Graph !!!!!!, the ££B lavish by Labour on the bloated public sector

lemonjelly

Generali wrote: »

As a teacher, do you think that British children are substantially better educated in 2010 than they were in 1997? I mean in a qualitative sense rather than by using statistical measures.

I'm not a teacher but do work in education.
However, I think overall it is difficult to argue that children are substaintially better educated than in 1997. However they are not substantially worse either.

IMO there are now classes which are too large. There are buildings which are less fit for purpose (owing to the passing of time, as well as technology). There are also a lot of unneccessary courses which are less beneficial.

Education funding has been hit by demands for meeting costs such as childcare, travel and other associated support for students.

However I would also argue that part of the reason for a lack of improvement lies with the students themselves, & their parents. I see parents coming in to make sure studets do courses which won't affect their benefits, & will get them EMA (so they can take it off the kids). I see parents threaten staff. I see kids/young people who don't much give a damn. I see students smoking drugs at the gates, not caring too much who sees them or is aware of what they're doing.

I think there is becoming a real gap in between those who wish to acheive their potential, & those who can't be bothered. Problem is, those who can't be bothered have a detruimental effect on those who want to better themselves.

michaels

carolt wrote: »

'Standards have fallen' - quite a big claim.

Please provide proof.

I'll also link the Economist which is less of a Tory rag:

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15949738

Schools are hardly the sole cause of these woes, yet British schools tend to make matters worse. Although the current Labour government has doubled spending on schools since coming to power in 1997, pupils are falling behind their counterparts in other rich countries. Their recent showing in the tests of 15-year-olds’ reading, mathematics and science skills carried out by the OECD, a rich-world think-tank, has been sobering. Between 2000 and 2006 Britain tumbled down the OECD’s rankings in all of them (see chart 2).

michaels

I don't think this should be dismissed so frivolously. There was a lot of discussion at the time about how the 'rewards of growth' should be shared out. Surely there is a big difference between an increase in public spending that reflects some proportion of growth in the economy and an increase that actually swallows up all of any economic growth and indeed more resulting in a situation here the non-govt part of the economy is actually smaller than 1997 (which I suspect is the case)

Generali wrote: »

You know the OP doesn't as it's tagged by a 3rd party.

The post isn't disingenuous however as it is inflation adjusted.

The data used are all publicly available so I'm sure you could calculate this for yourself if you are intelligent and motivated enough.

Let me Google the first potential search for you and let you take it from there:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=UK+Government+spending

Generali

michaels wrote: »

I don't think this should be dismissed so frivolously. There was a lot of discussion at the time about how the 'rewards of growth' should be shared out. Surely there is a big difference between an increase in public spending that reflects some proportion of growth in the economy and an increase that actually swallows up all of any economic growth and indeed more resulting in a situation here the non-govt part of the economy is actually smaller than 1997 (which I suspect is the case)

The point of my post you link to was that the poster probably knew (or should have) that the OP didn't have the alternative data as it was sourced from a third party.

Now to take your point about the 'rewards of growth'. Mr Blair was pretty explicit in the 90s that he felt that the share of GDP taken by Government should increase IIRC and as a result the share of GDP spent by Government has risen from slightly under 40% to over 50%.

The problem I have with this is that the state produces very little productive output (health and education being the obvious exceptions and even these I feel are produced pretty inefficiently) and so the larger the share of GDP the Government uses, the lower the rate of growth of GDP within reasonable bounds.

michaels

I'm quite on your wavelength here. I hadn't realised that new labour included a commitment to increasing the share of govt expenditure as a proportion of GDP regardless of GDP growth - I had thought it was only as a consequence of any increase in GDP being directed towards the public sector.

I am not sure whether the lack of productivity improvement is as a result of the types of service that the govt decides to provide or (my suspicion) it is because of the mechanism used to supply them. Personally see no reason why the govt should not just pay the bills for the services it wishes to supply it's citizens but leave the provision to the private sector / not for profit / whoever wants to provide the service?

Generali wrote: »

The point of my post you link to was that the poster probably knew (or should have) that the OP didn't have the alternative data as it was sourced from a third party.

Now to take your point about the 'rewards of growth'. Mr Blair was pretty explicit in the 90s that he felt that the share of GDP taken by Government should increase IIRC and as a result the share of GDP spent by Government has risen from slightly under 40% to over 50%.

The problem I have with this is that the state produces very little productive output (health and education being the obvious exceptions and even these I feel are produced pretty inefficiently) and so the larger the share of GDP the Government uses, the lower the rate of growth of GDP within reasonable bounds.