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Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Saturday 28 August
Report exposes hidden costs of community sentences over custody
Another Coalition policy is beginning to unravel, as independent commentators look more closely at the details. The internationally respected former Home Office criminologist, Professor Ken Pease, has shown that it will not be feasible to save money by releasing convicted prisoners from jail. According to Prison, Community Sentencing and Crime, not only does the available evidence suggest that offending will not be reduced, the Government's hope of cutting expenditure on prisons can only be achieved by ignoring the impact on victims of crime - costs that the Home Office itself has acknowledged and quantified.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01 hrs, Tuesday 24 August 2010
Practically irrelevant: 'vocational' qualifications in schools not fit for purpose
Third-rate courses wrongly presented as 'vocational', must go
Beneath the continuing rise in GCSE results lies a troubling truth about what is happening in schools. Forming part of the forthcoming publication, Unqualified Success: Investigating the state of vocational training in the UK, research from independent think tank Civitas finds that:
i. Students are being led away from basic academic subjects to learn how to serve drinks in Hospitality BTEC Firsts and to identify airport facilities in Travel and Tourism OCR Nationals;
ii. Even in compulsory academic subjects e.g. science, students are being entered for lower-level 'vocational' versions;
iii. The reputation and worth of vocational training is being heavily undermined as 'practically irrelevant' qualifications are mis-sold as 'vocational';
iv. Evidence suggests that an educational apartheid is underway as lower-income students are considerably more likely to be entered for sub-standard qualifications.
Media information: Immediate Release, 18 August 2010
Policy Briefing
Will Nick Clegg escape the Social Mobility Myths?
Peter Saunders (author of Social Mobility Myths, recently published by Civitas) responds to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's major speech in which he said 'promoting social mobility' is 'at the top of our social agenda'. Saunders praises Clegg for his 'fresh take' on social mobility, as he identifies poor parenting as part of the problem: 'Parents are "on the frontline" and must interest their children in education'.
However, Saunders is concerned about the appointment of former Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, as social mobility special adviser to the Government. According to Saunders, Milburn's appointment signals that more destructive and ineffective social engineering could still be on the way because Milburn's position on social mobility is deeply flawed.
- Full press release
- Click here to buy Social Mobility Myths.
Media information: Immediate Release, 03 August 2010
Crime Briefing
Latest International Comparison of Crime in OECD Countries
The UN affiliated European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control has recently published the most up-to-date international comparison of crime statistics. The figures are based on the UN Survey of Crime Trends (UN-CTS). In the past the UN only published comparisons for Europe and North America, but the latest report uses police-recorded crime for 2006 for many additional countries. However, because there are significant problems of comparability, Civitas has selected only those nations that belong to the OECD. Its members are more likely to have reliable national statistics agencies and to be accustomed to standardising information. It is frustrating that international comparisons are so far behind, but ironing out inconsistencies to ensure that we really are comparing 'like with like' simply takes a long time.
We know from comparisons with other EU members that crime in England and Wales is very high. In 2004 the European Union's Crime and Safety Survey looked at 18 countries and found that the UK was a 'crime hotspot', along with Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark. And in 2007 the latest Eurostat figures for the 27 EU members found that England and Wales had the third worst crime rate.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Monday 19 July 2010
Blasphemy is back!
'Hate' legislation threatens freedom of speech
Hate legislation removes an increasing quantity of matters traditionally dealt with in civil society to the domain of the state and the courts. In a new report from the independent think tank Civitas, A New Inquisition: religious persecution in Britain today, Jon Gower Davies, formerly the Head of Religious Studies at Newcastle University, reveals the bizarre and oppressive nature of judicial attempts to prosecute individuals for 'religious hatred' - this new legal concept has resulted in some singularly worrying court cases.
Jon Davies argues that the growth in accusations of 'hate crime' threatens freedom of speech because they destroy the possibility and practice of open, sociable and critical discussion of religion. In A New Inquisition, he shows why the liberal majority needs to reassert the convention that the law should be used not as a weapon to suppress unpopular opinions, but rather as the protector of free speech.
Media information: immediate release, 12 July 2010
Commentary on NHS White Paper
The coalition government today released its White Paper on the NHS. James Gubb, director of the health unit at independent social policy think-tank Civitas said:
The Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, should be congratulated on moves to introduce greater competition in the NHS by granting extra freedoms to foundation trusts, expanding choice for patients and supporting a genuine 'social market' through the introduction of meaningful competition law.
Recent evidence on the impact of the competition that already exists in the NHS suggests this is the right course of action to drive value in tight financial times.
