Dealing with the unemployment crisis

I was struck by a developing on-line petition to the Government to set up a 'National Nature Service' and found myself asking 'why?'. After all, we have various Country Agencies, innumerable Wildlife Trusts and specialists charities, and of course the National Parks, The Canals Trust, various Rivers Trusts and Groundwork! The list is considerable and all fill particular niches, so why do we need another?

To me, that simply means yet another hierachy of management - high-paid jobs for people who probably are already in a job. And then of course it would generate another tier of work - meetings! Innumerable meetings between the various organisations. Co-ordinators etc would also be needed. And, if there was a body for the environment, surely there would need to be commensurate measures for many other parts of society - be it museums, theatres, family groups, heritage sites, youth groups - a very long list could be developed.

Moreover, why special effort for environmental jobs, when the majority of the work will be pretty menial because, of necessity, you won't be getting highly skilled people off the streets. Realistically, the main client-base will be the young, relatively unskilled and at least in some cases people with all-manner of problems. I'm not doubting that the age-range will be broader, but from what I have seen so far, it looks as though mass-unemployment is likely to emerge from redundancies in the service sectors. So, we need to think about skills that will got those people back into work. We must also think of where that work will be.

A National Nature Service that depends upon Government funding means that at some time the need for the service from the unemployed will diminish. We saw that with Manpower Services from about 1986 onwards. As the economy recovered, the pool of long-term unemployed shrank. In my experience, projects set up to employ large numbers of people because they needed numbers to deliver working capital, have a very limited life. Worse still, as the available employee pool shrank, the proportion of people with real problems grew. In the case of one project I ran for four years, drugs became the issue and try as I might I could not get any action to clean out the dealers! So, there will be some happy memories of what MSC did for some people (I was lucky but at times the job was very stressful). There will be others where there were more reasons for complaint by employees.

Nevertheless, there will be a need to do something and the MSC model has some merits. However, those merits are also countered by drawbacks. I therefore urge the Government to do some careful research before setting up any scheme. Go back and determine what the good and bad bits of MSC were. What can we learn from those schemes and how might one design a package that delivered both for the unemployed and for those that have the potential to provide work placements in whatever form they might take? Most importantly how to design a package that is robust enough to take out problems quickly. The death-knell of my scheme was the day we had to adhere to Local Authority employment procedures. As an example, I will tell the story of one chap that worked for me.

Fred (not his real name) had done a stretch for drugs and was now out and about. He had been a roadie for several big bands and was quite a character. He was also bone idle! I spent a whole year running disciplinaries trying to get rid of him but every time the process exhonerated him! At the end of his year he came in to see me and said - 'goodbye Roger - you were the only one who had worked me out'! (I'd have to say not just me but also my 'ganger'). That problem was compounded by similar problems trying to get rid of dealers and eventually it killed the project. We went from 60% going on to other permanent jobs to about 20%. Worse still, I could no longer ring up prospective employers and say 'I've a great guy - do you need anybody' - too often the response was 'I don't want dross from MSC'.

So, please Mr Johnson et al. think this out and create something that works for the unemployed and is flexible enough to make it attractive for prospective employers. There is a pool of experience from the 1980s - perhaps it is time to call on that experience and use it to design a 'world-class' recovery project.

Political incorrectness, or really time for a new honesty in politics?

Are we back to the bad old days of the ‘Rotten Boroughs’ where prospective Parliamentary candidates vie with each other to bribe the voters? Of course, politics has always been thus, but this time seems to have gone mad. It seems that Jeremy Corbyn has sold his ‘Magic Money Tree’ to Boris Johnson, but only because his mining prospectors have discovered a ‘Magic Money Mine’. At least he has established the first principles of economics – mining is probably more efficient than picking!

