Rob Shorrock

The Grantham Journal has been running a story about the CEO of South Kesteven District Council who made a recent request to take some unpaid leave to go cycling around Europe. Bordering on the hysterical and wonderfully parochial in the public outcry that has resulted, unfortunately it has had the effect of masking the real issue.

Below is my full (unpublished, yet again!) letter I sent on the subject:

So Duncan Kerr, Chief Executive of SKDC has been granted his extended unpaid leave for 13 weeks to go cycling round Europe.   Mr Kerr is an employee of the council, he isn't elected, so why has all this taken place in public? I think most of us would like some confidentiality around our own dealings with our employers for holiday leave etc.

We must remember that his job is to do what a Conservative cabinet of SKDC ask him to do. In the end, in act of straightfoward political cowardice, Linda Neal and her cabinet fudged the issue and sent it to the full council meeting for decision to avoid taking responsibility for the decision in the first place.   It shouldn't be for Mr Kerr to justify himself to the council and the public. That is the job of Leader of the Council Linda Neal who has showed, yet again, that when the going gets tough she shys away from the issue. It is quite shameful that her most senior employee has been placed in this rather humiliating position.  

 There are of course many questions to be asked about the management reorganisation of SKDC with its shrinking number of directors. These changes were brought in a number of years ago to improve services and make efficiency gains. Councillors should be examining this issue rather then spending huge amounts of time and the taxpayers money on deciding if one of their employees should be allowed unpaid leave.   However, although he and the council are being criticised for this, it isn't unusual in many businesses and can be an important factor in employee retention and motivation, and sometimes has wider social benefit. It is also good for the employer to do these kinds of things, when an employee has showed a significant degree of committment to his\her employer they should recognise the wider ambitions of that employee. For example, Olympic athletes and other sports people always need to be able to get this time from their employers, as it is the only way as a nation we are able to compete effectively at international levels.   Remember, Mr Kerr doesn't run the council. The Conservatives under Linda Neal do.

The recent decision of the ASA to ban an advert on the grounds that it could ‘cause serious offence to Christians' is a particularly dubious if not craven act. The advert for Jemella hair products used Christian iconography and expressions lifted from the Lords prayer to sell hair products. The advertisers said they were trying to get across a deeply held wish (to have great hair?) and they had not intended to offend anyone.

Sometimes advertising is crass, oblique and occasionally so perplexing you wonder how they could sell anything of the back of it. However, the last thing that any adperson wants to do is to piss people off so much as to jepordise the sale of a clients product. The point here, however, is a small coterie of over-sensitive Christians have managed to get the ASA to ban the advert and claim this as a victory.

The ASA in its ruling argues that "advertisements must not cause serious or widespread offence against generally accepted moral, social or cultural standards, or offend against public feeling." This also explicitly includes religious beliefs.

For the new authoritarians advertising is the modern-day demon to slay.  It seems that the ASA agree and without a hint of irony, gives credence to any complaint whether on the grounds of taste, religious sensitivity, or the contestable evidence of harm to children (or, if it is the Compass campaign, the more nebulous concept of childhood - can you harm a concept!?).

Banning adverts is an issue that we should care about because it is really about limiting free speech. People who want to limit free speech do not stop at trying to get adverts banned. For those of us on the left there is a visceral tendency to oppose all the agents of capitalism, including advertising, but ultimately we have to be the ones who uphold free speech, which includes stuff we may not like to defend.

Calling for bans also tell us a lot about the protoganists and their beliefs about the human condition and human nature: human beings are stupid, irresponsible, carnal and need protecting from themselves. For real libertarian socialists (this does not include Noam Chomsky, John Pilger etal) we have an optimistic idea of humanity. Human beings are, or have the capacity to be, intelligent and discerning and less vulnerable than many would think. We also have the great ability in a media age to filter and choose very effectively. I have no doubt that advertising plays its part in these choices, but in the end we do have to feel strong enough to trust our own sensibilities.

This idea of living in a liberal democracy should be at the heart of any notion of citizenship we try and teach to children. Prohibitionist and protectionist approaches help no one and result in an erosion of all our liberties.

I don't want to be too cynical about the introduction of a new 14-19 diploma, but after listening to Ed Balls on the Today programme this morning frothing on about the incredible opportunity they present, I began to feel very sceptical.

Because the government runs scared from pissing off middle class parents it continues to retain the A level. Diplomas will only work as a common currency, when employers and university admission tutors have no choice but to look at the diplomas that a potential employee or student possess. Having a two stream system means that A levels will always have a higher currency in these terms. It is what many employers and crusty academics know. Sure, there are always progressives, but the reality is that the brighter students and their parents will not take the risk. Sixth forms will always give priority to A levels because they are judged by the results. Diplomas will be seen as something for those that cannot benefit from A levels.

Ed Balls and his department need to take a reality check here. Apart from the labyrinthine set of options that seem to be available under the diploma scheme (the problem of designing schemes where you have to fudge the fact they you want to also retain what already exists) there is no analysis of the history here. Previous vocational schemes such as advanced GNVQ (a vocational A level) were superb courses, but when these students applied to universities, quite disgracefully some would not recognise them. Few employers understood them either.

This is the crux of the problem. Employers federations and University associations may support and promote the concept, but in truth it is the mindset and attitude of the employer and admission tutor that is important here. With the best will in the world, the only way you will make them understand that talent isn't exclusively within the domain of A levels, is to integrate them fully into an overarching diploma.

Ed Balls and the government need to take that step for this to be anywhere near the momentous change it is being purported to be.