Tag Archives: Democracy

Ben Goldacre’s Bad Evidence

Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre’s interesting programme on evidence-based policy making went out yesterday evening. Like so much of his work, I found myself alternately agreeing vigorously and disagreeing in exasperation. The trouble is not what he does say, but what he doesn’t.

His central argument is a familiar one.

In medicine, scientists determine what works using randomised controlled trials. Give one set of patients a pill, give another set a placebo, and see what difference the pill makes. Do this lots of times, trying to control for confounding variables (like the participants’ lifestyles) and if possible make it “double blind” by ensuring neither the participants nor the researchers conducting the test know which group anyone is in.

This method gives us a high degree of certainty that some pills work while others don’t, or do so less well. It is far superior to simply acting on a hunch, monitoring a particular outcome and then assuming it was a result of your pill, without checking whether it might have been some other variable you haven’t considered and controlled.

So why can’t this method be applied to public policy? Why do we subject children to educational methods, the unemployed to work programmes, and criminals to rehabilitation methods that lack this rigorous evidence?

It’s a good question, and I completely agree with him that it would be good to do this more to weed out the “bad evidence” that informs so many policies. I’ve been supporting Jenny Jones in her scrutiny of the Mayor of London’s mandatory work experience pilot, which seems bedevilled by bad evidence, never mind whether it might be wasting the time of young people suffering in a very difficult jobs market and now feeling punished for it.

I felt sufficiently strongly about our approach to policy making to include several proposals in the Green Party’s manifesto for the 2012 London Mayoral and Assembly elections (PDF).

But there is also a danger that evidence arrived at through rigorous research could become “bad evidence” if it were applied technocratically.

For what Goldacre’s radio programme ignored, inexplicably, is the normative element of policy. He talked about “outcomes”, but how do we define a good outcome? It might seem obvious – stop a criminal reoffending, get a young person back into work. But it isn’t that simple.

It might be the case that one particular approach to criminal justice is more effective than another, but it might be considered unjust. What if we found that all forms of punishment led to higher reoffending rates? Should we drop our long-held belief in the moral right of punishment in favour of better “outcomes”? This is a normative, moral question – short of brushing it aside we cannot ignore the role of normative considerations.

Both the present and previous governments went for “workfare” schemes where unemployed people lose their benefits if they refuse to take up work placements. One of the supposed outcomes of this policy is that more people get work as a result. My reading  of the evidence for these suggests they don’t. But proponents also make a normative claim that it is right to make people work for their benefits, especially if they haven’t worked for a long time, if at all. On the other side, some (myself included) think that a compassionate and wealthy society such as ours can extend a universal right to a basic standard of living and shouldn’t impose conditions on those basic benefits.

Goldacre didn’t say that evidence should trump political philosophy. But the two can often get confused in political debate. Politicians can lose the courage of their convictions and feel compelled to assert that evidence supports their case, when they began sure only of their convictions. Opposition can often feel that a policy must be “wrong” because the evidence shows it doesn’t achieve the outcome they would think right, perhaps ignoring the different view of a “right outcome” held by the Government.

It isn’t sufficient to consider these points in isolation – to, on the one hand, ascertain the evidence about the outcomes of a particular policy, and on the other to have one’s normative beliefs entirely in parallel, and to then attempt to reconcile (or more likely confuse) them in the murky world of political debate. Normative and empirical considerations must inform each other.

Another very interesting series on Radio 4, Melvyn Bragg’s examination of “the value of culture“, included a very good programme today on the old “two cultures” debate most famously expressed by C. P. Snow. He was concerned in the 1950s that artists weren’t assimilating the advances of science, and vice versa, to the detriment of both, and to the point where both “parallel cultures” viewed each other with suspicion. Instead of seeking to bridge the gap through understanding and engagement, they preached at each other. Goldacre’s programme  would have been much improved if he had engaged with both the empirical and the normative.

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Sitting around the data campfire

Similar to Gail Ramster, I went along to the Friday afternoon part of UK GovCamp 2012 without really knowing why. I suspect most people would say the same thing. You go because… well, you never know which useful people you might bump into, and what interesting things you might hear about. Plus a colleague Janet Hughes was going, and I’d cleared my desk of essential work for the week.

Here are a few takeaway thoughts from my afternoon.

1. I barely knew anyone

It’s years since I was a fish in a geeky pool, active in the free culture movement, the KDE community, software patent activism and other odds and sods.