But where are we, and where are the lessons of the past? For me, the past 50 years comprise two different formats:

Spend, spend, spend; 

and

Cut, cut, cut

They follow each other as sure as day follows night. Labour trusts to the good old economic principle that you can spend your way out of a recession because it grows GDP and therefore there is more scope to borrow at the same margin of borrowing to GDP. The Conservatives, meanwhile, take over when the Labour bonanza has ended – in the 1970s we had IMF rules because the county had gone bankrupt and Jim Callaghan had gone cap in had to the IMF for a bailout, and the again in 2010 Gordon Brown (the man who had eliminated boom and bust) left the economy in tatters, not only with a debt that was unmanageable, but negative growth and a hidden debt of trillions in PPF deals.

So we have had the nice cuddly party that gives the country other people’s money and the nasty party that spoils all the fun. Now, they both propose to be the cuddly party, so who will take over in 5 years time when one or the other has completely buggered up the economy? On the one hand Jezza and his puppeteers Momentum will have thrown money about like confetti and the unions will be back running the country as they did in the 1970s; on the other, Borris, big-ears and Joe Ninety (sorry, the ERG) will have created a country in which there will be no manufacturing base and the fishing industry will have been sold down the pan to find some sort of Canada minus trade deal with the EU (don’t expect Canada plus plus without some HUGE concessions – and the ERG won’t accept those).

So where is the economic logic? Both sides would have you believe that this bonanza will be paid for by growth in GDP. Now, that is where the real problem lies. If I had my way, I would line all macro-economists against a wall and shoot them. For decades, we have been pushed one way or the other but essentially using macro-economic theory that is clearly wrong. On the one hand, it is clear that growth only works if it is accompanied by efficiency gains i.e. we produce more from less usage of everything from labour to energy. At the moment we are looking at borrowing based on growth fuelled primarily by immigration, which carries with it huge costs that wipe out the growth benefit. On the other, we see a reduction in controls over business in several forms – employment law, environmental law and borrowing restrictions. Both are proven failures.

On the one had we have almost uncontrolled immigration that is the fundamental cause behind today’s polarisation. A sizeable part of Brexit was indigenous voters not wanting floods on new people invading their territory as illustrated by that poor 'bigot' – [to use Gordan Brown’s phrase] from Rotherham who had the temerity to ask what was to be done to stem the tide. On the other, we have the explosion of white van men who work seven days a week, 12 hours a day, without holidays or sick pay and who both they and their employers pay the bare minimum, if any, into the social security system. Both are utterly corrupt and politics is effectively bankrupt.

Nobody (even the Lib Dems who are almost there) has the honesty to say – ‘we have sold you a vision in which you pay nothing and get everything’ – it was smoke and mirrors – you ‘don’t get owt for nowt’ and the only way that you will have more NHS, free university education, free prescriptions, better roads, more railways etc is by higher taxation. Not just ‘squeezing the rich ‘till the pips squeak’ (Denis Healey) - eventually the pips do squeak and the country goes down the pan - both the last Labour administrations proved that.

It is time for a complete change in the economic model – not one based on growth fuelling borrowing but one based on sustainability. Everybody, electorate, shareholders, institutions, Government thinks growth is unlimited, but the reality is that the growth of the last 40 years lies in the waistbands of the populus, the huge array of rubbish dumps, the volume of plastic in the sea and the CO2 in the atmosphere. Something will have to give, and at the moment the most likely result is a headlong rush to oblivion as the planet passes (has already passed) the climate change tipping point.

A letter to Boris Johnson

Dear Mr Johnson

I wonder how many others shared my depression when seeing the behaviour of Parliament last night? It was most unedifying on all sides and has sunk into a nasty slanging match that has exposed some of the true colours of the leaders and their supporters. I am afraid that far from healing divisions, you have deepened them, especially by using intemperate descriptions such as 'traitors'. Clearly, the 'will of the people is to create a society in which the once 52% rule the once 48% with a rod of iron - rooting out 'collaborators' and 'traitors'. I wonder where we have seen similar approaches? Putin's Russia? Vichy France? Syria? or perhaps Hitler's Germany?
 
The behaviour in Parliament yesterday showcased the worst of our Parliamentary democracy. It is nothing more than a public school slanging match where each tries to outdo the other in words of disdain. I know that Brexiteers will argue that there have been equally intemperate language from the opposition, such as accusations of racism and I don't doubt there is a case to be answered.

