Two stories have been reported in the media over the past two days, that can be taken at the macro level as an indictment of government policy, or at the micro level, as a great boon to individual beneficiaries.
One yesterday from the Audit Commission criticised the instability of funding and the administrative burden of bidding for funds and managing funds on work with disaffected young people, including young offenders. The Government hit back saying that this was unfair on youth workers who did a marvellous job. I couldn't help thinking that both were right - particularly having evaluated a project for young offenders in the Midlands last year that had just lost its funding. The funding systems and the accountability that go with them are a nightmare, and must distract from the fundamental purpose of work in this area - to re-engage and inspire disaffected young people and get them ready to make a positive contribution to society. Individual workers do resent this funding hash, and do their wonderful work despite it, not as a result of it. On the project I evaluated, I spoke to the youth workers on the day they received their P45s, but all were positive about the work they had done, and some were still seeing clients that day as well.
Today the Public Accounts Committee have said that an unacceptably high number of people in England cannot read, write or count properly, and Ministers have defended their record of having pumped huge amounts of funds into Skills for Life in an attempt to redress this. At an individual level, they reckon that something over 1 million people have benefited. Again through various evaluations I have done in Plymouth and for Investors in People, I have been lucky enough to meet individuals who have benefited from Skills for Life, and heard their stories about how it has changed their lives.
So much as it pains me to say it, I have to defend the politicians on that one, and say their activities, delivered by dedicated workers on the ground, have made a big difference. However, the size of the task is immense and the funding and measuring rules that have been put in place have not been helpful and teachers and trainers all say that the tools they have to use to do the job do not meet everyone's needs apart from the funding regimes.
Ah - is there a link there? Good work being done, but could be done better if the funding rules were not quite so silly? The balance between doing good with public funds and being seen to purchase the right things with public funds inevitably brings perverse outcomes if it is not totally right. I am not sure that the right balance has ever been achieved. Perhaps that might be worth a study, carefully funded of course, and with a suitable procurement process...
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