For the past five years or so I’ve moved onto land, or perhaps a coral reef, to be more involved with issues around the environment, housing and pay inequality. The past two or so have been working as a local government employee at the GLA, supporting Green Party Members of the London Assembly. They have pushed for open data, but it’s not exactly a hot topic in our weekly meetings. My only remaining connection has been OpenStreetMap, my one geeky obsession.

Still, it didn’t matter, go along even if you know no-one at all.

2. It was nice to reconnect with optimistic techies

The event reminded me of one of the things I most like about these crowds: they’re all optimistic about the future and enthusiastic about the common interest.

I’m glad I managed to quickly chat to a few people I did know, sort of… Gail via Twitter, and Giles Gibson from the Herne Hill Forum, but sadly I only said as much as “hello” to people like Emer Coleman and Chris Osborne. That’s what you get for arriving late and leaving early.

3. It’s more meaty than you’d think

That’s “meatspace” as in “the real physical world”, compared to “cyberspace” online. Compared to events a few years ago on open data and technology, most of the discussion I heard was about councils and companies working on staff structures and consultation processes, and then thinking about how technology and data could help.

I used to get frustrated with discussions that started with the assumption that open data and technology was going to revolutionise the world. That seemed upside down to me. So I was pleasantly surprised at this.

4. There’s a lot of “we”

Somebody pointed this out in one session – it’s very easy to apply “we” to the wider population when you really mean “we sort of people in this room”.

Often “we” are innovators or early adopters of ideas that become more mainstream, like using a smart phone to access services. Sometimes “we” are set to be a significant minority, like journalists, bloggers and politicians who use data to enhance their investigatory work. Just as often “we” are a world unto our own.

It’s fine, innocent mostly, typical of any event with like-minded people. It just grated on me when people talked about reconfiguring public services or management around their preferences, as though the rest of the world will thank them.

I might make a badge for myself if I go again, with the slogan “we’re not normal” or similar!

5. Theres a lot going on out there

Cocooned in City Hall, working on affordable housing or the pay gap, it’s hard to keep even a toe dipped in this pool. It was great hearing from so many people in so many walks of work and life doing so many useful things.

Sometimes when I map an area for OpenStreetMap, walking down a street noting house numbers, I feel a bit bewildered by all these people living here! London feels impossibly enormous. I left UKGovCamp feeling similarly bewildered by the enormity of work going on in this field, relative that is to my own small bits and pieces in my job and my free time.

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Open scrutiny in the age of open data

This is the first of perhaps two or three short essays inspired by Emer Coleman‘s masters dissertation on open data, written in a personal capacity and not as part of my job. In this post I want to look at what her proposed model of “iterative and adaptive open government” would mean for scrutiny of the Mayor of London. Her dissertation considers the difference between the New Public Management approach, characterised by public managers setting the goals and other public managers auditing their performance, and an emerging “Open Governance” approach using open data.

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The cut and thrust: how Green Party policy really works

At recent party conferences and meetings of the London Federation of Green Parties, it has struck me that many members lack any experience or understanding of how our elected politicians work with party policy. I was in the same boat until I started to work closely with our London Assembly members, Darren Johnson and Jenny Jones, so I thought I’d share my experiences from the other side of the valley.

The main misconception I want to address is that all policy advocated by elected politicians can, or should, be found in our written party policy. Another way of stating this myth is to say that the policies we debate and pass at conference provide the bulk of the detailed policy used by elected politicians.

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On ineffective venting: twitter and the cuts

I’m not really a fan of Malcolm Gladwell and his cohort of star authors who spin one vaguely interesting idea into a entire “paradigm-smashing” book. But he is spot on when he dismisses Twitter as “more of the same… not the enemy of the status quo”.

His vaguely interesting idea here is basically that really big changes come about when people with strong social ties are willing to stick it out in a nasty battle to win the day. Social networks with weak ties (e.g. just following each other on Twitter) will fall apart if they try to take on power to make a really big change because in the process they will probably have to suffer a loss of income, physical injury, etc. Twitter messaging won’t motivate them to stick out the hardship.

But by pitting Twitter against a political movement as momentous as American Civil Rights in the 1950s and 60s, he obscures a much more fundamental point. In fact, by obsessing on the tools and tactics employed by activists he fails to notice that the Twitter mythology and failures he describes are really to do with an absense of good strategy.

Ineffective online activism is better exemplified by 38 Degrees, the spam service for angry people looking for a quick fix. Their recent spat-in-a-teacup with an MP exposed the curious importance some put on being able to “send a message to the man” no matter how little impact that might have.