But, let us look at the different factions: those who favour Brexit are the 'Brexiteers' - a play on those wonderful and chivalrous 'Muskiteers' - hardly a derogatory term. Compare that the the term 'Remoaners' used by the Brexiteers. That started the problem because the Brexit debate rapidly descended into the use of derogatory language. I dare say there was an element of inflation of issues on both sides, but I certainly felt from day one that the Brexit camp was taking a bully-boy attitude by dismissing any argument as 'project fear'. So, if you are a reasonable, thoughtful individual with genuine concerns, some possible borne of specialist knowledge, you are simply wrong; but with no debate - you are simply wrong and should shut up! When you get perfectly reasonable concerns by respected medical professional howled down by the likes of Mr Rees-Mogg you know where the country is heading!

I remember a time in Natural England where the CEO openly described the technical specialists in Peterborough as 'a nest of vipers'. That spelt the end for the organisation in many ways; it has parallels with today's Britain. When you refuse to engage and listen to people with technical knowledge you are effectively opening yourself to danger on all fronts. It is like the platoon commander threatening his point men with the firing squad if they dare to warn of an ambush up ahead! The result in NE was that a lot of the technical specialists left or took early retirement as soon as possible. That denuded the organisation of its corporate memory and the respect that had taken 20 years to build.

In the case of the UK today, all I can see is increasing evidence that we are just like the nasty element of our football supporters - thugs with no respect or manners. Why on earth would Europe want to keep us in the club, and why on earth should they trust us again? Is that the image we want to present to the World? Once we were respected for our manners, but now we will be seen as we really are: boorish thugs that think we should still be masters of the World, but are actually a tiny little island that in the course of time will become a minor irrelevance!

So, please Mr Johnson, it is time to reflect on your effect on those of us who don't share your views or who would go along with Brexit if it involved an orderly process. I would prefer that we did not leave but now think we have no choice: we have so inflamed the relationship with Europe that it is in everybdy's best interests that we go. But, please reflect that being against no-deal Brexit is not being against Brexit, it is saying that we don't want to return to bombs and bullets in Northern Ireland and back in London. We don't want to see our aerospace industry, car industry and manufacturing base desert us. We do want to see an orderly and friendly departure in which we pay our debts, respect the institutions and customs arrangements of our neighbours and understand that once we have left the club we not only rid ourselves of those elements we don't like but we also lose those elements that we do like. If that is regarded as treachory then clearly it is time for the 48% to leave the country. If only we could!

In the light of this, I think one election pledge of the Brexiteers ought to be that they will negotiate safe passage for the traitors and collaborators plus the electorate that has any sympathy for their views. Those of us who don't have the option of an Irish or European passport are stuck in the same way as the Jews were in Nazi Germany.

A divorce with ongoing conjugal rights!

I am starting to question my intellect. I think I am missing the grey cells owned by the political elite. Why is it that I cannot see what is wrong with Teresa May’s deal apart from the obvious question of the Irish backstop (which I don’t think is an issue if we are genuinely committed to agreeing a sensible trading arrangement)?

As I am given to understand, triggering Article 50 started the race to create a divorce agreement with the EU, covering those obligations we have built-up in the course of 40 years of marriage. Also, the agreement should cover the many joint commitments we have – ranging from passport control to security and provisions for expats.

Unless I am mistaken, we also have financial commitments that we must meet (or we can renege on this and accept that we cannot be trusted by anybody ever again). The projected bill in 2016 ranged from zero (Brexiteer estimate) to over £60m (evidently a gross exaggeration). The UK and the EU have agreed upon £39m (or is it E39m?).

So, everybody has thrown a wobbler and echo’s what has emerged from the political establishment – it is a dreadful deal – but why? So far I have not actually heard any substance to these howls. I can understand why the Brexiteers dislike it - it gives a large amount of money to the EU when they had promised the electorate that there was no need to pay anything - the need to pay a divorce bill was 'project fear'. I fail to understand why Labour and the Lib-Dems find it so unpalatable other than opposing it is a good way to create internal strife in the Conservative Party.

Now we have Parliament voting on an indicative selection of options, most of which seem to me to be stage 2 (after the divorce agreement). I don’t think I can discern a single option other than ‘no deal’ that in any way represents the alternatives that the EU place before us. In the absence of a divorce deal the only option on the table is ‘no deal’ i.e. no agreement on travel, security, expats etc. Of course, that also means no money for the EU, which would be a real problem for us. If we fail to pay what we owe then why should the EU give us a ‘free trade deal’? The reality is that we will have to cough up if we want a free trade agreement, Norway Plus, Canada Plus Plus or whatever wishful thinking the politicians can come up with.

I fail to understand the political or economic sense of crashing out without a deal. I’ve heard prominent Brexiteers arguing that we should crash out and set UK tariffs at zero. What is the sense in that? Crash out and give away all our bargaining cards before going out into the world to seek ‘free trade deals’. If I was the rest of the world I would say – we don’t need a ‘free trade deal’ because we can export to the UK with no restrictions. 'That is great because we can restrict incoming UK goods with no penalty'.

It is the equivalent of unilateral disarmament followed by convening negotiations with armed countries to get them to disarm too. If I was in their position I would say to the UK ‘I’m reaaallly scared’! So, we then have to re-arm and ' hey presto' we have an arms race or a trade war. That is really bright!

Meanwhile, our manufacturing industry and agriculture will be cut off at the knees. All of this seems to me to be incoherent both in terms of economics and international relations. But then we have already lost it with BoJo and Farrage hurling insults in all sorts of directions whist others accuse people like me of treachery – an 'enemy of the people'.

The nearest analogy I can come up with is the weaker partner threatening to withhold agreement whilst expecting to negotiate ongoing conjugal rights! We are the laughing stock of the World and have shown ourselves eminently unsuitable for making any legal agreements with anybody!

Madness or common sense? The folly of Brexit?

Oh dear! The boss of Jaguar Landrover has made it quite clear that we must brace ourselves for massive loss of high value jobs if there is a hard Brexit! Of course the leading Brexiteers refute this and say there is no need for concern. Who is right? Well, I will put my money on the industries that are raising concerns.

I cannot really comment on the car industry so I will go back to the industry I know - ports. I note that the Port of Rotterdam is doing some very serious thinking about the possible effects of Brexit on their operations. They have serious concerns about a hard Brexit! We should take note because they do actually know what affects the smooth-running of ports, especially as they are the biggest in Europe and are a major trading partner for the UK and Eire.

What people perhaps don't realise is that an awful lot of goods bound for Eire are trans-shipped via UK ports. They are unloaded from the biggest ships at Felixstowe and Southampton and then put on lorries to be driven across to Liverpool, Heysham and Holyhead for onward passage to Eire and Northern Ireland. If customs checks are added then that will delay their passage and will make it far less attractive to cross the UK. If I was a shipping agent I would be looking very seriously at landing in Rotterdam or Antwerp and then trans-shipping direct to Eire, thus cutting out the UK costs and delays. Environmentally it also makes sense because short-sea is much more efficient than over-land transport. The drawback of short-sea shipping is that it is a shade slower but that can be built into the 'just in time' model.

So, Brexit definitely creates an opportunity to cut out quite a lot of carbon emissions and to encourage the development of more viable short-sea routes from Europe to Eire. There will be gains and losses - the biggest being the loss of income at Felixstowe and Southampton, plus within the UK haulage industry. The Brexiteers will argue that it is small beer in comparison to the overall economy but for every container lost we are looking at least two lifts at the port - one from the ship and the other onto the lorry. So, perhaps £100 percontainer? I don't have a clue how many containers travel this way between the UK and Eire but I'll bet it is in the order of several hundreds of thousands. So, lets say we loose 100,000 units per year, that may be somewhere in the order of £0.5 to £1.0 billion in loss to the UK economy. But my figures are probably highly conservative and the true loss is likely to be much bigger.

