Am I a little bit pregnant? Why language matters in policy making

However, before that work gets underway, I wanted to focus on one of the themes from the first meeting of Connecting Policy and Practice programme – that of policy becoming increasingly underpinned by economic and business models.

Language matters

My course-mate, Pat Russell correctly reminded me that there are ten* types of people
• Those who understand binary
• And those who don’t.

She is right; and in a world where suddenly the answer to all the world’s problems seems to be economic, there is an alarming use of economic jargon making its way into how we talk about new policies and public service transformation. Sadly, much of this language is being used incorrectly and at times, incoherently.

The reason accuracy here matters is that economic language is increasingly used to make the case for significant changes to public services. But when used erroneously, such words become meaningless and can call those proposals into question.

Binary: All or nothing

For example, there has been some chatter at a few consultation events and in the justice sector recently about the potential for semi binary measures of reducing reoffending. What can this mean? The best thing about binary measures is that, a bit like love, it is all or nothing. Semi-binary is akin to being a little bit dead or partially pregnant. These are states which simply do not exist.

Another example is ‘economies of scale’. This is a term that can be correctly used when the unit cost of producing a good or service falls as the number produced increases. However, this term does not mean ‘bigger is cheaper’. In fact, unless certain cost conditions are fulfilled, bigger can often mean more expensive. When it comes to public service delivery, such as probation services, the economies of scale are complex. For example, when the main cost of a service is staff costs (which are variable) costs tend to increase proportionate to scale. So we should be careful about using ‘economies of scale’ as a key justification for large-scale contracting arrangements.

More ‘competition’ in public services is another term that sounds great. We can all see how increasing the number of suppliers reduces the cost of something. But the ability to substitute between suppliers providing public services is controlled and limited – for example, not everyone is eligible for certain services, and some services – take rail or energy – can only be provided by licenced or regulated providers. Essentially, creating a market where choice is restricted directly restricts the ability of prices to fall and the eventual outcome is anything but competitive. At least some careful use of language to describe the concept of competition in public services would be an improvement.

I think economics can be a great force for good, but using economic terms in a way that is wildly variant from their actual definition can be misleading. It is important that government devotes the time and energy required to ensuring that its language is accurate. If not, the current fashion for economic policy making will quickly lose credibility and the dramatic impact it could have on improving outcomes will never be realised.

Now Tamsyn and I have more work to get on with! On Friday we hit Deptford Broadway to visit the 999 club. Intrigued? More next week.

*OK, OK this is a maths in-joke. Binary numbers are represented with 1s and 0s, so there is no ‘2’.