More Exclusions in 2014/15

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The government has just published the latest data on exclusions, both fixed term and permanent. The evidence covers the year 2014/15. Sadly, it shows a rising trend in permanent exclusions in both the secondary and special school sectors. Secondary schools also had an increased rate of fixed term exclusions.  https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/permanent-and-fixed-period-exclusions-in-england-2014-to-2015 These figures are disappointing for both these sectors.

As the Statistical Release comments:

The greatest increase in the number of permanent exclusions was in secondary schools, where there were 4,790 permanent exclusions in 2014/15 compared to 4,000 in 2013/14. This corresponded to an increase in the rate of permanent exclusions from 0.13 per cent in 2013/14 to 0.15 per cent (15 pupils per 10,000) in 2014/15. The rate of permanent exclusions in special schools also increased between 2013/14 and 2014/15, from 0.07 per cent to 0.09 per cent but remained the same in primary schools at 0.02 per cent.

The number of fixed period exclusions in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools has increased from 269,480 in 2013/14 to 302,980 in 2014/15. This corresponds to an average of around 1,590 fixed period exclusions per day in 2014/15, up from an average of 1,420 per day in 2013/14.

This means 170 more pupils per day excluded on fixed term removal from school, mostly for a day and 790 more permanent exclusions. So, around 1,000 more pupils weren’t being taught on any one day by the end of the 2014/15 school-year.

As to the reasons for exclusions, the Bulletin comments;

Persistent disruptive behaviour remained the most common reason for permanent exclusions in state funded primary, secondary and special schools – accounting for 1,900 (32.8 per cent) of all permanent exclusions in 2014/15. This is equivalent to two permanent exclusions per 10,000 pupils. It is also the most common reason for fixed period exclusions. The 79,590 fixed period exclusions for persistent disruptive behaviour in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools made up 26.3 per cent of all fixed period exclusions, up from 25.3 per cent in 2013/14. This is equivalent to around one fixed period exclusion per 100 pupils. Physical assault against an adult is the most common reason for fixed period exclusion from special schools – accounting for around a third of permanent exclusions and a quarter of fixed period exclusions in 2014/15.

It might be worth looking at whether better training might help in the special school sector, especially if a large number of the exclusions for assaults were on relatively new and inexperienced staff. The high level of’ persistent disruptive behaviour’ is also worrying. As school rolls increase and class sizes become larger, what might have been containable in a smaller class become unmanageable in the new larger group? Nevertheless, many primary schools do still manage not to exclude any pupils all year.

It is slightly surprising that Yorkshire & the Humber region that doesn’t generally have teacher recruitment problems should feature amongst the regions with the highest percentage of fixed term exclusions, whereas Outer London, beset by recruitment challenges, is amongst the lowest, but it schools are also among the most successful at GCSE. There are issues to unravel in these figures.

An oath to uphold British Values?

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Would I swear an oath to uphold British values? Well, I am not against the principle of affirming my loyalty to something or someone. At a young age I recited the cub and then the scout promises; later I made my marriage vows in public; I even swore the oath of allegiance when appointed as a magistrate and witnessed the attestation of a number of police officers before they could receive their warrant cards.

What troubles me is the nature of the term ‘British values’ as part of an oath of loyalty to serve in public life. To cite an example, I support the principle of the BBC as an embodiment of British Values, but, perhaps because of my age, prefer Radio 4 to Radio 1. But, I cannot pick and choose between the different parts of the organisation. This may be the case even more with a term like ‘British values’.

Does it mean everyone living here over a period of time, say the length of a tourist visa, should either have learnt English or be attending classes to learn the language to serve in public office? And to what standard? How would that go down in Cornwall among those that want a revival of the Cornish language? Do we tolerate the revival of that language, but insist British values requires the learning of English as well; something not required in Wales or Scotland. In Wales, there are Welsh-medium schools, so presumably it is permissible to go through life without learning English, even if it affects the pattern of one’s daily life.

There is a risk that the proponents of British values might see any school not teaching through the medium of the English language as not upholding British values. Where would this leave the Lycee Francais, Polish Saturday schools and, indeed, any independent school not teaching in English? Could I uphold or even swear an oath as a councillor that requires such a level of conformity?

I recognise the rising levels of intolerance in many areas of society, after a period when politics had been through a time of remarkable coming together of philosophies. Now we are entering a new phase, where re-alignments around new positions that can be radically different are emerging not just here in Britain, but in other parts of the world as well. The economic and geo-political strains of the present time cause pressures as they have done in the past. An oath including upholding a term as vague as ‘British values’ won’t alter the economic situation one iota. It won’t breakdown the communities of those from other countries that seek to live and work together. The Polish War Memorial sits adjacent to the A40 for a reason, just as the Jewish community still lives in many of the same parts of London as it did in my youth.

Let’s declare war on intolerance and do everything to combat the fear and hate of those from other communities while encouraging them not to exist in isolation, let’s support and encourage free speech, the powers of democracy and even the primacy of an un-elected House of Lords, but not through an oath to ill-defined values that can be manipulated by the government of the day.

 

Early applications to train as a teacher show positive signs

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Life has been a bit hectic for me recently. A week in The Gulf helping deliver a workshop for the British Council and since my return time spent doing battle with what I now know to be an abscess in my jaw; painful and debilitating.  This has meant that the November UCAS data has taken second place to other matters when it comes to writing my blog. However, I have now found time to look at what has been happening at the start of the 2016/17 recruitment round.

It is ironic, to say the least, to see data for November, since for many years this was regarded as too early in the recruitment round to be of any meaningful use. That wasn’t the case, but it helped save some blushes until the end of January when applications data was always published. As regular readers know, the battle over when data on acceptances should appear or indeed if it should appear at all is much more recent.

Anyway, how many more applicants were queuing up to train as a teacher when the UCAS scheme for 2017 opened this autumn than last year? The good news is that for applicants domiciled in England there were 11,660 in the system by mid-November 2016 compared with 7,840 at the similar point in 2015. That’s 3,820 more or an increase of nearly a half. Applications from those over 30 have remained static, but there has been a healthy increase in applications from young graduates. There were 3,390 male applicants this year by min-November compared with 2,100 last year at that time. There is one little caveat in that there is five days difference in the reporting dates between 2015 and 2016, with 2016 being that much later, so one would expect slightly higher figures, but not this level of increase.

Applications have increased from 22,510 at this point in 2015, to 33,840 in November 2016, with growth in applications for both primary and secondary courses. Candidates may make up to three applications, so the growth in applications seems lower than the increase in applicants, suggesting that some applicants may be making fewer applications. Applications are up for all the routes, with HE courses still attracting the bulk of the applications, up from 11,130 to 16,470, whereas applications for School Direct Salaried are up from 3,040 to 4,680. Interestingly, one of the smaller increases if for School Direct Salaried places in the secondary sector where the increase has been from 920 applications at this point last year to 1,140 this year.

The secondary subjects with the largest number of applications this year, as ever, are PE – up from 4,080 to 5,950; history – up from 1,260 to 1,830 and English – up from 1,350 to 1,870. For the first two subjects there will once again be a scramble for places and it is not helpful for the sector to be unaware of the overall total. Sadly, in Design & Technology, there may be fewer applications than at this point in 2015.

It is always good to be able to report an upward trend in applications. The issue is whether it can be sustained or just represents an early flurry of young applicants geared up to apply as soon as the recruitment round opens. By the December figures, we should start to have a clearer picture, but it will be the end of February before serious discussions on the likely outcome of the recruitment round can take place. Hopefully, we will still be seeing more interest in teaching than in recent years and will also know the number of places that need to be filled.

 

Thank you Mr Taylor

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The Ministry of Justice published an important report on Youth Justice this week. It was written by Mr Taylor. Regular readers of this blog may recall this civil servant and former head teacher when he was in charge of teacher training and espoused the view that planning ITT numbers was not useful. His views at that time were the focus of a series of blog posts.

Youth Justice, and especially the manner in which children were dealt with by the criminal justice system, was a blot on the reputation of the last Labour government. As the Taylor Report makes clear https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-the-youth-justice-system offending by young people reached a peak in 2007 after ten years of Labour governments and during the time the police were being required to meet targets to reduce offending.

In 2007, 225,000 children in England and Wales received a caution or conviction for a notifiable offence. Of these children, 106,000 were first-time entrants to the system having never before received a caution or conviction. 126,000 were prosecuted at court, and 5,800 were sentenced to custody. The average monthly under-18 custodial population for 2007 was 2,909.

