Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables and Boxes
- Glossary
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1 A Book about Corruption in Schools
- 2 A Scandalous Schooling Muddle
- 3 Reforming Public Infrastructure
- 4 Costly Measures
- 5 Market Mentalities and Malpractices
- 6 The Effects of Effectiveness
- 7 Secrecy, lies and Gaming
- 8 Rebuilding Organisational Infrastructure
- 9 A Public Good Agenda for Change
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
9 - A Public Good Agenda for Change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables and Boxes
- Glossary
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- 1 A Book about Corruption in Schools
- 2 A Scandalous Schooling Muddle
- 3 Reforming Public Infrastructure
- 4 Costly Measures
- 5 Market Mentalities and Malpractices
- 6 The Effects of Effectiveness
- 7 Secrecy, lies and Gaming
- 8 Rebuilding Organisational Infrastructure
- 9 A Public Good Agenda for Change
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The academy boss who ‘totally disagrees with academies’
Times Educational Supplement, 30 March 2018Headteacher bans ‘ridiculous’ SATs tests
The Independent, 19 May 2017Let's go back to the future with co-operative schools – and leave grammars in the past
The Guardian, 15 November 2016Teacher who won £1m will use windfall to get artists into schools
The Guardian, 26 June 2018Our schools are beyond breaking point – where is the outrage?
The Guardian, 22 April 2019In November 2017, a civil service review entitled Delivering Better Outcomes for Citizens: Practical Steps for Unlocking Value addressed efficiency in governing, just as many reviews had done before. Led by ‘deliverology’ expert Sir Michael Barber, the report headlined the importance of public value. Public value is a ‘good’ defined as public money ‘translated into outputs and outcomes which improve people's lives and economic wellbeing’. The key challenge to achieving public value was described as shifting the civil service from focusing on inputs and activities to outputs – again.
Barber's introduction to the report lays out the benefits of a public value productivity approach:
The United Kingdom spends approximately £800 billion every year, around 40 per cent of GDP. If government were able to maximise the ‘good’ this sum delivered, if public services were consistently of high quality, if markets were always effectively regulated, if opportunities for innovation were seized, if risks and threats were well-managed, then social mobility would be enhanced, opportunity would be opened up, the country as a whole would be more productive and many, many more people would lead more fulfilling and productive lives. And these gains could be delivered without raising or spending a single extra pound. In short, the potential prize for ordinary people from enhancing government productivity is huge. To maximise the ‘good’ that government can do in this way demands that government and public services demonstrate their productivity and set out systematically to improve these.
Barber addresses many of the concerns that appear in this book: waste of public funds, the inequities produced through market competition, poor management of risks.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- School ScandalsBlowing the Whistle on the Corruption of Our Education System, pp. 193 - 218Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2020