI – an organisation which I would imagine knows a bit about futures and banks – has just said they have serious concerns about energy provision this winter. A long hard snap and we’ll be in for a winter of discontent the likes of which only those of us long in the tooth can recall.
Strangely, the forward thinking which is routinely made for financial futures doesn’t seem to feature when businesses consider energy futures. Some of us would argue, however, that energy is where it’s really all at.
What’s the ‘gold’ of the future?
Hasn’t it been said that the gold of the future is oil? Or maybe these days renewables?
Recent days have seen high-level hints that more nuclear power is on the cards for the UK. Conservationists and eco-people will be horrified by this. Industrial contractors and perhaps some regeneration specialists may see it as a promising way forward.
The real question must surely be, how much thought have we all put into ways of providing energy for the future? And how much have we also thought about the levels of energy we really need, as opposed to the levels we all currently expend?
Conflicting demands
Leaders in different parts of these fields seem to be looking several ways at once.
Businesses want cheap energy in abundant supply (though some of them do of course make efforts to conserve it as well).
The politicians are trying to do two things: encourage us on the one hand to save energy, and on the other to consider forms of energy production which may or may not be sustainable and long-term safe.
And the scientists are telling us that the technologies for energy conservation and production have not all been explored to the same level. We aren’t as yet in a position to evaluate fully the relative effectiveness and risk of all the possible ways forward; but we do know how to produce shorter-term big science solutions.
‘Options’ in energy
Back then to the ‘futures’ idea. We have graduate physicists and others who, it is reported, have too little to do. (An irony, in my experience, is that many good physicists end up working as analysts in banks, not laboratories.) And we have businessess which are worried about energy. Why not put things together and start to take the ‘options’ on energy as seriously as those on finance?
This isn’t just an issue for people who have lots of money to spend, it’s an issue for us all. Without energy, at suitable levels of availability and sustainability, there could be no banks or businesses anyway.
MRSA And Flu Pandemics Don’t Just Happen….
MRSA, nasty flu bugs and so on are not simply random events. People can help themselves. Public health and health education knowledge is never more important than when people are alarmed about health scare stories or the threat of epidemics.
It’s probably the years I spent battling as a teacher for proper Health Education in schools, but I’m always puzzled by the view that serious contagious illness ‘just happens’. It doesn’t. Believing that, say, MRSA or really nasty strains of flu are things we can do nothing about is a big mistake.
Of course anyone can be unlucky with any sort of ill-health. It would be very wrong indeed to suggest that we can all remain healthy by doing / eating / thinking the right things. If only….. But that doesn’t mean we have to be victims in our minds all the time.
Simple procedures, excellent results
MRSA, the super-bug found in hospitals, is a good example. When everyone remembers to keep things really clean, and to wash their hands every time they should, its prevalence falls significantly. The same applies to other infections.
Some maladies are caused by bacteria, and others by viruses. The ways they spread depend on whether they are passed from person to person by touching, coughing, just lying in wait, or whatever. But all these modes of transmission can be contained to greater or lesser degrees by good hygiene.
Which takes me back to my first point.
Education for health starts young
People currently enjoy on average longer and healthier lives than at any other time in history. But there was a period in the 1980s / 90s where public health, and related individual health matters, were very low on the agenda. Because of this there was very little interest in school health education.
Things have improved a lot in the past few years – Personal, Health and Social Education (PHSE) is now firmly embedded in the school curriculum. But one thing we all need to know, children, teenagers or adults of any age, is how to avoid unnecessary infections and, crucially, why these measures work. If we understand, we are more likely to stick to what we need to do. This means a working knowledge of healthy eating, exercise, good hygiene and immunisation routines, the lot.
A measure of reassurance and control
When we understand there are things which can be done as individuals to keep the bugs at least in part at bay, we are more likely to take a balanced view on the risks. Alarm and panic rarely help anyone to cope. A grasp of the facts, and feeling we have some measure of control, often does.
Is Enterprise Funding effective, and how should it be evaluated?
The returns on Merseyside Special Investment Fund investments are under scrutiny in a particularly challenging local economy. But do we know whether MSIF, or any other public investment bodies, are actually doing a good job? The answer is probably, ‘Pass….’. Unless there is directly comparable information about enterprise programmes where funding was unasked or declined, there is actually nothing meaningful against which to make evaluations of the adequacy of the funding decision-making process for programmes which do receive public investment.
The debate about whether MSIF (Merseyside Special Investment Fund) is effective continues. Their performance in the past year is for some unconvincing – today’s Daily Post Business Week reports an MSIF £10m venture fund, of which £9.6m has been written off. There is discussion about whether such funding is given in the right sort of way – it’s ‘given’ as loans at strictly commercial rates – and whether it’s an appropriate form of investment at all in a challenging economy such as Merseyside’s, which is indeed a fair question.
Similar discussion of course is frequently heard about other funding and loans. Is the type right for the need? Why is there so much apparent failure?
There is however a question which is rarely if ever asked, but which could tell us a lot: How do the enterrpises (of whatever sort, commercial or social) which are refused support actually fare, compared to those that receive it?
This would be a basic question in any respectable ‘proper reseach’ programme, whatever the subject under scrutiny. There has to be information against which to evaluate the outcomes of intervention.
For instance, if we were conducting clinical research we might expect a ‘double-blind trial’; in other disciplines the ‘null hypothesis’ might be involved – essentially the assumption that there is no difference or effect until one is clearly demonstrated. But no equivalent comparator information seems to be forthcoming when the subject is the use of the public purse for enterprise investment.
Probably this is because business investors tend only to look at their own and similar portfolios; and most senior people involved in funding enterprise have in their previous lives been business investors. Not many social science or economic researchers are directly engaged at operational level in decisions about the distribution of large investment cheques from the public purse.
Perhaps investment specialists are better at business advice than they are likely to be at research? Probably so; but we don’t actually know, because we don’t have the comparative data by which to tell if their advice and guidance, or indeed their cheques, are effective: Few (if any) public funding bodies provide comparator information about investment proposals which were developed without public funding, or were turned down when they asked.
It may seem a strange idea; but there could be a case for obligatory induction courses in research methods for investment bankers who see a future for themselves in expending public monies on enterprise on our behalf. Perhaps it’s time to re-write the job spec?
Or maybe the real issue is, do those who scrutinise public investments of this sort understand the difference between Outcomes (what happens at the end of the process) and Evaluation (whether specific outcomes have actually been changed – and, if so how? – by the intervention/s)?
If the difference between outcome and evaluation is understood, it’s only a short step to seeing that what public investment programmes really need is benchmarking by external research, to show whether funding intervention really does in general improve outcome. Then we’ll know whether they’re value for money – which by common agreement must in the end be what it’s all about.
Health Services Or Public Transport, The Contractual Issues Are The Same.
PFI contracts are again in the news, as the London Underground Northern line grinds to a halt and no-one knows who to hold accountable. But what does this also tell us about private (and social entreprise) service provision which is bought in by NHS and Foundation Health Trusts? Private sector buy-in contracts need careful thought if they are to deliver what is expected, no more, no less. So who is going to provide this legal scrutiny?
”No-one, it seems, is in charge…. London Underground needs a simple line of control and responsibility and does not have it…. In truth the problem is not the involvement of profit-making companies in the underground, but the terms on which they are involved and at present these are failing badly.’ Thus runs the Guardian’s second editorial today.
Just two days ago (this website, NHS Contracts and Foundation Hospitals: Who has the Legal Expertise?) I predicted that issues around PFI would continue to run, and that the problems which have plagued PFI contracts would in all probablity also plague new Health Service arrangements. It didn’t take long to see that unfortunately there is indeed mileage in this prediction.
The NHS is now taking financial management very serously indeed. How long will it be before there is similar attention to matters contractual? Significant external commercial partnerships are a fairly new development in the NHS, which has almost always previously provided its own in-house services.
Much has been made of the political implications of private service providers being involved in the NHS, but I wonder whether the same reservations would be applied to social enterprise involvement? If the answer is No, social entreprise involvement is alright, but private sector provision is not, then perhaps we have our eyes at least partly on the wrong ball if we simply dismiss the idea of buy-in as such?
Given the complexities of modern technolgies and economies, does it matter where the service comes from, as long as it’s good, in budget, well-delivered and properly accountable and managed?
It’s the management and accountability issues which are critical – and it’s here that NHS and Foundation Trusts need to think very carefully. They are accountable, and they need to manage.
There are an awful lot of smart city lawyers out there. We must be sure some of them are on the public service side when it comes to negotiating health provision contractual arrangements.
NHS Contracts and Foundation Hospitals: Who has the Legal Expertise?