However, moves to transfer responsibility for commissioning from PCTs to GPs universally and at such a rapid pace must be cause for concern...[continued]
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Saturday 10 July 2010
Lansley's plans could set the NHS back three years
Moves to transfer commissioning responsibility to GPs could cost the NHS its £20 billion efficiency savings target, and worse
The coalition government's White Paper on the NHS is due to be published next week. It is widely expected to outline plans to hand control of as much as £80 billion of resources in the NHS from Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to consortia of GPs.
Analysis by the independent think tank Civitas suggests such moves are likely to:
- Lead to at least a one year dip in performance in the NHS in absolute terms.
- Set the NHS back at least three years relative to what could be achieved without any structural change.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Monday 12 July 2010
Climate change policies risk major damage to the economic recovery
A newly published report from the independent think tank Civitas reveals that the increased costs of energy arising from 'green' energy policies are set to increase significantly. Increased costs will hurt manufacturing at a time when much depends on the sector to generate the economic growth the country needs, and to rebalance the economy.
In British Energy Policy And The Threat To Manufacturing Industry, Ruth Lea and Jeremy Nicholson examine the impact of the recent Labour Government's policy on energy prices. They argue that Labour's aim to reduce carbon emissions and increase the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources, significantly increased costs for energy consumers. Lea and Nicholson's analysis provides a timely warning because under the new Coalition Government, energy policy could be as damaging to manufacturing industry as it was under Labour.
CIVITAS POLICY NOTE
The Potential Consequences of Kenneth Clarke's Crime Policy
If Home Secretaries are judged by the amount of crime during their time in office then Kenneth Clarke must rank as the worst Home Secretary ever. He held the office from April 1992 to May 1993 when crime was higher than it had ever been before and has ever been since. It started to fall only when Clarke's policies were reversed by Michael Howard.
As Justice Secretary he now runs prisons, and from his comments this week he has learnt little from his time at the Home Office in the 1990s. He now argues for reducing the prison population by lowering the number of offenders sentenced to prison and reducing long sentences. Why, he asks, is the prison population twice what it was when he was last at the Home Office in 1993?
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01 Tuesday 01 June 2010
Britain IS socially mobile
New report slams 'social mobility myths'
Politicians from all parties say they are committed to the ideal of a 'meritocratic' society - they all want talented and hard-working people to succeed in life, irrespective of their social background. However, a new report from the independent think tank Civitas argues that many politicians are badly informed about the facts of social mobility in modern Britain. And because they don't know the facts, they support policies which are at best unnecessary, and at worst deeply damaging.
In Social Mobility Myths, Peter Saunders, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex, examines the evidence on social mobility in Britain and he exposes four 'social mobility myths' which distort debate and policy. According to Saunders, most politicians across all parties accept these myths, and thereofr commonly express their sense of outrage that a class-ridden, closed society is becoming even more class-ridden and even more closed.
Saunders sets out to convince the political class that much of what they believe (or say they believe) about social mobility in Britain is either false or more complicated than they think.
The bottom line is: we cannot hope to develop good policies if we ignore the key influence on the phenomenon we are hoping to change.
Media information: for immediate release: Thursday 29 April 2010
PCT funding formula 'adjusted' to the tune of £10billion
Extracting the truth about funding for health inequality
England is now in its 16th year of using an unscientific formula for funding NHS primary care trusts (PCTs). In a new report from Civitas, Formulas at war over two sorts of inequality in health funding, Mervyn Stone, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at University College London, examines the evidence presented by expert witnesses at a hearing of the Rural Services All-Party Parliamentary Group in February 2010. He argues that the current PCT-funding formula cannot be defended on any rational grounds.
Stone highlights that it was left for the Minister to 'cut and paste' the formula and to simply choose a figure:
Stone calls for the government to be obliged to publicly defend its decision to "adjust" the formula.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Monday 12 April 2010
Governments can, do and should 'pick winners'
To grow our way back to prosperity we need an effective industrial policy
A new book from the independent think tank Civitas, Prosperity With Principles, argues that at a time when we need economic growth more than at any point since the war, policy makers in all parties are still paralysed by doctrinal non-interventionism. Governments are in competition with each other for the location of industry, and so a Government that fails to create attractive conditions is committing economic suicide.
David Green, author of the book, argues:
'As the first country to industrialise and as one of the most prosperous nations in existence, we tend to see ourselves in a different light from developing nations. But the scale of industrial decline combined with the weakness of our public finances has made this attitude a luxury we can't afford. We should not, therefore, be too proud to learn from nations that have enjoyed rapid growth in recent years.' (p. 9.)
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Friday 9 April 2010
Climate-change policies threatening British jobs
The Government's preoccupation with 'green' energy policies sabotages the competitiveness of manufacturing industry
A new report from the independent think tank Civitas reveals that the increased costs of energy arising from the Government's 'green' energy policies are set to increase significantly.
