As is often the case in Welsh politics it takes an outsider to cut through the crap and tell it like it is, the latest example is The Economist’s Bagehot with his take on Lib Dem and Labour on education policy.
The article points out that for all the Lib Dem talk of the lack of cash the real problem with the pitiful state of Welsh Education is down to Labour Welsh Government Minister’s policies of scrapping league tables to please the teaching unions that donate a lot of money to the party.
Bagehot writes ‘Trust me, in education and public sector reform circles, the self-inflicted Welsh education debacle is famous, the stuff of dinner-table conversation.
Yet Mr Clegg gives the malevolent lefties of the Welsh devolved government a free pass, and blames it all on the improbable idea that Gordon Brown did not spend enough during his years in charge of the nation's purse strings.
And goes on to say ‘But it was a passage on schools that really stands out. Mr Clegg asked local MPs, members of the devolved Welsh Assembly and councillors to contemplate Labour's sorry legacy on education, noting that Welsh examination results lag markedly behind the rest of the country:
That is Labour’s legacy to the children of Wales and I’m proud you’re putting it right. Labour has let the spending gap between pupils in England and pupils in Wales grow every year since the assembly was established. And the results are there for all to see. Worse GCSE results than English pupils. Worse A-Level results than English pupils. Leaving Welsh young people with fewer chances and worse prospects than those in England. Education used to be something Wales could be proud of. But under Labour standards have slipped back and back and back. Labour should be ashamed
Mr Clegg knows this is nonsense. Labour did many things for state education, some bad and some good, in 13 years in office at Westminster. But one thing that Labour undoubtedly did was test to destruction the idea that throwing money at schools magically improves academic outcomes. In a single decade, Labour almost doubled school spending per pupil. Yet in international studies such as the PISA tests, English school results stagnated while others surged ahead. Only about half of English pupils achieve a decent pass in English and maths examinations for 16 year olds, despite years of systematic dumbing-down of those examinations. In Singapore, the proportion is four in five.
Worse, Welsh exam results fell so precipitously during the Labour era that academics from elsewhere flocked to the principality to investigate what had gone wrong. They discovered not a funding gap but a man-made crisis triggered by Welsh politicians, who bowed to bullying from teachers' unions and scrapped examination league tables.
By scrapping league tables, and thus denying Welsh parents the ability to see how different local schools were performing, Welsh politicians offered educationalists a remarkable controlled experiment. With league tables in place across England but ditched in Wales, and with Welsh and English pupils sitting the same public examinations, scholars were able to test the hypothesis that publishing exam data improves results. They found not just a bit of evidence, but rock-solid evidence.'
Kirsty and the Lib Dems made much of their pupil premium when supporting Labour’s budget before Christmas, in the cold light of day it perhaps wasn’t the great leap forward for education in Wales the spin suggests.
The full article is here and well worth a read, now if only Welsh journalists were capable of blowing holes in the Welsh Government’s policies like this on a regular basis, we might have more accountable, responsive Government Ministers and a more engaged electorate here in Wales.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Welfare reforms will hit Wales hard, so what are the Welsh Government gonna do about it?
This week saw the publication of a report for the Welsh Government off the impact on Wales of the Conservative/Lib Dem welfare reforms and it's no surprise that the report stated large numbers of welsh families dependent on all types of benefits from Job Seekers Allowance and Incapacity Benefit to Child Benefit and Tax Credits will be significantly worse off as a result of the changes.
So my question is what are the Welsh Government going to do apart from complain bitterly and call the Tories and Lib Dems names to help people, families and businesses who will struggle to make ends meet, pay bills, create jobs and the like in the coming months and years?
The summary of the findings are below and the full report is here
Wales has a higher dependence on welfare benefits than Great Britain as a whole. The latest statistics (for May 2011) show that 18.4 per cent of the working-age population in Wales were claiming welfare benefits compared to the Great Britain average of 14.5 per cent. The main reason for the higher benefit claimant rate in Wales is the higher proportion of people claiming disability and sickness benefits.
Stage 1 of the analysis has largely drawn on existing evidence published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which has assessed the combined impact of the tax and benefit changes announced by the Coalition Government. To our knowledge, there is currently very limited evidence on the cumulative impact of the benefit changes in isolation, and particularly at a Wales level. However, this will be considered as part of Stage 2, which we currently anticipate will be completed around the end of 2012.
The ultimate effects of the welfare reforms will largely depend on the strength of the wider economy and the extent to which people change their behaviour in response to benefit reductions. Although existing analysis is mostly static in nature in that it does not attempt to estimate likely behavioural responses, it is a useful starting point. Stage 2 will try to estimate the likely behavioural responses including how these responses may change depending on a range of scenarios for the economy in Wales.
Analysis from the IFS following the Spending Review 2010 estimates that the impact of the tax and benefit changes to be implemented by 2014–15 will mean that on average households in Wales can expect to lose 4.1 per cent of their income (or £1,110 per year). This compares to a UK average loss of 3.8 per cent (or £1,170 per year). Variations in the impact of the tax and benefit reforms across countries and regions in the UK are due to differences in the characteristics of households.
Out of the 12 UK regions and countries analysed by the IFS, households in Wales are expected to have the fifth largest average cash loss, although this is less than the average cash loss for the UK as a whole. This is because the overall cash loss for the UK is skewed upwards by some very large cash losses for the very richest households, a disproportionate share of which are located in London. However, the average loss as a percentage of income is estimated to be greater in Wales than the UK as a whole. This is because average incomes are lower in Wales than in the UK. 4 Analysing the impact of the UK Government’s welfare reforms in Wales: Summary of the key findings
The IFS note that the tax and benefit changes to be implemented over the next several years will be regressive in nature at the UK level (i.e. they will take more proportionately from lower-income groups than from higher-income groups except the very richest income group), and are likely to be even more regressive in Wales.
