Press Releases
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Press Releases from 2009
Government's Faltering Commitment to Competition Will Hurt the NHS
18 December 2009
The NHS will not meet its productivity challenge while the government continues to back away from using markets and competition, according to a new report from the independent think tank Civitas, Markets in health care. In its 2002 command paper, Delivering the NHS Plan, the government adopted a new paradigm that choice and competition was the means to a more efficient and responsive service: 'If it is to better respond to the needs of patients…
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Academies' 'Success' a Sham? Survey Exposes Dumbing Down at Flagship Schools
14 December 2009
New survey uncovers alarming evidence that deprived young people are being short-changed by Academies Only 43% of the 40 Academies that participated in the survey were willing to disclose the subjects and qualifications their students had been entered for at GCSE Evidence strongly suggests Academies are reluctant to reveal that students are being pushed into less challenging subjects and qualifications to drive up headline results Both government and the Tories are extolling Academies on…
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700 Medical Students Join New Society to Debate Future of Health Care
23 November 2009
'Young Civitas for Medics', a new society founded by medical students for medical students, is formally launched today with the help of the independent social policy think-tank Civitas. Young Civitas for Medics (www.ycfm.org.uk) aims to plug a gap in the medical curriculum by providing an open and impartial arena for students to learn how the NHS works and debate the future of health policy. Professor Parveen Kumar, President of YCfM and…
100% of A-Level Teachers Think Rise In a Grades Not Down to More Able Students, Survey Reveals
17 August 2009
Senior A-level teachers speak out on why today's A-level grades are rising As the number of A grades achieved is set to rise again when results are released later this week, a report from independent think-tank Civitas, Straight A's?, based on a nationwide survey of 150 randomly selected senior A-level teachers, reveals that: 0% of A-level teachers surveyed think that the increase in A grades is down to…
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President Obama Should Look to Europe, Not the NHS
14 August 2009
Debate on US health care needs realism, not propaganda. The claims by both sides in the emerging furore on US health system reform and the value of government-run systems such as the NHS are clouded in ideology and misrepresentation, according to independent think tank Civitas. The NHS is not 'evil' (Sarah Palin), nor leaves the old and disabled "to die" (IBD), nor something 'not to be wished on anyone' (Daniel Hannan). There are plenty…
Revolution In Culture Required to Stop NHS Failing As Collection of Businesses
30 July 2009
The NHS follows every known rule that guarantees failure in the business world, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. NHS organisations are keeping the 'Ten Commandments of Business Failure', first drawn up by Donald R. Keough, the past president and former CEO of the Coca-Cola Company, that 'so consistently lead to failure they should be written in stone'.1 In Putting Patients Last: How the NHS keeps the ten commandments…
Britain Still Makes Things - But We Need to Make Far More!
20 July 2009
Manufacturing still plays a significant role in the economy, and should receive more encouragement from public policy, instead of being written off as irrelevant to a modern nation. Writing in Nations Choose Prosperity, a group of industrialists, trade unionists and academics band together to call for a renewal of manufacturing. Brought together by Ruth Lea, contributors include trade unionist Brendan Barber, manufacturer Alan Reece, and Cambridge economist Professor Bob Rowthorn. They consider the consequences of…
EHRC Report on Social Housing Allocation to Immigrants Relied on Invalid Statistical Reasoning
20 July 2009
The claim of a report published 7th July by the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) - to have demonstrated that there is 'no bias in allocation of social housing to immigrants' - has been shown to be baseless by independent academic analysis. According to a leading statistical analyst, Professor Mervyn Stone of University College London, the figures that EHRC has disseminated as if they were evidence for the claim are of zero inferential value. The report…
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Sharia Courts Should Not Be Recognised Under the Arbitration Act
29 June 2009
Sharia courts should not be recognised under Britain's 1996 Arbitration Act, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. According to Denis MacEoin, author of Sharia Law or 'One Law For All'?, sharia courts operating in Britain may be handing down rulings that are inappropriate to this country because they are linked to elements in Islamic law that are seriously out of step with trends in Western legislation that derive from the…
Honesty and Truth Sidelined In Government Policy-Making Says Think-Tank
15 June 2009
The government is accused of sidelining honesty and truth in some of its major policy-making decisions in a new report from independent think-tank Civitas into the way that statistical evidence is collected and deployed. In Failing to Figure, Mervyn Stone, emeritus professor of statistics at University College, London, demonstrates how 'a minister sitting at the top of his departmental pyramid' can put a blanket of confidentiality not only over all the advice he…
New Version of Empire Day In Schools Called For to Promote Social Cohesion
11 May 2009
British history and culture, taught in the English language, should be privileged in schools A new version of Empire Day, celebrated in all schools throughout the British Empire for over half-a-century, is needed to promote social cohesion in schools today, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. In Disunited Kingdom David Conway argues that, if the government is looking for ways in which to promote social cohesion through schools, one…
From Two Cultures to No Culture
5 May 2009
The fiftieth anniversary of one of the most celebrated lectures of the twentieth century is being marked by Civitas with the publication of a collection of essays entitled From Two Cultures to No Culture. On 7 May 1959 C.P. Snow delivered a lecture in Cambridge entitled 'The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution'. Snow warned of a gap that had opened up between scientists and the 'literary intellectuals' that made it almost impossible for…
Music, Chess, Shakespeare, Cricket and Harry Potter Banned on Fundamentalist Muslim Schools' Websites
20 February 2009
Men are more intelligent than women, children told Think-tank calls for vetting of Muslim schools to eliminate fundamentalists Some Muslim schools are threatening the social cohesion of Britain by promoting a fundamentalist version of Islam that encourages children to despise the British society in which they live and to confine themselves to enclaves. In Music, Chess and Other Sins, Denis MacEoin presents the findings of his study of websites belonging to Muslim schools in…
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Marriage Today: I Do - If I Can Afford It
7 February 2009
The recession will take a toll on marriage - but the aspiration is alive and well, finds data analysis from the independent think tank Civitas marking the first day of Marriage Week UK. A broadminded attitude amongst the young towards other people's decisions about marriage shouldn't be mistaken for a modern indifference to getting married. 'What we have in the UK today are "traditional" personal aspirations on the one hand, with liberalised social norms…
End Tax and Benefit Churning: Let People Keep Their Own Money
2 January 2009
Many middle-income families receive almost exactly the same amount in benefits and public services as they pay in taxes, according to a new report from independent think-tank Civitas. In Individualists Who Co-operate, David Green argues that instead of taking away with one hand and giving back with another, the Government should let us keep our hard-earned income and make our own arrangements with our own money. If you earn slightly above…