Is it actually the contracting out to private (or indeed social enterprise) suppliers for some NHS services which should be of most concern? Or is it the exact nature of the contracts agreed between NHS Trust Boards etc and their suppliers which requires the most scrutiny? There may be details here which make all the difference to what happens in the future….
Foundation Hospitals present us with a bewildering array of issues, on which much time and energy has been expended. There is one aspect of this development, and of the ‘contracting out’ of services in other NHS Trusts (to private suppliers, or indeed to social enterprises) which apparently perplexes me more than it does many others.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with ‘buying in’ at least some services, which for whatever reason an NHS Trust may not be able to provide; but there could be a problem if control of the service somehow thereafter eluded the Management of that Trust. Is this a medical or, rather, a legal matter?
How much training and expertise do public sector managers have in developing contracts with private companies? Is this a field in which most public sector staff could – or indeed until till now should? – have significant experience?
If a private contractor provides satisfactorily exactly the service which has been agreed, in the way and for the price agreed, perhaps there is no real problem; but is there a risk that sometimes this may not occur and either
(a) there will be no legal redress, or
(b) there could be loopholes which might enable the private contractor to have a hold on service provision which is greater than that envisaged?
In either of these cases there is the risk of compromise of the basic tenets of the NHS. Perhaps therefore it would be more useful to examine precisely what NHS Trusts and private suppliers agree, than to make a big thing of the idea of contracting out for specialist (or whatever) services as such. Some have suggested that these details were at base the ‘real’ problems with PFI. It is to be hoped, if so, that they are not repeated in the implementation of current proposals.
The devil, I suggest, is in the detail rather than in the ideas themselves. It will be interesting to see what specific expertise NHS managers acquire (or have already acquired) in these legal matters, as we move ahead. There is no doubt a tale or two as yet to be told about these complex propositions.
US Universities, Privatisation And ‘Intelligent Design’
Universities in the USA are increasingly funded by private interests. This has already raised curriculum concerns, especially for instance about ideas such as ‘Intelligent Design’. Anything which is at base an attack on scientific method and, indeed, rationality, should be watched very carefully indeed.
Public funding of universities in the USA has fallen further since 2001 than at any other time in the past two decades, according to the New York Times today (74% in 1991, 64% in 2004). Some university presidents are therefore becoming vocal in their concerns about ‘public higher education’s slow slide toward privatisation’.
The concern is in part that private funders set an agenda not always in tune with public universities’ wishes. These centre on teaching, autonomy in research and time spent securing private funding.
Could this be a particular problem in the context of so-called Intelligent Design? This is the notion, akin to ‘creationism‘, that somehow the human race has emerged in just a few thousand years, after being ‘designed’ by… who? Yet this unlikely thesis – with absolutely no credible basis in evidence or scientific theory – is increasingly being pressed upon American schools, for inclusion in their curricula. Apparently this is to ‘balance’ Darwinian theories of evolution.
Buying beliefs?
So what is the link with university funding? Well, presumably not all funders are scientifically well informed; such knowledge is by no means a necessary prerequisite of huge wealth or of a desire to influence what others know and learn.
Some observers of American science have wondered why more outstanding scientists do not speak out loud and clear about this attack – for such it is – on scientific method and, indeed, rationality. But the reason why seems clear: they don’t want to rock the boat when it comes to funding.
The price of academic autonomy
Never has there been a clearer case for academic autonomy, away from the beliefs of those who do not appreciate what sturdy, contestable peer review is all about. Peer scrutiny is not perfect – one is reminded of the slogan (was it Joseph Schumpeter’s?), ‘Two Cheers for Democracy!’ – but it is the best we can currently come up with, and all genuine universities need to continue to keep as far as possible from undue influence.
In the modern world of macro-economics not every bit of science can be influence-free. Creeping privatisation of public higher education is, however, one area where extreme caution is required.
Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital May Move To Widnes
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool has now formally announced that it may leave the city for Widnes, because of a local reluctance to supoprt plans for necessary expansion. Widnes doubtless has many attractions, but it cannot claim proximity to other internationally claimed medical institutions amongst them. Liverpool’s decision makers must wake up very soon indeed to the need to understand the critical importance of Big Science – which includes leading hospitals – to their local economy.
