Estelle Morris was in trouble again this week. While teachers welcomed her attempt to overrule a Surrey appeals panel that reinstated two boys expelled for making death threats against their teacher, local Tory councillors claimed that she made matters worse. Morris would have been attacked had she not intervened, though her department should have made the limitations of her power to act clearer. Her dilemma reflects the problem for politicians in trying to balance delivery with devolution.
At the end of the party-conference season, it exposes the reality behind the decentralising rhetoric of all three parties
Estelle Morris was in trouble again this week. That is even truer today, despite the reality that so much power has been devolved to individual schools or hospital trusts. Ministers must still take the rap for every perverse teaching decision or medical error Arm’s-length agencies and quangos have multiplied. In the A-level crisis, an exam board’s decision to mark its papers more toughly seriously damaged the reputation of a minister previously regarded as a “safe pair of hands”. But even if ministers left all exam decisions to an independent regulator, they would not be let off the hook for the regulator’s mistakes.Politicians have to square an impossible circle.
The Office for Public Services Reform, a Downing Street unit, argues that national standards and accountability can allow devolution and delegation to take place successfully. It is the cornerstone of the Government’s approach to everything from police reform to “earned autonomy” for schools.But as voters, we are schizophrenic. We expect the Government to “improve schools”, reduce hospital waiting times and cut crime, when those things depend on the individual actions of thousands of teachers, doctors and police officers. At the same time, we want local decisions about our services – unless we disagree with them.