  1. Since that high watermark the number of children dealt with by the youth justice system has reduced spectacularly, with consistent year-on-year falls. The number of children cautioned or convicted in 2015 was 47,000 – down 79% since 2007. Over the same period the number of children entering the youth justice system for the first time has fallen by 82%, the number prosecuted at court has reduced by 69%, and there are now around only 900 under-18s in custody.

This blog has commented before on the reduction in the size of the youth prison population when it fell below 1,000 for the first time in recent history. Now 900, is still far too many, but averages just below three per local authority at any one time.

The risk in the new proposals is that the current diffuse system run from both Westminster and by local authorities becomes a devolved system with some local authorities not large enough to handle an effective system. My guess is that then the government would step in and creates the regional structures it is now seeking in the adoption world where provision was patchy. Indeed, the Taylor report hints at this approach.

I also find the section on education rather woolly in terms of who takes control? Academisation and years of under-mining local authorities means that they no longer have the power to intervene when schools are not living up to the high standards required to help keep young people away from the path of a life of crime.

However, the recommendation about making convictions and cautions spent when resulting from actions when a person was a child, chimes with what I have been saying for many years. Too many people have their careers blighted by a single act as a young person. In this age of ever tightening restrictions it can mean the difference between working in a profession or not and even where a person can go on holiday.

The idea of Youth Panels sitting in local buildings also chimes with my thinking when a magistrate. With reducing workload children attending court have had to travel ever further and this means not only defendants, but also witnesses and victims: not a good idea.

As ever, with this government, the issue comes down to money and whether any changes will be used to pass the buck and reduce not improve services. We certainly don’t want to see a quarter of a million children a year receive a caution or conviction. Those days must never return.

 

Scrooge or Santa: It depends upon where you live

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My favourite line from the DfE’s consultation document on the new funding formula for schools is:

5,500 schools will benefit from the minus 3% per pupil funding floor protection.

I think that this is a line that the late, great, author George Orwell might have penned in either 1984 or Animal Farm. The real outcome of the government’s deliberations is definitely buried in the small print. An analysis of Oxfordshire primary schools shows an almost equal split between those schools likely to benefit and those that will be worse off. The division is stark between urban schools, especially those serving communities with high degrees of under-performance that will see more money, although some may be capped by the use of floor and ceiling mechanisms, and the small, usually rural schools that are almost universally losers. Of course, I welcome the extra cash for the schools that benefit.

In the secondary sector, around two thirds of Oxfordshire schools see gains, whereas the other third, again mostly the more rural schools, will see their income drop unless they can recruit more pupils to compensate for the reduced formula funding. As secondary schools are close to the bottom of the demographic cycle in many parts of the country the loss will be to some extent mitigated by opportunities to expand as pupil numbers increase. However, rural secondary schools, and popular schools already bursting at the seams won’t be able to increase pupil numbers. The same is likely to be the case for selective schools in some of the less well funded shire counties, where they are facing reductions in the examples presented by the DfE. As these schools often have little room for expansion, cuts to already poor funding levels won’t seem like a great Christmas present.

Overall, it looks as if the gains will largely be achieved by smoothing out the historical anomalies in authorities where the long-terml average has covered a wide range of different localities from those in the top decile of deprivation to those in the lowest decile. To achieve sufficient transfer of funds, there has also had to be internal transfers leading to the losses faced my many schools in the less well-funded authorities such as Oxfordshire. To some extent the use of floors will prevent the cuts affecting individual schools from being too great, but the use of ceilings may deprive some schools of the full amount indicated by the new Formula.

Of course, this isn’t a good time to be conducting this exercise. It would have been better for the Labour government to have undertaken the exercise a decade ago, when pupil numbers were in decline and funds were more generous. At that time all might have been winners and the government wouldn’t in some cases be looking like Ebenezer Scrooge..

Funding schools has always been a contentious issue, and this consultation may affect some Conservative County Council candidates next year if it looks as if a well-liked local school is losing funds and might even have to close. One can image the number of opposition candidates already looking out the ‘Save our Schools’ posters ready for the New Year.

A small tweak on the block grant might go a long way to protect many small primary schools where the expense of preserving them might be worth not having to pay the cost of providing transport to pupils required to relocate even before looking at the cost of building new school place sin the remaining hub schools in the market towns.

