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| France Returns Egyptian Art During a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy handed back the last of five stolen Egyptian relics that ended up in a French museum. The handover closes only one chapter in an international dispute over the recovery of ancient artifacts. www1.voanews.com |
Greece to vote on big budget cuts The Greek parliament votes later on emergency budget cuts designed to lower the country's high debt levels. news.bbc.co.uk |
Ken Clarke: Tories are ready to put up taxes to cut the deficit Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke declares it would be "folly" to rule out tax rises if Tories win the general election. telegraph.co.uk |
International Relief Operations Under Way in Haiti UN says aid agencies working under severe constraints; most people in Haiti have had no food for couple of days www1.voanews.com |
In defence of box-ticking | Peter Preston It may be unfashionable to say so, but targets have repeatedly been shown in fact to workIt's a refrain sung zealously in every walk of public service life. Schools, hospitals, policing ... even Doncaster's truly dreadful social work debacle can't be let pass without David Cameron Âberating the "rules" that "professionals are told to follow, rather than doing what they think is best". Yes, we're in back-office world again, the world of administrators, form fillers, exam testers – and targets. The world where painless cuts may somehow magically be made as control potters down the line from Whitehall and nestles in the snug heart of "community".Nobody meaningful anywhere on the political spectrum dissents from community sanctification these days, and a mighty chorus of assumed voter approval sings descant. Write an occasional word in favour of targets and you're swamped by blogs from the Âprofessionals involved, telling horror stories about ticks in stupid boxes. The time of target culture seems long gone.And yet, here is a five-year inquiry by the Economic and Social Research Council which shows that, yes, targets do work. And here's a walloping survey from the Nuffield Trust looking at NHS performance in England, where targets still rule the roost, and devolved Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, where they don't. And yet again, targets work.Scotland employs more hospital medical and dental staff per 1,000 of its population, yet delivers fewer outpatient appointments than England or Wales, significantly fewer inpatient admissions than England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and significantly fewer day cases than England and Northern Ireland. England – time and again – makes less money and fewer resources go far further in treatment and patient care than the devolved bits of the UK, the ones that have gone soft on targeting.England has public reporting on standards, NHS ratings, the Care Quality Commission – all designed, Nuffield says, to produce "strong performance management" that "penalises failure and rewards success". There is no equivalent pressure in the devolved nations.The reaction to Nuffield last week seemed glumly predictable. Scotland didn't merely dispute some of the figures, but said it was different because it was, well, Scotland. Doctors complained that waiting times and the rest were no guide to quality of outcome, and therefore irrelevant and misleading; or would have been if the outcomes themselves had been better. In short, targets get the shortest shrift.But try to deal in lessons learned rather than violent swings of the political pendulum. Of course some targets are dotty. Maintaining Ofsted school attendance standards with snow deep on the ground was idiotic. Allowing social service departments to answer questions on paper without seeing what they do or don't do on the spot is daft. Yet examples like these make the case for better invigilation, not no invigilation at all. Too much of the pre-electoral rush to rubbish Sats finds politicians in search of votes listening to teachers brandishing voting forms. Far too many of the cries to get coppers out on the beat come from forces that dislike keeping data, because the data says very little reassuring about their performances.And communities aren't much of a help when hard decisions have to be made. Doncaster? It elected a mayor from the far right of English nationalism. It chose a kind of chaos. Obesity ops on the NHS? This is the kind of Âdecision that can vary from trust to trust, depending on local circumstances: except communities don't like it when they do. One bout of local democracy is the county next door's reviled postcode lottery, part of a racking debate that will never end – especially if the outcome of the next big vote goes back to target square one. The research says no. The facts say no. But who needs facts when moral rot comes so much more easily?Public services policyNHSPeter Prestonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |