News values are one reason. Innovations which don’t work out (however carefully managed) will attract media attention while those which are successful often go unnoticed. Also pivotal are the incentives and performance measurement models which apply to civil servants, as the downside risk too often far outweighs any upside reward. Francis Maude has spoken throughout the Coalition’s time in office about the need to change pay and reward mechanisms in order to free civil servants to innovate.

But one factor often ignored is the vital importance of strong political leadership. Ministers have often been too quick to criticise civil servants as stale and risk-averse, but have not led by example. Encouraging innovation from officials requires political leadership based on bold, long term vision and not political pragmatism. As Fraser Nelson observes, Michael Gove has demonstrated this, although even his reforming instincts are tempered by the political climate in which he operates – most notably the peculiar demands of Coalition politics.

Both Ministers and officials are vulnerable to longstanding cultural trends which hamper innovation and reform. Pay and promotions are ill-designed for civil servants while political expediency and media values can dampen the zeal of Ministers. But for both, the economic and fiscal imperative (along with rising expectations among service users) must remain paramount. Innovation, reform and renewal are vital across government if these are to be met. The role of Ministers must not only be to re-align civil servants formal roles and objectives, but to show the bold, unrelenting leadership that is needed to drive change from the top.

Michael Gove rightly defines Conservatives as people who believe in the positive power of relationships, human to human interaction:

“What we believe in is the primacy of relationships, the isolated individual on their own can never achieve in a political system built around the rights of the individual and nothing else, descends into selfishness, hedonism and atomisation.  A political system built around the state may appeal to our patriotism but sometimes it calcifies into authoritarianism and distance.  But a politics that is based on relationship understands that the most important and enriching things in all our lives are the intimate human relations that we have with others, with figures of authority and those whom we have authority over, with those whom we elect and those whom we serve…. 

That one of the things that’s drawn us, whatever our backgrounds, into service to others, is our belief that deepening the quality of relationships and strengthening the number of relationships that each of us has, is the way to generate a greater sense of well being, of opportunity and of fulfilment.”

Gove also called time on judging the success of the Department of Education by the yearly grade inflation. What counts is how our children are doing compared to the rest of the world.

“The children are benefiting from improved examination grades but the most critical test is not how we are doing compared to a generation ago or five years ago, the most instructive test with our education system is how are we doing relative to other nations?  Because increasingly our world is one world.  The jobs of the future are capable of being transported, exported from this country elsewhere.

 In the last ten years, the international measures of how well we are doing as a country tell a melancholy story.  We have fallen from fourth in the world for the quality of our science education to sixteenth.  We have fallen from seventh in the world for quality of our children’s literacy to twenty-fifth and from eighth in the world for the quality of mathematics to twenty eighth.”

What immediately becomes clear when you go onto the Harries Academies website is that they are immensely proud of what they have achieved. “Our strategic aim is nothing short of the complete transformation of educational opportunities for communities in and around London…” Their reputation is important to them and they know that to be successful as an organisation they need to produce the goods. (ps – This is a great attitude to have permeating through your institutions). Each one of those children who achieved better grades than they would have done under LEA control has been given a greater chance to fulfill their dreams.

Education reform needs to go further and allow organisations who want to make a profit to run schools. Not allowing this to happen creates an artificial barrier against improving our education system as it stops good companies from entering the market. I have yet to hear a good reason as to why those who make profit should not be allowed to run any public services, including schools.

Teaching Unions may disagree with this BUT the education system should be geared towards the benefit of children, not those who stand at the front of the class. It doesn’t matter how many education professionals go on marches, what counts is the choice that parents make.  By allowing greater competition amongst those who provide state services you give the majority – all those who can’t afford to go private – a proper choice.

To an extent, he is right. The Coalition has great, ambitious plans. The motives are good, the intention is the right one and the goal is commendable. In an ideal world, this sort of reforming attitude and desire would be met with rapturous applause and all-round support.

However, we do not live in an ideal world, and Mr Cameron certainly does not govern in an ideal world. Politics is a strange beast, one that does not function as you would expect.

Take the so-called U-turns that the Coalition has been accused of lately. Ed Miliband is only too happy to reel them off – Forests, NHS, bin collections, justice and so on. The basic criticism of the Government has been that they have published proposals, consulted experts, changed the Bills and moved on. In any other field of life, that would be considered the best way of addressing reform. Surely consulting with those best placed to give advice is a good thing?

As Mr Cameron himself said last week, surely it would be daft to try and reform our services without listening to and consulting with the experts? But he is continually slammed from those on the Left for being unable to get it right the first time round. It matters little that Ed Miliband offers nothing in return; he simply lists the U-turns and implies that he would be a much better Prime Minister, without actually offering an alternative or making a good reason to vote Labour.

More than that, however, and more than the lack of a Utopian world for Mr Cameron to govern in, is the problem of the traditional British mindset. The services that the Prime Minister is attempting to reform are at the heart of what many people feel makes Britain great – the NHS, forests, our military. You only have to look at the rise of charities such as Help for Heroes to see just how important a place the armed forces have in the British psyche.

Few will say that these areas do not need reform. Many back the calls for change and the call to move forward into the 21st century. Equally, however, many see these as national institutions which you mess with at your peril. The old Labour saying of ‘You can’t trust the Tories with the NHS’ is powerful as it cuts through politics and policies and goes right to the heart of the electorate.

Combine this sense of meddling with the best of Britain with the U-turn issue, and the Coalition has a problem. Both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, but the Tories in particular, need to be aware of this. The gung-ho attitude (think Ken Clarke, a hugely popular and influential Cabinet member) of some members of the front bench has its moments, but it also begins to grate with people after a while.

As has been said before, the reforms and the changes the Government is proposing could be genuinely transformative. The problem that keeps arising however is that David Cameron cannot seem to get them off the ground without a battle, which makes them less and less appealing. Each mini-conflict is a piece in the wider jigsaw of this fight, and they are mounting up.

The Government and David Cameron must continue to press forward with reform – to turn back now would be nothing short of a catastrophe. However they must do so with caution, and an acknowledgement that they are dealing with serious issues in a world that is far than ideal.

The American conservative commentator George Will is quoted as saying ‘conservatism is true’, by which he means that traditional conservatism is grounded in reality, an awareness of were people are at and a recognition of the need to keep your feet on the ground. For the time being, that would be a good position for the Conservatives to take.

I’ve pondered this before, but from a different angle – asking whether the Coalition agreement was being progressed through so fast that there would be little to do in the later years of the Parliament. My conclusion was that these things were all necessary, and that they needed to show improvements in peoples’ lives by 2015 in order to go into the election with any chance of success.

As I’ve said before, this government is not communicating its narrative properly.I would FAR rather they governed well than just talked about it, but they can’t ignore the press, nor voters’ concerns, and they need to talk and talk and talk about what they are doing and keep explaining how it makes sense.

The reforms in education, health and local government in particular are about enabling people to have more choice and control in their lives. The welfare reforms are about making sure that the welfare system is a safety net, not a “hammock” as I’ve heard it described. Changes to the tax system are feeling their way to reducing taxes for everyone once it’s affordable, making them fairer, and shifting them from ‘good’ things (work, saving, investment) to ‘bad’ (consumption).

The best statement I’ve heard from the government on why all these changes are necessary was in response to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s comments a couple of weeks ago. But, once again, that was defence, not an all-out making the case pre-emptively. As I’ve said before, until there is a crisis, there seems to be an unwilllingness to really make the case.

As I’ve argued before we need, as a society, to have a serious think about what we think the state should do, and what we think is affordable and fair, and what we think we can do better for ourselves.

Far from being concerned that the government is doing too much too soon, I wonder whether they are in fact doing enough? Is giving way on so many (relatively) small parts of the agenda going to undermine the sum of its parts? Is the machine of government, vested interests and the loudest complainants going to defeat the ambitious but necessary programme that the silent majority understand and support?

The government needs to take people with it on its reform programme. Explaining why it’s necessary, what will happen, why it will make things better is a key part of that. People fear the unknown; they can be enthused by the radical ideas of this government. But only if the government stands up for them – and, crucially, actually delivers them. For too long, we had politicians who talked about making life better but failed to do so. This government seems unwilling to talk but – if you read the manifestos and the Coalition Agreement – really does want to make Britain better.

“For what it’s worth, teachers could really do with fewer rules and regulations and more freedom to try what works for their classroom.”

This is the conclusion Jamie Oliver came to at the end of his “Dream School” experiment. 