I guess the Brexiteers will argue that I'm talking rubbish and there are no grounds for concern. They have no plan of their own, however, and it is clear that they really have not thought out the bigger picture. They have simply assumed that the UK can bully its way to an arrangement that suits us. Somehow I doubt it! However, I am hopeful that we will see a bigger shift towards short-sea shipping as Brexit makes the UK a less obvious stop for the major container carrying ships. I am unconvinced about the case for any further channel deepening at either Harwich or Felixstowe - Brexit could also push the big ships away and lead to the UK being a trans-shipment spoke rather than a major hub. That would be a serious blow to the ports and economies of several coastal communities!

Strategic issues for biological recording

In my last post I highlighted the role that Government plays in generating biological/taxonomic skills that are critical to maintaining biological recording capacity. I used the analogy of architects and engineers to show how we look very differently upon nature conservation and wildlife data collection. Why is it that taxonomic skills are so under-valued?

Nature conservation has always been a low-paid profession and is populated by motivated people and has never been fiercely protective of its skill-base. You can just imagine the engineering profession's outrage if it was proposed that retired engineers should do the work of the existing cohort on a voluntary basis because Government cannot afford to pay for it! By contrast, Conservation professionals have very little access to standardised data because it is generally not funded. So, they have always turned to volunteer networks. Volunteer data has underpinned most of protected site designation and many of us volunteer in our spare time. The caring professions see much the same effect - there is always a charity there to step in when Government cuts social care funding - so Government feels that it can cut these aspects and somebody (the big society) will pick up the tab.

Unfortunately, we are hoisted on our own petard because we have shown what is possible. The problem now arises because these data are becoming a very powerful tool and Government Agencies and Departments and the NGOs want more of it. In my view, that is slowly changing the relationship towards biological recording being seen as an unpaid provider of essential data.

For me, the issue is not that we should be trying to reverse the trend in making biological recording data available for serious analysis. Nor should we be saying it has a financial value. People go out and record for any number of reasons. I'll use my own example - these days I have a 'patch' for birds that I put on BirdTrack. I do it because it gives me a reason to go out each day in the winter - forces me to get some exercise. In the summer I have regular walks that are effectively constant effort transects - but the primary purpose is to get exercise and stave off diabetes! In the process of doing this I generate useful information and maintain/develop skills.

A strategic disconnect

The problem that I see with biological recording is that there is now a disconnect between the users and the providers. The (seemingly) continuous effort to generate more data and efforts to set up new voluntary networks highlights very little understanding of the hierarchy that is needed to deliver data. This comprises

• Troops on the ground - the recorders whose main interest is enjoyment of the countryside, learning about wildlife and acquiring new skills (and maybe new friendship groups).
• Organisers - a lot of work goes into running a publicly-facing scheme. In the case of popular taxa that organisation can be vast - just think of the county flora committees and rare bird panels, not to mention the local organisers for WeBs counts. Within the Hoverfly Recording Scheme we have seen the impact of growing interest and activity - there are now eight people involved in running the Scheme. The work involves: ID of photos/specimens; data extraction; managing the FB page; data management; report-writing and production of newsletters. Just four years ago there were three of us (Stuart, me and David Iliff). The diagram I produced for a previous post serves to illustrate the volume of work that goes into scheme administration. 
• The professionals - data managers in LRCs and BRC, programmers who write the data management and dissemination packages. 
• Analysts - the statisticians who do the number crunching and deliver the outputs wanted by Government and NGOs.

Schematic representation of administrative jobs for running a modern recording scheme

Analysis

At each level the numbers diminish but all are essential. What is generally overlooked is that although in some disciplines the technical ID skills are honed strictly on a non-vocational basis (e.g. most birding, butterflies, dragonflies), many others require an element of formal training and many years of study that is rarely achieved without access to museum collections and to other 'professionals' who play an important mentoring role. Those skills were once developed by local and national museums, research institutes such as ITE and the Commonwealth Institute, and even Government agencies - e.g. the late lamented 'Chief Scientists Team' of the Nature Conservancy Council. This latter team spawned many of the leading specialists of today, but has been disbanded and there is no replacement. When the CST generation goes, there is nothing to follow them.