If you want to vent your angrer in reaction to events that piss you off – for example, to attack the Government’s agenda of cuts – then Tweeting angry messages and starting Facebook groups are a great way of satisfying your emotions. But so are marches through city centres, rain-sodden rallies outside town halls and petitions on street stalls. Being ineffective isn’t an online phenomenon.

In discussing a reaction to the Government’s cuts agenda there will be endless calls for petitions, marches, lobbies, speeches, stalls, and blogs. Policy platforms will be formulated without any regard to whether they would actually help, by for example lobbying councils to pass illegal budgets. Lessons from the past will be brushed aside or even return from the grave because the idea of venting, of making a “clear statement”, will be more appealing than the business of working out how we can actually shift the agenda.

Twitter, Facebook, blogs and the rest can be very useful tactics if put in the context of a wider strategy that convincingly describes how those tactics will bring about your aims.

Gladwell takes his vaguely interesting idea too far by suggesting that “the revolution won’t be tweeted”. What he really means is that “tweeting won’t cause a revolution.”

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Some clarifications – what is wrong with Open Street Map?

Some lively debate flared up on the tail of my previous post on OpenStreetMap governance, where I made my criticism of the “Just Fucking Do It” philosophy that was labelled “do-ocracy”. Harry noted in his diary that there has been some bickering on Twitter on the question of what might be wrong with the otherwise-excellent OpenStreetMap.

My principal objection to the “do-ocratic” model is that it excludes “those who can’t” from setting the direction of the project, and that as a consequence OpenStreetMap is unlikely to meet the needs of a great many people.

Did I mean that developers are lazily or selfishly ignoring others’ needs? No, I am aware of and indebted to the efforts of many volunteers working to make OpenStreetMap more accessible and usable. Only a handful of community members refuse to engage in grown-up debate.

Do I mean to whine because I am excluded? Not at all. I consider myself to be very technically skilled and sufficiently time rich tohave contributed a lot over five years. I’ve dropped off mailing lists because I’m not that time rich and I’ve not got the skills to develop many tools I’d like, but that’s life.

So do I want developers to be subject to the force of a governing body, to dance to a top-down tune? No, I am a great fan of communities that harness the energy and enthusiasm of people who choose of their own accord to hack on things that interest them.

Do I think OpenStreetMap will fall apart if it doesn’t address my concerns? No, Tom Hughes rightly pointed out that a legitimate path for the project would be to remain a haven for the technically skilled and time rich, leaving others to step in and enable a wider community of enthusiasts or create business opportunities just as MapQuest have recently announced.

Am I suggesting that none of this is being discussed elsewhere? Not at all, I’m aware that some Foundation members are trying to tackle these sorts of issues.

My objection to the do-ocracy boils down to thinking that it’s a shame. I think OpenStreetMap could be much more, and that it stands in danger of being forked or ignored (as it already is) by a great many who would find it useful and add a great deal to the community. So long as key decisions and discussions are dominated by the technically skilled and time rich who can “just fucking do it”, the project will continue to reflect their preferences.

Giving the OpenStreetMap Foundation a wider and deeper remit, putting a corporate fundraiser at the top of the priority list and making an effort to include a variety of Board members from backgrounds other than core OSM hacking will all help. I’m glad that Mikel Maron, Thea Clay, Harry Wood and countless others are actively working to make this happen.

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Should local elections coincide with the nationals?

This chart shows the 2010 local election results for The Lane, the ward I ran for. After a year of really hard work I doubled the top Green vote to 1,265, but as you can see an incredible surge in votes for Labour stole the show.

The Lane election results

The Lane 2010 election results

To get an idea of how much of a difference having the national and local elections on the same day had in London, look at the black lines. I’ve drawn those into to show, roughly, where the votes were in the 2006 local elections. The increased turnout was massive, and it almost all went to Labour/Lib Dem/Conservative candidates. Across Southwark their vote increased between 50-300% whilst the Green vote was up much, much less; we just got left behind.

In The Lane, the Lib Dems didn’t even campaign. Their candidates didn’t attend the hustings, they only really put out general election leaflets in the area, they didn’t door knock, they’re not particularly active in local groups and their 8 year rule of Southwark Council didn’t do much for the area (to say the least). Yet their vote more than tripled to surge past us. We have been active in the area since 2006, campaigned hard on the doorstep and involved ourselves in lots of local campaigns and community groups, but even doubling our vote wasn’t enough to stop paper candidates overtaking us. That sucks.

