Imprint: Triarchy Press
Published: 5th December, 2016
List Price: £15.00
Format: Paperback
Extent: 100pp.
Size: 15.2 x 22.9 cm
ISBN: 978-1-911193-08-1
Tags: Public Sector, Public Services

Kittens are Evil: Little Heresies in Public Policy
Charlotte Pell, Rob Wilson, Toby Lowe

Kittens are Evil
Foreword

Saying that ‘payment by results’ is fundamentally flawed is like saying
kittens are evil. It’s heresy.
     The official consensus around payment by results is that it’s a no-brainer,
and if there are problems with it in practice, it’s your fault: you’re not
doing it right. Coercive and simplistic thinking informs a whole range of
practices aimed at improving public services, so good people try hard to
make bad initiatives, based on bad theory, work. Teething troubles, poor
governance, bad apples and unintended consequences are cited as reasons
for high-profile failures, such as disability assessments, Universal Credit
and the Troubled Families initiative.
     This book argues that best efforts and poor excuses aren’t good enough.
The authors describe how a bad system beats well-meaning individuals
every time. They argue that no amount of tinkering, re-branding or good
governance can compensate for the serious and widespread harm inflicted
by a fundamentally flawed set of beliefs. George Monbiot succinctly
described these beliefs and their consequences in The Guardian (April
2016):
     We respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently
unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the
same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name.
What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
     So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise
it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian,
millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like
Darwin’s theory of evolution.
     The authors of this book challenge manifestations of neoliberal
assumptions in public services – through family intervention,
personalisation, numerical targets, marketisation, league tables, economies
of scale, inspection and payment by results.
     At the heart of neoliberalism is a belief about people. Individuals are
perfectible: anyone can (and should) be successful, to ‘make something
of themselves’, if they only try hard enough. If they are unsuccessful,
they should be forced to compete harder. (Try watching Ken Loach’s I,
Daniel Blake.) If only we ate less, exercised more, stopped getting older,
were more enterprising, ticked the right boxes, remembered our unique
customer reference number, were digital by default and frankly were more
service-shaped. Wouldn’t that make the government’s job easier?
     A systems view has a very different starting point. This book argues
that it is the system itself that is troubled, not families or individuals. As in
finance, neoliberal ‘quick wins’ all too often turn into long-term disaster,
and it is the same in the public sector that has internalised its thinking.
     The system is where we need to intervene. Attending to systems and their
consequences for people is the only sustainable route to better lives and a
better society.
     This book isn’t a conscious attempt to design a new system, although in
places it makes a start. It does, however, provide strong evidence for public
sector professionals, academics and policy makers to see neoliberalism
for what it is – not a neutral or inevitable force, but a set of intentional
and man-made political beliefs. By seeing it, we can help politicians who
believe in something different, to create a new orthodoxy.
Charlotte Pell
Visiting Fellow, KITE, University of Newcastle Business School
Simon Caulkin
Writer and editor

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