In British Energy Policy And The Threat To Manufacturing Industry, Ruth Lea and Jeremy Nicholson examine the impact of Government policy on energy prices. They argue that the Government's aim to reduce carbon emissions and its interlinked objective of increasing the proportion of energy generated from renewable sources, are incurring significant costs on energy consumers.
As the economy struggles to emerge from the economic crisis of 2008-2009, it is widely assumed that the manufacturing sector will contribute positively to the general recovery and the rebalancing of the economy. Under these circumstances, the report calls on Government to ensure that manufacturing industries are supported by policies that help rather than hinder their competitiveness.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Saturday 27 March 2010
Balance of payments deficit could unravel Budget calculations
5% hole in the UK current account predicted
A new report from the independent think tank Civitas predicts a further deterioration of the UK current account balance.
In Prospects for the UK Balance of Payments, Cambridge University economists Robert Rowthorn and Ken Coutts present a previously uncalculated projection for the UK balance of payments in which they assume that:
- UK domestic spending will increase by 1.5% p.a. in 2010, 2.5% p.a. in 2011 and 3% thereafter;
- The real price of imported food will increase at 2% p.a. from 2010;
- UK energy imports will rise as the volume of UK North Sea oil production falls by 7% p.a. from 2010.
The authors predict that the UK deficit is likely to more than double from the 2009 rate of 2% of GDP to almost 5% in 2020. A current account deficit of that size would make untenable the plans of all political parties to reduce our huge national debt.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01hrs Monday 1 March 2010
NHS market failing to deliver widespread benefits shows comprehensive review of evidence
Lose-lose situation as market forces and central control jostle to be main lever of reform
As the debate over the future of a market in the NHS intensifies, the independent think tank Civitas releases the first comprehensive review of the evidence since the most recent policy overhaul in 2002. It illustrates that market forces have contributed to:
- Improved access for patients
- Reduced waiting times
- Increased efficiency and improved financial management in providers
However, benefits are not widespread:
Media information: Embargo 00.01am Monday 22 February 2010
Migrating away from reality
In 'Not 'challenging myths' but mythical challenges', UCL Emeritus Professor Mervyn Stone exposes the way in which political agendas are playing a significant role in the presentation of official statistics.
Nowhere does this politicisation apply more readily, Professor Stone argues, than on data relating to immigration.
Mervyn Stone urges 'detailed scrutiny and analysis' of statistical publications and says that it is of the utmost importance for statisticians to present data on immigration without misrepresenting the evidence for a political motive.
Ultimately, data need to be served raw, rather than 'cooked up' according to what's on the political menu.
Media information: immediate release (Friday 12 February 2010)
BMA campaign to shut out independent sector from NHS is misguided and foolhardy
The BMA today extend their 'Look After Our NHS' campaign, to stop commercially run firms providing NHS care and end the market in the NHS, to patients.
Leaflets will be distributed containing stories such as a 70-year-old lady who is forced to go to a treatment centre run by a private provider and suffers 'complications'.
The BMA are shamelessly politicising health care on cherry-picked evidence.
Media information: immediate release (Friday 12 February 2010)
Putting the UK back in business
The UK's current tax burden is jeopardising business and undermining our ability to escape from recession.
Unlike the rest of the world, the UK has raised, rather than reduced its burden on business.
Only businesses can provide the jobs, incomes and profits that allow taxes to be collected to pay for public services, so the UK must ensure that tax levels are conducive to companies' survival. After all, if businesses fail, there will be no tax revenue. In a new Civitas report, Richard Baron and Corin Taylor present a 'recession-proof' solution to get Britain back on track: reduce the corporation tax rate to 15% over a ten-year period.Media information: immediate release (Wednesday 27 January 2010)
On industrial policy political parties should turn back to Thatcher
Today's political leaders have a strong inclination to resist 'interfering' in the economy, but whoever wins the next election would do well to follow in the footsteps of their Thatcherite predecessors and get involved in industry.
Media information: embargo 0001hrs Monday 4 January 2010
The National Curriculum should guarantee a liberal education for all claims think-tank
The political controversies that rage around the school curriculum could be resolved if we re-committed ourselves to the ideal that dominated educational theory for over a century and a half: the provision of a liberal education for all.
Media information: embargo 0001hrs Friday 18 December 2009
Government's faltering commitment to competition will hurt the NHS
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 the NHS can no longer be run as a monolithic, top-down, monopoly provider... Patients will choose hospitals... [and] changes to the funding flows and incentives will enable all providers - public or private - who offer good quality and value for money to more easily provide services for NHS patients...'
With tight financial times ahead, creating the political space for this market to work is more important now than ever before.