However, before the final step of either a local authority closing a school or a MAT throwing in the towel, there will be amalgamations and reductions in the number of head teachers, with one head probalby leading several schools in a cluster. That might work, but the NAO report earlier this week showed that it isn’t just the outcome of the funding formula that will determine the survival of lots of schools, it is also the many other cost pressures that they face. For a start, schools could be exempt from the apprenticeship Levy on the grounds that ITT costs already mean education is paying for the training of its professional workforce.

Jam: not today and probably not tomorrow for many

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Today is an important day in the history of the financing of schools; possibly the most important since the 1988 Education Reform Act heralded the introduction of Local Management of Schools.  Already, there has been the National Audit Office report on ‘Financial sustainability of schools’. https://www.nao.org.uk/report/financial-sustainability-in-schools/

This Report makes the point that, The Department [DfE] can demonstrate using benchmarking that schools should be able to make the required savings in spending on workforce and procurement without affecting educational outcomes, but cannot be assured that these savings will be achieved in practice.

This is because, as everyone knows, the DfE doesn’t actually operate schools directly, although Regional School Commissioners come much closer to doing so that at any time in the recent history of schooling in England.

TeachVac, the free to use job matching site that could significantly reduce the spending by schools on recruitment advertising and also the cost of using agencies to recruit permanent staff that is a growing feature of the marketplace, is a case in point.

Despite being developed by experts in both teacher recruitment and software design it has been shunned by the DfE and also be teacher associations, some of whom acknowledge support from paid recruitment sites on their own web sites. One association has even refused TeachVac permission to take exhibition space at their annual conference in 2017 on the grounds that’ we have sufficient recruiters exhibiting already’!

With such a playing field it is no wonder that driving down costs in schools has been so difficult. Perhaps, now is the time for a sector-wide task force to examine methods of reducing costs to schools through better procurement. In olden times there were benchmark figures for expenditure issued by bodies such as the Association of Education Committees and other similar national bodies. Indeed, such statistics help me compile my article on ‘variations on local authority provision on education’ way back in 1981 at the start of my career.

With the publication later today of the second stage consultation on a National Funding formula it is interesting to look back at the progress made over the past 35 years and to note that differences in funding between schools and authorities was a big issue even then. When the cake isn’t large enough, it is not surprising to find those that want to eat it fighting over the size of their slice.

If floor and ceilings are included in the funding formula consultation, as expected, then as the NAO Report shows, there will be pain for all. Maybe the DfE hasn’t published the ITT allocations for 2017 as they reflect an acceptance of that pain through reduced funding for employment opportunities for teachers?

What is clear that even if life is marginally easier for some schools after the Funding Formula announcement, for many it will be bad news and a real need to pull together to make savings.

 

Selection doesn’t help social mobility

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The latest Report from the Education Policy Institute, headed by former Lib Dem Education Minister, David Laws states at the end of the summary:

‘Overall, our analysis supports the conclusions reached by the OECD for school systems across the world – there is no evidence that an increase in selection would have any positive impact on social mobility.’  http://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Grammar_schools_and_social_mobility_policy_options-3.pdf Page 5

That just about says it all. The rest is an interesting read and shows the strength of feeling in some areas about the issue of re-introducing selection, mostly, however, areas where there are already low levels of disadvantage. The authors conclude that;

We therefore conclude that it will be difficult for the government to identify areas for grammar school expansion that will:

  • avoid damage to pupils who do not access the new selective places; and
  • have public demand for new selective places. Those locations that do remain are unlikely to be areas of high disadvantage. A more promising approach in the most disadvantaged and low attaining areas may therefore be to focus more effort on increasing the quality of existing non selective school places, as has been successfully achieved in areas such as London over the last 20 years

The message seems to be, find out what worked in London and decide how it can be transferred to the rest of the country rather than create more selective schools. This is a rational and evidence based suggestion. However, this isn’t an issue where the government is probably very interested in the evidence. The aim of introducing more grammar schools was political; to shore up the right wing of the Conservative Party and attract back into the fold UKIP voters that were enticed towards voting for that Party because it offered them the notion of re-introducing grammar schools.