What applies to teachers is also relevant to the rest of the system. Ensuring a fit-for-purpose national education system is one of the most important roles of the state, but this responsibility should not be confused with the state having to manage education through pulling leavers in Whitehall.

The Labour party still do not accept that universal entitlements – such as health or education – can be delivered in a variety of forms by a plethora groups. This is despite the evidence which points to both the failure of monolithic providers – our education system is falling behind the rest of the world  - and the unsustainability of the centralised model.

Free Schools, which many in the Labour movement are strongly opposed to, are essentially Academies, which Andy Burnham voted for.  They will have the same legal requirements, funding structure, operational freedoms and flexibilities as academies. The admissions arrangements must be fair and transparent. Selecting pupils by academic ability is prohibited. Free Schools will be able to set their own pay and conditions for staff, have freedom to deviate from the national curriculum, and the ability to change the length of terms and school days. All income and assets of the trust must be spent and used for the purpose of the trust, which will run the school. Those who reject these measures are rejecting the principle that the local is best placed to cater for itself. Britain’s recent fall down the world education league tables is compelling evidence that the structure of  giving the wise centre full control does not produce good overall outcomes.

The only real difference between a Free School and an Academy, which Ed Miliband voted for, is that they are new schools established by charities, business or faith groups, teachers or parents, or any other group that wants to meet uncatered for parental demands.

Labour seem to be objecting to the users of the service having the ability to decide how best to meet the agreed goal. Andy Burnham doesn’t think Michael Gove’s “has a plan for everyone. He’s got a plan for some kids, not all kids. And I think there’s an elitist echo in that.” By assuming the ambition of wanting to promote high standards means restricting focus to an elite Andy Burnham shines a bright light onto why Labour’s attitude to education is not appropriate for the globalised world Britain has to compete in.

Politicians should want to give all state schools the freedom to innovate, improve and be ambitious. The state then has the crucially important job of put in place a system that allows everyone to learn and copy from the success stories. This may include targeted central measures such as specifying certain admissions criteria for specific schools or providing more resources to others.  If you prioritise ensuring mediocrity for all instead of encouraging the best to flourish then you are not just cheating our children, you are hampering the growth of our nation.

I want to tell you about what I spent Friday afternoon doing. I spent it in a meeting room in the City, listening to a group of 14 year olds giving presentations. They had just finished the first five days of a hugely ambitious four year programme that aims to equip disadvantaged children with the skills that people like me learn by osmosis, so that when they are 18, they’re ready to apply to the best universities or apprenticeships, or to set up their own businesses.

The five days are spread over a few weeks, and are only a taster of the rest of the programme. It’s run by Arrival Education, founded by two social entrepreneurs, and funded by a variety of businesses and private philanthropists.

The 18 children I watched were, without exception, chippy, aggressive, unsure of themselves, worried about their futures and their home lives, and basically ignored by those who should be helping them – their teachers, their elders and the rest of society. When we do notice them, it’s to tut at their behaviour or to criticise them for not working or motivating themselves.

But every single one of them stood up, gave their presentation (with some very strict rules which they all adhered to), and outlined what they felt the 5 day course had done for them already. They all said things like, I chose this course because I know my life can be better as a result. I’m controlling my temper. I’m working better at school. I know that I need to take responsibility for my future. Others said, I know I can live the life that I want. I know that I can choose my own path. I want people to hear the real me, not the one you think you see. Success is complicated and it needs me to work as well as everyone else.

Those sorts of things are what every single child needs to learn in school. I was incredibly lucky – my parents, teachers and those around me were sufficiently motivated to help me make the most of the opportunities I had. But there are many thousands of children who we, as a society, write off before they’ve even begun living their lives.

I am rarely one for great amounts of intervention. But sometimes, relatively small, early and intensive intervention saves us a whole lot more later on. Social mobility is a huge challenge for all of us, and it’s not just about movements up and down the social scale in fixed proportions, but also about how we open up our society so that people who start with nothing can get to the very top. It’s fundamentally about fairness. Why should it be that some people have so many opportunities, and some have none at all?

It’s not good enough that we allow children to leave school unable to read and write. It’s not good enough that where you are born has more impact on how long you live than anything you do (or don’t do) yourself. It’s unacceptable that we abandon people with potential simply because we can’t be bothered to notice them.

