Luke Clements

School transport costs rising

For the last umpteen years local authorities have been closing smaller schools[1] on the ground that they are not cost effective – and now the Vice President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services complains about the school transport bill.[2]

For the last umpteen years the NHS has been closing acute beds (38,000 in the last 10 years) and now it is complaining about the increase in the number of people receiving NHS Continuing Healthcare (30,000 in the last 10 years).[3]

For the last umpteen years the Government has deregulated the food industry and now it is complaining about the costs of treating an obese population.

Why is it that institutions that create these problems are then allowed to get away with statements of this kind?  Industrial trawler owners complaining about the absence of fish: gas guzzler car owners complaining about the price of petrol; tax dodgers complaining about ‘the homeless’.

Moral

Focus only on effects, not causes and on the acute not the chronic.

[1] See for example BBC Rural school closures in dispute 30^th January 2008; A Asthana Village schools ‘at risk from Tory reforms Guardian 12.4.16; National Audit Office Financial sustainability of schools HC 850 (NAO 2016); Department for Education Statistical First Release Schools, Pupils, and their Characteristics, January 2012 Table 2(a).

[2] N Puffett ADCS ‘vice president: School transport costs ‘cannot be justified’ Children & People Now 4th October 2017.

[3] See L Clements National Audit Office Report on NHS Continuing Healthcare What’s new 14^th September 2017.