However, the question remains, in a national education service, such as we now have in England, what are the rules regarding who decides the shape of the education system? Is there to be any local consultation or can someone with no local ties to an area submit a bid to the DfE to open a selective school regardless of the consequences on the other schools in the area? Some clarify would be helpful. Can this type of decision create extra costs for council-tax payers through additional transport costs? If so, it would seem unfair if there was no local say in the matter. And what of the fact that many selective schools are single-sex schools. Does it matter if new selective schools impact upon the gender balance of other schools in the area?

Nick Gibb, the current Minister recently told the Education Select Committee that new selective schools would be established in response to parent demand. We don’t know how that demand is to be measured or the cost of collecting the information. What we do know is that time spent on the grammar school project at the DfE could have been better spent on other more urgent issues.

 

You cannot make bricks without straw

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The Chief Inspector’s final report contains many interesting comments and can be downloaded at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-annual-report-201516-education-early-years-and-skills

However, for the purpose of this post, the section that I will focus upon deals with teacher supply.  The two key paragraphs are 284 and 285 that are reproduced below.

  1. A lack of government data, both on recruitment and retention, hinders the national response to this issue. It is difficult to understand accurately the extent to which shortages exist at a local level, or the number of teachers moving abroad or between the independent and state sectors. The Department for Education’s teacher supply model is used to identify where new school-centred initial teacher training providers, or allocation of places to providers, may be needed. Currently, this model does not take important regional and local area considerations into account. As a result, there have been no significant changes in the geographical location of initial teacher education (ITE) providers.
  2. In September 2016, the government began piloting a ‘national teaching service’ scheme in the North. It aims to enlist up to 100 teachers to work in primary and secondary schools that are struggling to attract and retain teachers. If successful, and rolled out on a large enough scale, this may have some impact on teacher supply. Page 125

Now none of this comes as any great surprise, especially not to regular readers of this blog. It is worth recalling that the report deals with 2015/16, so doesn’t take into account the slight improvement in training numbers in some subjects recorded in the recent ITT census for 2016.

Of course, you wouldn’t expect me to pass up the opportunity to remind readers that in TeachVac there is a product designed by myself and my programmer and co-founder, Tim Ostley, to answer many of the questions about where the vacancies are. We have looked at adding in international school, but don’t yet have the funding to do so.

We have noted, along with the NAO in their report, the relative paucity of training provision in the East of England, and especially in Suffolk. The following table, prepared for a talk to Suffolk head teachers at the beginning of November shows the recorded vacancies compared with training numbers in Suffolk and across the East of England for the first ten months of 2016.

 

Vacancies ITT Census 2015
  2016 Suffolk ITT East of England
PE 6 9 121
Music 6 * 43
Mathematics 46 6 147
MFL 13 5 94
Humanities 6 NA NA
History 8 11 102
Geography 13 * 74
English 32 15 178
RE 10 0 80
Design & Technology 25 6 59
IT 13 * 42
Business studies 11 * 17
Science 59 * 243
Art 6 * 63
Drama NA * 31
254 98 1294

*Too low to record the actual number.

There is clearly a need for more training places in this part of the East of England. TeachVac can provide similar data for other areas, if anyone is interested, as we already do for schools facing an Ofsted inspection with Teachsted.

As to the future of the National Teaching Service, we aren’t holding our breath as we wonder whether it will ever progress beyond the trial stage to a full rollout. If it does, TeachVac is handily placed to offer support for such a service.

Finally, as the Chief Inspector’s say, it is the schools with more challenging pupils that suffer most when there is a shortage of teachers, especially if those with three to five years of teaching experience are leaving such schools in much higher numbers that in the recent past. Perhaps, next year, the new Chief Inspector will tell us why this is happening.

Don’t panic

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The publication of the TIMMS data on mathematics and science outcomes at Years 5 & 9 across a wide range of countries heralds the start of a period of data announcements that will include OECD comparative data and the Chief inspectors annual report; in thelatter case, the last by the present Inspector. As I am away next week – thoroughly bad timing, but needs must – my comments on these reports will have to wait for a while. However, the TIMMS national report for England can be found at  https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/572850/TIMSS_2015_England_Report_FINAL_for_govuk_-_reformatted.pdf

Slow progress, with better results from the primary sector than the secondary sector might be one interpretation. Another, summed up in the findings is that:

  • Forty-six per cent of year 9 pupils in England pupils strongly valued maths: more than their peers in the five highest-performing countries.
  • Half (50%) of year 5 pupils in England very much liked learning maths compared to only 14 per cent of year 9s. In both years 5 and 9, three of the highest-performing countries – Japan, Taiwan and South Korea – had smaller proportions of pupils who liked learning maths than in England.
  • In both years 5 and 9 in England, and across all countries, on average, there is an association between all attitudinal factors and average achievement. For example, the more pupils feel confident in their maths ability; the higher their average achievement.