It’s now official: Liverpool’s Alder Hey Hospital, world leader in paediatric medicine, may have to move from Liverpool to Widnes because of local resistance to their plans to expand on the current site – even though there is a clear undertaking by the hospital to provide a well-planned and maintained ‘children’s health park’ within the extension proposals.
Let’s be clear. Alder Hey is NOT proposing that all the trees be cut down, and that they ruin a beautiful piece of parkland. The current park is truly nothing to be proud of; but the proposed new children’s health park would surely be. Indeed, it could, like its organisational base, be a shining example of how health, environment and education can come together.
Full marks to Widnes for spotting an opportunity which it seems has passed Liverpool by; but even Widnes itself presumably does not list amongst its attractions proximity to a world-class Medical School and the Royal Liverpool Teaching Hospital (see article on this website, 12 October).
Is Big Science also the last Big Secret, an invisible commodity which decision makers and planners at the local level just don’t see for what it is? Put together the budgets of the Royal, Alder Hey, the Medical School and, e.g., the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and you have a sum larger than that of many medium-sized towns – and an employment requirement which is hugely important to any local economy.
Let’s by all means assure local residents that they will get their trees back. (Maybe we also have to persuade the Council for the Protection of Rural England, who perhaps have a particular take here?) But let’s also show a bit of grown-up leadership.
Widnes can of course have its fair share of the deal – Alder Hey already has proposals for a number of service delivery sites around its area, called ‘Alder Hey at…’. Patient access is always a prime consideration; but that doesn’t just apply to Widnes.
In the end it’s in no-one’s interest to break up the personal and professional connections which have over the last several decades been carefully established by the practitioners working in Liverpool’s great hospitals and university.
It looks at present as though there is a lack of ‘scientific literacy’ of a very basic sort in the considerations of local decision makers. They don’t actually have to understand the science itself, but they certainly need to try very conscientiously to grasp the simple facts of scientific life: at base, there’s no synergy without connectivity – which includes opportunities on a day-to-day basis for outstanding medical scientists and practitioners to get together.
And, if this isn’t enough of an argument, who’s going to accept responsibility for the hundreds of less skilled hospital jobs which will go elsewhere, in one of the most disadvantaged parts of an already economically challenged city, when and if this absolutely unnecessary dispersal of international expertise occurs?
Can Digital Technology Meet The Challenges Of Social Inclusion?
New technology, particularly email and the worldwide web, has many benefits to offer almost everyone. But it fails to reach many who would find it useful, principally because of its complexities and unfamiliar style. Perhaps we need to think about a ‘Library of the Web’ as a way of offering a level of guarantee of acceptability in terms of content, and to adopt a Plain English Campaign-style approach to e-tech presentation.
There is plenty of evidence that the worldwide web has helped people to make contact across huge divides; but the debate continues (see Guardian letters today) about whether on overall balance it contributes, or does not contribute, to social inclusion.
Essentially, the most serious techno-divide seems not to be between people of different ages or of, e.g., different genders, but between those who are willing and able to get to grips with new technology and those who are not.
Email can be a great boon for people who are housebound, as well as home-workers and of course those in employment. Websites can provide the most amazing information. In every case however there has to be a facility in both the physical and the attitudinal senses.
We can make simple e-tech equipment for young children; why not also for people (some of them older, some with physical difficulties, or whatever) who have difficulties or concerns about using it?
We can ensure that what children read is acceptable and generally valid information. Can this not be done on some level, in terms of public information for everyone, about how to check what you are reading has some substance? Libraries on the whole manage to do this for the books they stock. What about a ‘Library on the Web’ of some sort, maybe at varying levels of provision?
Employment opportunities and training are quite rightly becoming much more accessible on line; so should opportunities for people to seek help with their health concerns, citizenship concerns and much else. These things do exist, but by no means as accessibly as many of us would like.
There is a widespread need to engage people who DON’T understand new technology in its production, when this is for general use, and especially when it’s intended as a public service. (We all pay for public service information; and there is anyway an irrefutable case for making sure we can all, or as many as will benefit from it, have genuine access to it.)
Much of e-tech is produced by people who find it difficult to see how perplexed many of the rest of us are by their language and modes of communication. The real challenge which faces them is to use their skills, at least for pubic domain e-content, to achieve the same level of presentational simplicity as that required, say, to operate domestic appliances or read a popular newspaper.
Social inclusion and entitlement continue to be pressing issues as the internet grows apace. Where is the equivalent of the Plain English Campaign, when it comes to the new technology?