I think it is absolutely essential that Government and its agencies start to understand this relationship and ensures that there is reliable employment and skills development. It is also essential that this process includes the maintenance/re-establishment of the link between one-s professional interest and non-vocational engagement. The challenge is, how do this.

It is noticeable that if you want an internationally recognised engineer with thirty year's experience you can expect to pay anything between £700 and £1000+ per day for those skills. By contrast, an entomologist with the same level of expertise will generally attract under £400 per day! True, the engineer will be creating commercially or socially important structures. But then, the recognised taxonomist may well produce the information that might help to avert a very different crisis. It is all about risks and values - the risk of ecosystem collapse is very poorly understood, whereas the collapse of a building is not uncommon, and its effects are immediate and high impact!

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Inquiry Opportunities

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has invited the science community and the wider public to suggest science and technology areas for scrutiny. Understandably, the biological recording community has started to discuss possibilities. As is often the case, the issue of funding emerges as a critical concern. I have seen this before in various other ecological disciplines and have been at the receiving end of negative comments as the representative of a Government Agency whose funding stream was diminishing.

My experience in those days has profoundly coloured my views, but my thinking may well be pertinent to current issues for biological recording. When we ran a contract to investigate the value of Estuary Partnerships, it rapidly developed into a situation where 'partnership officers' interpreted this as an attempt to close down 'partnerships'. I have never forgotten being met with comments at the English Coastal Forum in 1999 (Dorset) as 'here come the men that want to close down coastal partnerships' - aimed at me and Pete Barham. Nothing could have been further from the truth but the very fact that we were prepared to challenge the 'partnerships and to ask 'what benefits can we be sure about' was enough to put us in the position of 'the enemy'.

My rationale then and now is the same. If you can demonstrate your value in a way that resonates with those that hold the purse strings you stand a great deal more chance of maintaining funding. If you cannot, then don't be surprised if funding is cut. However supportive the responsible officers are, they will not be able to present a compelling case to senior officers who make the decisions!

So, let us look at biological recording. We have seen cuts in various ecological monitoring programmes - the Rothamstead Insect Survey and the National Moth Recording Scheme are obvious examples. Government wants the data, but does not want to spend the money. The fact that so much of the data come from volunteers implies that data are actually quite easy to acquire. The data generate results that do not shock after the first analysis - we know that moth numbers are declining - so what? There are no new high impact papers to be written, just an ongoing and generally negative message!

At the moment, Defra is evaluating bids to develop a national pollinator monitoring scheme. It might get 3+ years funding but you can be certain that funding will cease and it will be assumed that it will continue as a totally voluntary initiative. Is this really the way to treat monitoring of essential ecosystem services? To me, this is the nub of the current problem for biological recording. Would you expect the architectural community to monitor the state of our historic buildings for free? Of course not - they are valued professionals and are entitled to payment for their skills. Likewise, you would not dream of engaging volunteers to act as structural engineers to oversee the maintenance of the Dartford Crossing or the Forth Road Bridge! So, why expect volunteers to provide all the data on vital ecosystem services? Answer - it is ecology - anybody can do this as a 'citizen scientist'.

What Government tends to overlook is the role its own current and, increasingly, former employees play in biological recording. Many of the essential technical specialists are former employees of Government Departments, Agencies and Museums. The impact of reducing these posts is long-term and will only be felt in the coming decades. My friends ask with incredulity why I spend so much time on data collection for the Government when I am not being paid. In their professions they would not dream of doing 'owt for nowt'; so why is it that environmental issues are so different?

My feeling is that there is a serious need to investigate the value placed on specialist taxonomic skills and whether they can be maintained without relevant careers to develop the critical skills? Government is now almost totally reliant upon voluntary capacity to supply the vast bulk of ecological information. In any other profession this would be regarded as a serious erosion of the country's intellectual capacity, but in ecology it seems to be perfectly acceptable. That has serious long-term implications for GB Plc because we under-estimate how much current capacity is provided by people who have developed their skills whilst employed by Government bodies - cut that capacity and you cut a great deal of the long-term non-vocational capacity.