Looking at the proportion of the population claiming out-of-work benefits together with the distribution of low-income households in Wales suggests that the South Wales Valleys and the inner city areas of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea are most likely to be disproportionately impacted by the benefit changes.
Recently extended IFS analysis (which includes measures announced in the Autumn Statement 2011) estimates the impact of the tax and benefit reforms on different household types (at a UK level). Families with children are expected to lose proportionately more of their income across the income distribution compared to pensioner households and working-age households without children. Furthermore, the poorest households with children are estimated to lose the largest proportion of their income as a result of the tax and benefit changes. In particular, non-working lone parents and workless couples with children are expected to suffer a disproportionate financial hit. Families with children aged under five and families with more than two children will also be particularly badly affected.
The IFS has also analysed the impact on poverty of the tax and benefit reforms announced by the Coalition Government up until summer 2011. This suggests that the reforms will raise poverty among families with children more than among working-age adults without children. Furthermore, as announced in the Autumn Statement 2011, the above-inflation increase in the child element of Child Tax Credit will not go ahead, meaning more bad news for families in Wales. Both the IFS and HM Treasury estimate an increase in UK relative child poverty of around 100,000 in 2012–13. Based on proportionate shares adjusted for differences in poverty, the Welsh Government provisionally estimates that the tax and benefit reforms could increase relative child poverty in Wales by about 6,000 in 2012–13.
So my question is what are the Welsh Government going to do apart from complain bitterly and call the Tories and Lib Dems names to help people, families and businesses who will struggle to make ends meet, pay bills, create jobs and the like in the coming months and years?
The summary of the findings are below and the full report is here
Wales has a higher dependence on welfare benefits than Great Britain as a whole. The latest statistics (for May 2011) show that 18.4 per cent of the working-age population in Wales were claiming welfare benefits compared to the Great Britain average of 14.5 per cent. The main reason for the higher benefit claimant rate in Wales is the higher proportion of people claiming disability and sickness benefits.
Stage 1 of the analysis has largely drawn on existing evidence published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which has assessed the combined impact of the tax and benefit changes announced by the Coalition Government. To our knowledge, there is currently very limited evidence on the cumulative impact of the benefit changes in isolation, and particularly at a Wales level. However, this will be considered as part of Stage 2, which we currently anticipate will be completed around the end of 2012.
The ultimate effects of the welfare reforms will largely depend on the strength of the wider economy and the extent to which people change their behaviour in response to benefit reductions. Although existing analysis is mostly static in nature in that it does not attempt to estimate likely behavioural responses, it is a useful starting point. Stage 2 will try to estimate the likely behavioural responses including how these responses may change depending on a range of scenarios for the economy in Wales.
Analysis from the IFS following the Spending Review 2010 estimates that the impact of the tax and benefit changes to be implemented by 2014–15 will mean that on average households in Wales can expect to lose 4.1 per cent of their income (or £1,110 per year). This compares to a UK average loss of 3.8 per cent (or £1,170 per year). Variations in the impact of the tax and benefit reforms across countries and regions in the UK are due to differences in the characteristics of households.
Out of the 12 UK regions and countries analysed by the IFS, households in Wales are expected to have the fifth largest average cash loss, although this is less than the average cash loss for the UK as a whole. This is because the overall cash loss for the UK is skewed upwards by some very large cash losses for the very richest households, a disproportionate share of which are located in London. However, the average loss as a percentage of income is estimated to be greater in Wales than the UK as a whole. This is because average incomes are lower in Wales than in the UK. 4 Analysing the impact of the UK Government’s welfare reforms in Wales: Summary of the key findings
The IFS note that the tax and benefit changes to be implemented over the next several years will be regressive in nature at the UK level (i.e. they will take more proportionately from lower-income groups than from higher-income groups except the very richest income group), and are likely to be even more regressive in Wales.
Looking at the proportion of the population claiming out-of-work benefits together with the distribution of low-income households in Wales suggests that the South Wales Valleys and the inner city areas of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea are most likely to be disproportionately impacted by the benefit changes.
Recently extended IFS analysis (which includes measures announced in the Autumn Statement 2011) estimates the impact of the tax and benefit reforms on different household types (at a UK level). Families with children are expected to lose proportionately more of their income across the income distribution compared to pensioner households and working-age households without children. Furthermore, the poorest households with children are estimated to lose the largest proportion of their income as a result of the tax and benefit changes. In particular, non-working lone parents and workless couples with children are expected to suffer a disproportionate financial hit. Families with children aged under five and families with more than two children will also be particularly badly affected.
The IFS has also analysed the impact on poverty of the tax and benefit reforms announced by the Coalition Government up until summer 2011. This suggests that the reforms will raise poverty among families with children more than among working-age adults without children. Furthermore, as announced in the Autumn Statement 2011, the above-inflation increase in the child element of Child Tax Credit will not go ahead, meaning more bad news for families in Wales. Both the IFS and HM Treasury estimate an increase in UK relative child poverty of around 100,000 in 2012–13. Based on proportionate shares adjusted for differences in poverty, the Welsh Government provisionally estimates that the tax and benefit reforms could increase relative child poverty in Wales by about 6,000 in 2012–13.
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