Ken Boston, former head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), may not be the man we look to for wisdom on running independent exam watchdogs. Boston famously resigned from his job of overseeing exam boards and qualifications, for the QCA’s lax role in the primary school Sats tests which came to a head last summer.
In all the talk about what the NHS is going to have to do with its tighter budgets one thing seems to be missing: the underlying culture of the organisation (or, more accurately the organisations that make it up). Discussion is focused on structures, processes and levers that the NHS has, or doesn’t have, at… [Read More]
Harriet Harman claims that women earn on average 22.6% less per hour than men and takes it for granted that this difference is the result of discrimination against women by men. And yet the Government’s own figures support no such conclusion. Read on at the Daily Telegraph Blog
According to a report in yesterday’s Times, among the recommendations in the about-to-be-published final report of the Rose review of primary education is one calling for primary schools to teach their pupils to ‘recognise when to use formal language, including standard spoken English’.
The US magazine, Time, wrote in October 1951 that morality in public service was probably higher in Britain than anywhere else in the world. The way that the moralistic Labour Party in Attlee’s day regarded even the suspicion of a Labour MP personally milking public life for his or her own benefit was illustrated by… [Read More]
Far be it from me to say a bad word about the institution of marriage or the benefits of the two-parent family. However, anyone tempted to hold the vast recent increase of family break-down and single parent families in Britain responsible for the country’s very low place in the European rankings for youth well-being should… [Read More]
The EU will host a conference this week to discuss plans to tackle piracy in the waters off the East Coast of Africa. Pirate attacks in the area have recently hit the International headlines because the desired booty is no fool’s gold – it is vast and valuable cargoes, and often crew.
Just to support the point being made on this blog yesterday, today the British Medical Journal runs this in their editorial: ‘One problem with implementing evidence based medicine is, of course, that the evidence keeps changing. An important recent example is the mounting evidence that ever tighter glucose control in people with type 2 diabetes… [Read More]
A few weeks ago the DH released the conclusions of its consultation on the Quality and Outcomes Framework in general practice – a series of clinical guidelines GPs are expected to meet that is linked to c.20 per cent of their income. Predictably, the responsibility for its evidence-base is being turned over to NICE: a… [Read More]
In just over a week’s time, Alistair Darling announces his budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates there is currently a £39 billion hole in public finances fixable only by massive tax rises or equally big public-spending cuts. Since the Government faces a general election in the next year or so, it can safely be… [Read More]