Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Work smarter with a Pro licence Learn More

Gordon Campbell | Parliament TV | Parliament Today | News Video | Crime | Employers | Housing | Immigration | Legal | Local Govt. | Maori | Welfare | Unions | Youth | Search

 

National Standards no model for Social Services delivery

National Standards no model for Social Services delivery

Martin Thrupp

It was astonishing to see Social Development Minister Anne Tolley recently suggest on the Q+A programme that National Standards provided a model for public service targets for the delivery of social services. Actually it’s the limitations of the National Standards policy that are much more instructive. They have mostly been a distraction in education and a social services version is likely to be worse if it involves payment by results.

To start with, the National Standards do not provide clear targets. They involve a crude scale with four very broad categories of achievement. In reading, writing or maths, your child is just ‘well below’, ‘below’ ‘at’ or ‘above’. These simplistic labels make a mockery of the assessment that teachers do beneath them.

Even so, research has been showing that a child judged ‘at’ by one school will often be judged ‘below’ at another. Schools have diverse characteristics that colour teachers’ judgements. National Standards also leave out important aspects of primary schooling. Overall it’s wise to shy away from using the published results to compare schools or judge their performance.

The Minister would have been better off using the National Standards to remind us how difficult it will be to devise useful measurable targets for the social services. What constitutes ‘success’ with vulnerable groups in particular contexts will often be hard to capture.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

The National Standards are also time-consuming for teachers and principals to administer. There is a lot of checking and moderation, especially where schools are most earnest about getting them right. There is opportunity cost with this preoccupation and the same likely danger for social services of being required to fiddle while Rome burns.

Thankfully the National Standards policy has not yet become closely linked to performance pay or school closures. Research on high-stakes accountability in education shows that moving in this direction would have increasingly perverse effects such as curriculum narrowing and fabrication of assessment data.

Payment by results in the social services will lead to similarly predictable outcomes. Agencies will prioritise the meeting of targets over any broader view of success with the groups they are supposed to be serving. Contractors can be expected to give preference to easier social services work, just as private providers tend to do in the education sector.

Few people are in a position to really understand the workings of National Standards. The same would be true of performance against social services indicators and targets. It will be too easy to be seduced by the tidy rows of figures and not question what lies beneath them.
So if the National Standards are no model to be followed, what’s the alternative? In education, National Standards divert attention from inadequate resources and the hollowing out of professional culture. Reinvestment in those areas, for instance reintroducing a cadre of school advisors on permanent rather than short term contracts, would make a big difference.

It may not be politically fashionable at the moment but a reinvestment in resources and professional culture seems to be what’s needed in New Zealand’s public social services as well. Inequality is creating an increasingly intractable problem as new generations become raised in poverty. It is unrealistic to expect payment by results to be genuinely feasible, nor any silver bullet.


Martin Thrupp is Professor of Education at the University of Waikato

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Parliament Headlines | Politics Headlines | Regional Headlines



Gordon Campbell: On Dune 2, And Images Of Islam


Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture tends to be hostile to Islam when we’re sitting in the dark, with popcorn.
Any number of movie examples come to mind, beginning with Rudolf Valentino’s role (over a century ago) as the romantic Arab hero in The Sheik...
More


 
 


Government: One-stop Shop Major Projects On The Fast Track

The Coalition Government’s new one-stop-shop fast track consenting regime for regional and national projects of significance will cut red tape and make it easier for New Zealand to build the infrastructure and major projects needed to get the country moving again... More

ALSO:


Government: GPS 2024: Over $20 Billion To Get Transport Back On Track
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has released the draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) on Land Transport, outlining the Coalition Government’s plan to build and maintain a transport system that enables people to get to where they need to go quickly and safely... More

ALSO:

Government: Humanitarian Support For Gaza & West Bank

Winston Peters has announced NZ is providing a further $5M to respond to the extreme humanitarian need in Gaza and the West Bank. “The impact of the Israel-Hamas conflict on civilians is absolutely appalling," he said... More


Government: New High Court Judge Appointed

Judith Collins has announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister Jason Scott McHerron as a High Court Judge. Justice McHerron graduated from the University of Otago with a BA in English Literature in 1994 and an LLB in 1996... More

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • PARLIAMENT
  • POLITICS
  • REGIONAL
 
 

InfoPages News Channels


 
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.