What Priority For Liverpool Hospitals As Part Of The Northern Big Science Community?
Liverpool’s leading university hospitals are at risk of physical dispersal at exactly the same time that eight top universities across the North of England are trying to find ways to build their scientific synergies. The implications for Liverpool of the threat of dispersal seem so far not to be appreciated.
The news today is patchy. On one hand, we learn that the Northern Way has appointed an eminent cancer specialist to lead the N8 consortium, a scientific collaboration led by the University of Liverpool between eight universities from the North of England.
Called the Northern Research Partnership, the N8 consortium is a collaboration between Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York, which between them generate more than £620m per annum in research grants. N8 is concrete evidence that the three regional development agencies in the North of England are now actively getting their scientific act together.
Yet also today we read in the local paper that plans to expand the Royal Liverpool University Hospital on its present site – a project which has secured £500m of funding – may not be going ahead because the will is may not be there to find another way to take forward the local council’s £12m Hall Lane bypass scheme, which is part of the intended improvements to the City-M62 link route.
Add to this the apparent reluctance to secure huge improvements on their current site to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, and you do begin to wonder if the city understands that these hospitals are places of learning at the cutting edge of international research, as well of course as places where people can receive first class medical care.
It’s far less important for the future to allocate responsibility for who said what about these proposals, and when, than it is to find a way forward.
These hospitals need to be linked closely with the university and the Medical School; they need to nurture their community of practitioners; the ‘common room / photocopier’ effect is crucial here. If people at the cutting edge are dispersed, there is a danger that their impact will be likewise weakened; and there are also enormous implications here for investment and big business in Liverpool.
If eight universities across the whole of the North of England can recognise the benefits of getting together, surely there is a way, before it’s too late, that two hugely important Liverpool hospitals and a Medical School can be enabled in a much more intimate physical setting to do the same?
High Culture, Regeneration And The Legitimation Of Excellence
In some circles it is a given that High Culture is ‘inappropriate’ for ‘local people’. This is patronising. It dismisses the enjoyment the arts can bring to everyone, and ignores opportunities which the arts – as particularly visible public activities – can give for people to develop skills and even careers. Legitimation of ambition, in the arts or any other challenging positive activity, is important, regardless of where you live.
In a city such as Liverpool, there is for some a major issue about entitlement and appropriateness in respect of culture. It has on occasion been suggested that ‘high culture’ is not what should be on offer to local people, because they don’t / wouldn’t enjoy it.
This approach surely misses the point. Art must always be inclusive, but like many other activities, getting well acquainted requires patience and perseverance. All cities, and many smaller localities, need to offer every level and type of culture – and here is a challenge for developers as much as for community leaders and politicians – if they are to be true cultural centres, convincing and alive.
The case for a broad sweep in cultural provision is convincing. The argument that ‘high’ art is unnecessary because ‘people don’t want it’ is at best patronising, and at worst insulting, both to providers of that art and to its potential recipients. There must be opportunities for artists to offer their skills at the highest levels of achievement, alongside programmes which afford people engagement in the arts at lesser formal levels of skill (whether this be performing themselves, or listening / watching / looking at the work of others).
One of the challenges in this for regeneration is to find out how to knit together these opportunities, sometimes using the same human and cultural resources, and sometimes different ones, in a way which moves forward for all concerned. When this happens there will be more positive ‘artistic’ and professional role models for others in a given community to follow, which would help to ensure that local aspirations are high and that people from less-advantaged communities are not just left expecting the low-paid jobs.
Put another way, community perception of the art of the possible – expectations for the future – must include legitimation of the ambitious.
In the light of these considerations, perhaps there should be a re-emphasis within the questions above, at least to include these questions:
* How can decision-makers and leaders nurture formal arts and culture in places with limited understanding or appreciation of these?
* How would this impact in terms of enhancing engagement and opportunities for both arts practitioners and their ‘audiences’ / local people?
* What would be the cultural, social and economic synergies which follow from such enhancement and engagement?
Such questions in no way imply that everyone has to appreciate ‘high art’. What they might do is bring us to a greater consideration of the value of art and artists ‘for themselves’ as well as for what they can deliver in the normal sense of regeneration.
Regeneration plans must include artists directly, alongside all other partners. In including them directly we might even discover a new narrative to describe the meanings of ‘high art’, and what can come from it…
Dreaming Realist 