But instead, Labour's five-year strategy for the NHS - NHS 2010-2015: from good to great - and accompanying Operating Framework for 2010/11, released this week, show a government mired in confusion and drawing back on seven years of reform for no apparent reason other than to please the TUC:
Media information: embargo 0001hrs Monday 14 December 2009
Academies' 'success' a sham? Survey exposes dumbing down at flagship schools
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 the basis of 'GCSE' results which are improving at 'over twice the rate' of other state schools. But new evidence, in a report from the independent think-tank Civitas, The Secrets of Academies' Success, raises serious doubts over whether Academies are in reality all they have been cracked up to be.
Media information: immediate release (Monday 23 November 2009)
700 medical students join new society to debate future of health care
'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 author of the bestselling medical textbook Clinical Medicine, said:
'I have always been unhappy about the knowledge medical students have of the NHS. We often rely on enlightened tutors giving students informal chats about their future working lives within the health service. It's refreshing now to see the lead being taken by students themselves.'
Media information: embargo 00.01am Monday 17th August 2009
100% of A-level teachers think rise in A grades NOT down to more able students, survey reveals
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 more able students
- Only 4% think better quality teachers are the main reason for an increase in A grades at A-level
Instead, the findings show that 80% of teachers who expressed a view think they themselves would have achieved higher overall grades had they taken today's A-levels - and just 15% think they would have achieved the same set of A-level grades.
Media information: immediate release, Friday 14 August 2009
President Obama should look to Europe, not the NHS
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 of people who will have received world-class health care from the NHS and its staff and - as the Twitter campaign £welovethenhs shows - are very grateful for it. - The NHS is not 'loved more than words can say' (Sarah Brown), nor is it a service where 'quality is as good as anywhere in the world; and where outcomes are as good as anywhere in the world' (Andrew Lansley).
In an individual ward or hospital this claim may stand up, but across the board it does not. The evidence suggests European health systems outperform both the NHS and the US. (see table below)
'The NHS is neither deity nor dinosaur' said James Gubb, Director of the Civitas Health Unit, 'but if the United States is serious about health reform and providing universal coverage, it should look to Europe, where systems are more competitive, responsive and patient-led than the NHS; and where coverage is based on insurance, not taxation.'
Media information: EMBARGO, Thursday 30 July 2009
Revolution in culture required to stop NHS failing as collection of businesses
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'.
Media information: immediate release, Monday 20 July 2009
EHRC report on social housing allocation to immigrants
relied on invalid statistical reasoning
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.
Media information: EMBARGO 00.01am Monday 20 July 2009
Britain still makes things - but we need to make far more!
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 the decline of manufacturing and how these could be reversed.
Media information: EMBARGO 00.01am Monday 29 June 2009
Sharia courts should not be recognised under the Arbitration Act
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 values of the Enlightenment and are inherent in modern codes of human rights. Sharia rulings contain great potential for controversy and may involve acts contrary to UK legal norms and human rights legislation (p.11).
Media information: EMBARGO 00.01am Monday 15 June
Honesty and truth sidelined in government policy-making says think-tank
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 or she gets from policy-making civil servants within the department but also from any advisory committee set up by the minister (p.1). The recommendations of these committees result in allocations of very large sums of public money, and yet we are denied basic information about how their recommendations are arrived at:
- We do not know who was asked to tender for the contract
- We do not know why the successful bidder was chosen, nor why the unsuccessful ones were turned down
- It is therefore impossible to evaluate the policies adopted against alternatives
Media information: EMBARGO 00.01am Monday 11 May
New version of Empire Day in schools called for to promote social cohesion
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 promising approach would be to teach about the British Empire, and in particular the role played by colonial troops in the defeat of Fascism during the Second World War:
Media information: immediate release, 5 May 2009
From Two Cultures to No Culture
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 the two groups to communicate. Snow complained that literary intellectuals were not only ignorant of science but contemptuous of it, as if scientific knowledge were unnecessary for a good education. Snow believed that improvements in the teaching of science were required in order to address the world's greatest problems, and that both the USA and the USSR were ahead of Britain in that respect.
Media information: EMBARGO 00.01am Friday 20 February
Music, chess, Shakespeare, cricket and Harry Potter banned on fundamentalist Muslim schools' websites
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 Britain and their links.
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01am Saturday 7th February 2009, marking Marriage Week UK (7th-14th February)
Marriage today: I do - if I can afford it
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 on the other', commented Anastasia de Waal, Director of Family and Education. 'In short, it's a case of "I do - but I won't judge what you do".'
Media information: EMBARGO: 00.01am Friday 2 January 2009
End tax and benefit churning: let people keep their own money
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.