Burnham’s new broom

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning

We’ve all known those people who come into a new job with fresh ideas and a mountain of energy, fizzing with enthusiasm, and a determination to get things done. They implement new systems, new schemes, change the way things are done, and add initiatives. Some of them then run out of steam, or get bored and head for pastures new to do it all again. Or realise they have the right ideas, but in the wrong company. Or they get sacked.
Others are in it for the long haul, because they and the people around them understand that the new path is the right one.

Which one of these pigeonholes Andy Burnham will fit into remains to be seen. I have lost count of the number of times I have started to write something for this blog about our new PM, only for him to announce something else that requires thought and then comment.

The new Cabinet for a start. I had a load of snide phrases all ready to go, referencing Ikea and the obligatory left over screws, but the time for that has passed. Partly because they’ve been used by several other commentators ahead of me, and partly because I’m not sure how appropriate the reference is. The Cabinet may have been hastily assembled, but there is some heft and experience in there. The new Chancellor, for example, has been there and worn several of the T-shirts, both in Government and Opposition. He looks rather like the bank managers of my youth, the ones who would invite you in to the office for a brief chat before carefully, but kindly, refusing to give you any more money, until he was sure you could repay it.

With another sweep of the new broom, we have a reduction in VAT on household energy bills, which will help some people a lot, and others not so much. But that’s how a tax like VAT works, and, these days, every little helps.
Then came the commitment to technical education, and a particularly fine sound-bite: “ We’ll value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap”. The worst thing about that other sound-bite – Blair’s ‘“my three main priorities for government…education, education, and education” was that it soon came to mean academic, book-based learning, to the detriment of hands-on, practical, more vocational education. This then became devalued in the eyes of the education establishment, government, and, crucially, parents.

And yet, from building homes and fixing the plumbing, to tinkering under the bonnets of increasingly complex vehicles, its technical careers that power the economy just as much as more cerebral ones. It’s about time they were given equal billing.

We all know that the construction’s skills gap can’t magically fill itself. If the government –whether Andy Burnham’s or whoever comes after him — is serious about delivering the homes, and infrastructure the country needs, this sector has to be an obvious first choice for the next generation. Because if nobody’s learning the trade today, nobody’s building tomorrow.

Real progress will come when, as Bradfords’ David Young has pointed out on this site, employers, educators and government roll up their sleeves and work together to make sure talk about vocational training translates into actual, practical education that equips young people with the skills businesses actually need. And gives this industry the future workforce it needs in order to survive.

Finally, for now, the focus on changing how we approach social care, particularly care of the elderly is something that has to be faced, though it’ll be a really tough nut to crack. We all know that, while none of us is getting any younger, we are, on the whole, living longer. Breakthroughs in medical science mean more of us are surviving diseases that would have done for us in the past, but that, of course, comes with its own, expensive issues.

Whether or not Burnham manages to get all these initiatives over the line remains to be seen. And there is, as usual, the question of funding. There’s only so much than can be done by cutting spending in other areas. How then, will everything be paid for? I have a feeling that the answer is: one word, three letters. Ends in X.