It raises the old question: should general and local elections be on the same day? With the Brown/Cameron/Clegg show on TV and all the papers, two years of a Tory Mayor, eight years of a Lib Dem/Tory council for Labour activists to be angry at, and so many voters being unaware of the local situation, how could we ever compete?

For my part, it’s back to the local groups and streets to fight on. Next up: GLA elections in 2012!

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Why I could never vote for the Pirates

I’ve a lot of respect for anyone who steps up to run for election with a manifesto that, they genuinely hope, will improve the lot of their constituents. But aside from my obvious partisan reasons, I don’t think I could ever vote for a Pirate Party candidate in these forthcoming national and local elections.

I suspect I’m like the majority of people in that I really get put off by politicians saying “don’t vote for Party X or you’ll let Party Y in”, as though they’ve nothing more compelling to offer voters than “we’re not that lot”. Ultimately I would always want people to vote for the party they most support, give or take some tactical voting if they prefer. So if the Pirates are your bag then get involved with them.

But the Pirates are an unashamed single issue party. Their manifesto lays out a radical agenda for copyright, patents and online privacy. That’s an interesting proposition for an MEP who can take that militant approach in a very large Parliament. But MPs and councillors are constituency politicians, they need to represent and support people on every issue on the books with an open statement of their approach. If I were to vote for a Pirate, I’d want to know that they are concerned about the need for affordable homes, better partnership working to improve my town centre and urgent action on climate change. Even if I weren’t a committed Green, I’d want a local Pirate candidate to set her/his personal stall on those issues before they got my vote.

We Greens also have some good policy on these subjects, tying them into our wider approach to the economy, culture and government. When their grassroots and youth wing mobilise, the Lib Dems sometimes take these issues up, the Conservatives sometimes talk the talk and the split personality Labour government have made some good recent moves. I’d much rather vote for a candidate from a rounded party who also took the Pirates’ concerns seriously in these elections.

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Power to the people!

Labour have never really understood how to empower people and their community groups, although they do love to talk about it. Take this recent article by Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander, where they say “the right kind of state action is not a drain on individual empowerment; it can enhance it”.

Great, so why have they been party to a state that has taken ever more power away from people, replacing citizenship with shallow consumer rights? How do you get beyond slogans and soundbites to genuinely empower local people?

In a recent blog entry I wrote about the money side of the equation – how you can enable local people to directly invest in projects that will improve their neighbourhood, a topic Matt Sellwood has some interesting thoughts on. You could also use tools like participatory budgeting, made fun by the unsurpassably brilliant The People Speak, or really make the most of the Sustainable Communities Act. But what about the people themselves?

Labour have too often confused the voluntary sector with community groups. A lot of people depend on and benefit from the work of the voluntary sector – just look at the fantastic Peckham Voluntary Sector Forum, for example!

But what about those of us who would just like to be a little more involved in our neighbourhood, who would like to start a group to grow some food, or a knitting club, or a campaign to improve some cycle lanes? For us, the voluntary sector is too unweildy, slow and offputting. Who has the time to establish a constituted organisation to apply for funding and hire a venue for a public meeting? Who has all the right local contacts to hand?

Local hero Eileen Conn mentioned the idea of Community Development Officers to me recently. On reflection I think she’s spot on. You need people who can be visible at a very local level, running training events on basic organising skills, helping local people to lead rather than trying to lead them, signposting sources of support, getting them to build co-operative relationships, encouraging them to take risks, and linking them up with councillors who will make the council system work for them (as opposed to just “representing” them). London Citizens do this quite brilliantly with existing schools and religious groups.

The final piece of the puzzle is a community-run community centre. Eh? Well, a place that’s bit more like Access Space, the Rising Sun Arts Centre and CRISP than your typical council-run building with their rules, regulations and detached staff. Mix a settlement up with freecycle to provide rooms, computers & photocopiers and you’re half way there.

Real life, real local campaigns and clubs, are far more fluid than council bureaucracies. Rather than offering us false consumer choices in public services, whilst introducing timid reforms to open those bureaucracies up a little to citizens, why not do it the other way around? Give local people the skills and financial tools to make a difference their own way.

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Who represents community activists?

I’ve got a short opinion piece up on the People’s Republic of Southwark web site, arguing that councillors should involve and work with community activists, rather than imagining that they can effectively represent their “community”. Have a read and leave a comment with your thoughts!


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