I am quite a fan of Martin Lewis. I think he helps consumers stand up to big financial institutions, and arms them with clear information about both their rights and their responsibilities. I am not, though, a fan of his appointment as seller of tuition fees.
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Martin Lewis
Firstly it’s politicians’ jobs to sell policies they support. Secondly, treating tuition fees as equivalent to the cost of “two pints and some crisps” demeans a good education and undermines it as something worth working at, striving for and paying for. And thirdly, the policy is a done deal, and it’s now up to providers, students and the government to make it work properly, with good teaching and results rewarded by being able to charge proper fees; proper fees being rewarded by better teaching; and the government eventually not actually having to pay for universities at all but them funding themselves because they are great at what they do.
Someone said to me a few weeks ago that it was ridiculous having czars at all. I instinctively agree because if a politician can’t make an argument for his policies why should anyone else, and if politicians can’t figure out a decent policy then probably they’re not a very good politician… And yet…
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Martha Lane-Fox
I look at the work of Martha Lane-Fox. I see her engaging online with anyone and everyone. I read articles about her inspiring leadership, and her easy-going pressure, and the fact that she is delivering – against all the odds – a pretty serious programme of extending digital engagement through society and through the government. She is a czar that works.
I then look at Nat Wei. He recently resigned as Big Society champion, after reducing his hours earlier in the year, and is taking up a new role at the Community Foundation, focused on delivering the ends that the policies he’s been working on inside government are the means for. He was a czar that didn’t work out (even though I think he did some great work, his role was never properly defined and I’ve also heard – though don’t know for sure – that No10 went back on all sorts of agreements that were thought to have been made).
Setting aside whether or not the Big Society is any good, there are some instructive differences between the two roles.
I don’t want to be uncouth about this, but Martha Lane Fox largely doesn’t need to earn money to live on; Nat Wei does. She was already embedded into government before May 2010; he was not. She had a very specific brief, a large team, cash, and most importantly specific deliverables. He did not.
So there are probably some lessons we can learn from a rational comparison of the two. But perhaps the most useful thing we can take is this: the government has to be serious about delivering changes. Similarly, that czars are only any good if there are actual policies to change and crucially, the government has to be willing to change them. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, that just one person talking and evangelising is never enough. It needs sustained focus from all parties involved, it needs commitment from them all, and it needs willingness to look at things differently.
So having said I instinctively agree that czars are a bit of a waste of time, I’m actually a fan. I think they can inspire, they can force focus, they can add huge experience and they can really make governments and the rest of us sit up and listen. But they – just the same as all of us – don’t operate in a vacuum; and their appointment cannot be a substitute for action.