Arrival Education work incredibly hard to teach some children – who we basically ignore as a society until it’s too late – to make the most of themselves. It’s not a bleeding heart option; they are pretty demanding and require the participants to meet some high standards. But nothing is ever solved by changing the parameters of what is required – so things like just changing entrance requirements for university or giving extra money to people so they’re just above rather than just below the poverty line are ultimately counter-productive. What needs to change is how people themselves behave – we can help, as a society, by for example making sure that every child has a proper education, that they understand that they can have aspirations, that they can achieve their full potential. We need to support them but in the final analysis, it’s about making the most of themselves. The way our schools and our society currently operate means too many children can’t even begin to comprehend that they do have choices and options and the capacity within themselves to make that choice.

The thing that struck me the most on Friday afternoon was this. Despite the fact that these children had only had five days of coaching, that they were all what one (in an admittedly cold and unattractive way) might term as likely to become NEETs (not in education, employment or training), and that they were all from disadvantaged backgrounds, every single one of them was proud to have made the choice to attend these classes. And every single one of them believed that they would be better as a result of them.

The very fact of making that choice is an important first step in achieving social mobility for those children. Because there’s only so much you can do TO people. They have to do so much more for themselves. We as a society can help them, the government can help, and social enterprises like Arrival Education can help. But the real change comes from within – which can only happen if those children believe it’s going to work.

The Big Society finds its roots in traditions of both the left and the right. As David Willetts has argued, Conservatism believes that people are mutually dependent on each other.  Labour, as Nat Wei and Dave Skelton have argued, are ignoring their heritage if they disown Big Society – mutualism, co-operatives and communities once shaped the beliefs of the left.

So, with all this going for it, the Big Society should be a darling of the nation; but it isn’t. The reasons for this are many – as well as complicated – and I don’t believe this blog will do them all justice. Danny Kruger touched upon a few in his excellent FT article, but here are five things I believe the Government could do to ensure that the idea of the Big Society is both understood and believed in across the country:

1. Promote a constant and clear definition: For the public to know what Big Society is, a clear and consistent definition of it needs to be hammered home, in ministerial  speeches, in interviews, on websites and on government broadcasts.  The Cabinet Office description is a good one “The Big Society is about helping people to come together to improve their own lives. It’s about putting more power in people’s hands – a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities.” Headline definitions such as “Helping people help people” are also important in helping people grasp what Big Society means.
2. Highlight more examples of the Big Society: I really like the Prime Minister’s Big Society Awards that are given out weekly; they highlight examples of people coming together to improve their own and other people’s lives. Speeches, government websites and interviews should be full of these and other examples, powerfully illustrating the Big Society to people across the nation.
3. Enable more participation in the spending of taxpayers’ money: If the government really wants people to come together to improve their own lives, there should be a new settlement between national and local government and communities, giving local people more of a say in how their taxes are spent. There are some encouraging signs here with programmes such as the Big Society Network and NESTA’s Your Local Budget and community matched funding announced in the Government’s Giving Green Paper but for the Big Society to work, participatory budgets need to move from the fringes to the main stage of public sector funding decisions.
4. Have more Big Society fixers inside government: A director of a grant making organisation told me last week that they thought that Big Society needed a Louise Casey type figure to be the government fixer on the inside; I agree with this – and I would go further! If there was a team of senior civil servants reporting directly to the Prime Minister, committed to Big Society and working across Whitehall, perhaps we would see more decisions that look more at their social impact, as well as a more coherent narrative across government of how communities are going to be supported.
5. Have more Big Society ambassadors outside government: Something Tony Blair did brilliantly was to get high profile supporters from across society to support his policies and ideas; celebrities, senior business executives and high profile community leaders were in and out of Number 10 regularly and formally or informally became ambassadors for key policies. The Government needs people who aren’t from the Government articulating a vision of empowered communities and societal transformation. For example, why isn’t someone like Richard Branson championing the Big Society, it does after all encapsulate everything he has argued about business for decades?

A common reaction to the Big Society has been to welcome the message of community empowerment and choice of how to deliver local services, but to fear the implied responsibility for doing so. Communities need to know not only that there are good ideas they can seize, but that they are being supported to build the capacity to deliver them. Labour, instead of offering solutions, are shamelessly mocking the Big Society and in doing so disown their heritage. This next stage of Big Society requires a more coherent Big Society government strategy in terms of its policy making and budgetary decisions as well as a consistent message that people inside and outside government can grab hold of and run with.