The message about the value of mathematics seems to now being heard and accepted in society, at least by young people. The next question is whether squeezing the last ounce of learning out of teenagers makes the process less fun? If so, does that have long-term implications for attitudes to learning, especially where the results are the outcome of longer time at school learning the subject and more tutoring hours outside of school? Is a balanced curriculum better than a narrow one even if results in some subjects are less than might have been achieved? That is not to recommend easing up on learning maths, but to place include it is a broader curriculum.

Whether the current level of success will continue in the next survey is open to question especially as:

Head teachers in England were more likely to report teacher recruitment difficulties and/or finding it hard to fill vacancies than in most other comparator group countries. About half of year 9 pupils were taught in schools with shortages in both subjects, while two-thirds (67%) of head teachers found their year 9 science vacancies somewhat or very hard to fill.

However, schools in England, despite media reports to the contrary are no longer the blackboard jungles they once were. The report states that the findings are:

The vast majority of pupils in England were taught in schools where head teachers reported hardly any problems with school discipline and which teachers reported to be safe and orderly. This compared relatively favourably against most other TIMSS countries. However, six per cent of year 9 pupils attended schools which teachers reported to be less than safe and orderly.

There is a lot more fascinating data in the Report, so it’s good to know that data skills are one we seem to do well. Not  a soft skill, but a valuable hard one.

 

 

 

Pay differentials matter in the public sector as well

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The previous posts read by those who visit my blog are always interesting to monitor. On the day when the government is expressing its interest about the pay of bosses in private sector companies, I am not surprised to see a number of visitors to the post from this March when I discussed CEO’s pay in education. That post was written following a letter from The Chief Inspector to the then Secretary of State. At the end of the March post, I wrote:

Personally, I thought we were in an age of austerity and I set up TeachVac to offer a low cost option for recruitment to allow more money to be spent on teaching and learning. Frankly, this Report is disappointing news and I hope that there is an urgent review of salaries in education outside of those set by the STRB for teachers and school leaders. We need some clarity of purpose in the use of public funds.

Since then, the gap between the best paid directors in the private sector, but not employees – think footballers and entertainers – has exercised the mind of the new Prime Minister, but little has been said about the public sector. Mrs May will no doubt recall the attempt to limit the pay of head teachers and other public sector workers to no more than the Prime Minister’s salary, helpfully ignoring his use of a flat in central London and a mansion in the Buckinghamshire countryside for use at weekends as well as an especially generous pension scheme, when deciding pay rates rather than overall remuneration levels.

On the day the latest TIMMS data has appeared, (more of that in a later post), there is certainly a discussion to be had about the effect of salaries on the supply of talent. One outstanding figure from TIMMS for me is that the gap between Year 5 and Year 9 pupil outcomes is wider in England than in many other countries in the Survey (Figure 15). Could this be down to the challenge of recruiting specialist maths teachers to teach at key Stage 3?

If you push up salaries for classroom teachers, should you also increase the salaries for those in leadership roles? That’s the dilemma the government faces in trying to decide whether, in a free market, the government has a social responsibility to limit anyone’s pay and to decide how companies use their resources? Of course, governments could tax high earners more, but there is then the fear of driving them away. But, such a fear doesn’t seem to be there in this discussion over pay differentials being curbed.

On the other hand, the government has to recognise that free movement of labour can mean those that feel underpaid can opt to go elsewhere: hence the concerns over retention rates in teaching for those with 3-5 years of classroom experience.

The issue of compensation is a complex area that exercised parliamentarians in the 1990s when they were trying to benchmark their own salaries. The issue may now be whether the gap between the haves and have nots in society is too wide? Having decided it is, it is interesting to see a Conservative government taking the stance they are.