* By Big Society, I mean the governing philosophy of the Coalition Government and not civil society itself.

Patience is a virtue – sadly, one not generally held by the media or indeed by the public who eagerly consume the daily news. The media industry favours a steady flow of announcements and decisions and they have had years of plenty – but the truth is many of these announcements and decisions never made it outside the Westminster bubble. Big Society is the antithesis of this approach. It is not press-release friendly, and the Government is getting a pretty hard time because of it.

This does not make it a flawed idea.

Writing on these pages, Nat Wei rightly said there needs to be “an acknowledgement that the Big Society will take time to foster and grow”. I have made a similar point on the Big Society Network blog when describing the Emergent nature of Big Society.

This will be very different from the familiar top-down approach to Government, which is usually driven by a small group of Whitehall policy advisors and then imposed on the rest of us (if it doesn’t get lost on the way somewhere). For sure, Government should set out a direction of travel and desired high-level outcomes – but it is then up to communities and those delivering front-line services to define the details in a way that best suits local needs. This activity won’t fit nicely into a timetable or central grid but the good news is that it is starting to happen.

Let’s take an area of Big Society reform with which I am particularly familiar – the mutualisation of public services. This is about letting front line staff form their own independent mutuals and other forms of social enterprise to deliver public services. This genuinely frees up front line staff to deliver services in a more flexible and responsive way.

Francis Maude and the Cabinet Office have been running a successful Mutualisation Pathfinder programme which has seen clusters of public service innovators popping up all around the country. A nurse-led therapy unit and a further education college are among the most recent pathfinders to begin the journey to independence. These are the Trailblazers who are prepared to step up to the mark and accept the risks and rewards associated with being the first movers.

To ensure that these and other groups of innovative staff aren’t thwarted by the system, Francis Maude has also established a Mutuals Taskforce, led by Professor Julian Le Grand. The Task Force, which has the personal support of the Prime Minister, will work to ensure central departments are doing all they can to facilitate other front-line staff groups to follow the same path.

This is a concrete example of Big Society reform and of how Central Government can effectively facilitate bottom-up action. I personally don’t think the Government has received enough credit for facilitating the considerable progress that has occurred in such a short space of time.

There is much more to come – we just need a little patience…

It’s a long time since I did an internship. When I finished university, it really wasn’t imperative in the way it is today to have done work experience in order to get a proper job. I worked in a bar and then a restaurant all the way through (including my year abroad); I was very fortunate that my cousin arranged an internship for me between my third and fourth years, but I confess that I took it in order to do something interesting rather than out of any serious plan to gain useful experience.

I have recently been reading lots of CVs for a substantial internship, and a few things have struck me.

Firstly that a surprising number of people who are at university and expecting an internship in a serious company either don’t proof-read or really can’t spell or punctuate (famous last words – no doubt I will make an error shortly!).

Secondly, that one internship doesn’t seem to be enough. A year in total seems to be what most people are aiming for.

And thirdly, that very few companies are prepared to take people on with no work experience at all.

Dizzy Thinks recently drew our attention to Simon Hughes’ latest advertisement for an intern, who’s expected to work for free. Disappointingly, IPSA last summer reversed its position on this, and permitted MPs to require interns to work for free (though they are allowed to reimburse expenses).

I don’t think it’s fair to ask someone to do more than perhaps a week of observing/a bit of photocopying or notetaking/some basic research for free. Given how competitive the job market is these days, if someone is doing a proper internship, I’d now expect that to be quite a substantive programme of work and I think therefore that they should be paid – after all, if you have a minimum wage, it’s there for a reason. It’s a bit of a vicious circle though – you can’t get a job without work experience, but you can’t get work experience unless someone is willing to pay you…

While volunteering is great, and well worth it, doing a proper internship shouldn’t be about working for free. I’m not suggesting that interns deserve banker-level salaries, but I think it’s wrong that we seem to be heading towards the only people able to do internships being those who are sufficiently well-off, sufficiently well-connected and sufficiently willing to get into still more debt.

I had thought that David Davis’  report on social mobility might seek to address this, but he seems to have preferred not to finish it. Perhaps this is something that Simon Hughes could look at again, in his role as access tsar?