The TaxPayers' Alliance - Better Government

An agenda for educational improvement

As debate over public spending descends into the absurd (with 0% spending rises and ministerial bullying of journalists), its easy to forget that behind all the bluster there are some real policy debates going on.

Perhaps the most significant of these debates concerns education, and more specifically, the future of our schools system. The Government, to its credit, put education front and centre when it came to power. For a time too, even a critic must admit, it put real effort into a reformist agenda, with - I believe - the genuine motivation of improving schools.

But for some time now that motivation has gone, and the Government has preoccupied itself with just treading water, manipulating the 'outputs' to disguise the deteriorating quality of the 'input'. Education steadily marginalised as 'schools' became just tools with which social ills will be fixed.

Conservative thinking on education has taken on board all the efforts, mistakes and neglect of the past 12 years, and been informed by the many examples of what works and what doesn't. On Tuesday Michael Gove - Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families - laid out the broad thrust of their policy in a speech to the Royal Society of the Arts, entitled 'What is Education For'. To read the whole speech, see here.

Acknowledging the steady and intended transformation of state schools into hubs for "children's services", Mr Gove notes the eclipsing of education itself: "I fear that duties on schools, and teachers, to fulfil a variety of noble purposes - everything from promoting community cohesion to developing relationships with other public bodies, trusts, committees and panels gets in the way of their core purpose – education."

The statistics on educational attainment, and the gulf that is emerging (not diminishing) between well educated children (from both state and private) and the poorly educated, are depressing:

"Schools have to clear a very specific hurdle – they have to make sure 30% of their pupils get 5 Cs or better at GCSE, including English and Maths...

This very narrow definition, and particular kind of accountability, has a tragic skewing effect on the education many children enjoy. Weaker schools, desperate to avoid being branded failing, concentrate their efforts on a narrow band of pupils – those on the borderline of a C grade – and they lead those pupils towards the sort of qualifications which may be easier to pass – but which do not serve those pupils’ interests best.

Across the educational landscape, qualifications which promise easier routes to a pass mark are growing in popularity. Media Studies GCSE entries have increased by 43% in just two years - from 41,027 candidates in 2004/5 to 59,071 in 2006/7.

At A-level the rise over time has also been significant. In 1997 just 8,954 students took media studies A-level. By 2006 the number had risen by 157%. Now I have no particular prejudice against media studies – or any other subject per se - as part of a truly rounded education. But my views aren’t the one that matter. The views of admissions tutors at Cambridge University, however, do.

He goes on ...

"Of the 75,000 children on free school meals each year (about 1 in 8 of all pupils), four out of ten fail to get even a single ‘C’ grade GCSE. Only 189 of these 75,000 go on to get three As at A Level – compared with the 175 three A’s pupils produced by just one school, Eton. Independent schools, which educate just 7% of pupils, produce more pupils who get three A's at A Level than every comprehensive school put together."

On history ...

"Ofsted has reported that "pupils knowledge and understanding of key historical facts is not good enough; their knowledge is fragmented. Young people's knowledge is very often patchy and specific, they are unable to sufficiently link discrete historical events to answer big questions, form overviews and demonstrate strong conceptual understanding. Young people's sense of chronology is relatively weak and they are generally unable to relate a longer narrative of the story of Britain."

A recent survey of students entering a Russell Group university to read history asked them to name the British general at Waterloo, the monarch during the Armada, Brunel's profession, a single 19th century Prime Minister and the location of the Boer War.

The survey found that just over one question in five was answered correctly."

That is a damning indictment, particularly considering the vocal commitments the Government has made to both education and citizenship. 

"Faced with this deterioration in standards top private schools are abandoning normal GCSEs. The number of pupils in independent schools taking the, more rigorous, international GCSE more than doubled from 2007 to 2008, from just over 15,000 to over 40,000. 46% of independent schools entered at least one pupil for an iGCSE in 2008 (iGCSE Maths is particularly popular).

... [but] the Government does not let state schools do the iGCSE so there is a growing gap between opportunities for richer children and the rest. Ed Balls recently refused to give state schools funding for the iGCSE, continues to refuse to let the iGCSE count in the league tables, and recently attacked it, extraordinarily, as not being of a "sufficiently high standard."

Gove goes onto outline Conservative plans (page 11 onwards). They pick up the baton dropped by this Government, carrying forward the program of reform that will return power (and just importantly responsibility) to schools and parents. It's an ambitious program, and it will run into the problem of vested interests and bedded in bureaucracy immediately out of the gate. But it is the far better program, if compared to last weeks Children's White Paper from the Government. That White paper, in fairness (and in credit to the Conservatives) plans to reverse the trends established in recent years. But ultimately it does so grudgingly, against its instincts; for political ends. At least Gove gives the impression that he is committed to education reform because he believes it.

Another business survey; more bad news for RDAs

However hard one trawls the web, it's hard to find an independent analysis of RDAs that gives them a  really good review. Journals dedicated to regional issues - a natural home for pro-RDA opinion one might think - struggle to present a case beyond "they're better than nothing". Most studies settle with: "some might be doing ok, most could be done away with". The TPA's assessment, published last year (see here), was undoubtedly one of the most critical out there, but even the Government sponsored review, carried out by PwC, had to rely on 'projections of potential future benefits' to find anything positive to say.

But whatever academics, economists or campaign groups might say about them, the real acid test must be business opinion. After all, RDAs are supposed to be 'business lead', 'business focused', tasked with improving their regional business environment. Even though the Government has now ditched the RDAs original objectives (a sure sign that even the Government felt RDAs weren't cutting it), business remains the RDAs primary focus.

So the latest survey of IoD members, carried out in March 2009, is not good news for RDAs:

•  Only 18 per cent of of IoD members state that RDAs perform well when rating delivery against target.
• Around 60 per cent say that their region would have achieved the same growth rate without RDAs.
• There is a clear North-South divide in the perception of the contribution of RDAs to economic performance.
• Members support deep cuts in RDA expenditure.

Assessing the RDAs against their priorities (increasing inward investment, building an enterprise environment, etc) the results were stark, with "a very poor assessment of overall performance". No area of RDA activity commanded a positive response of more than 18%.

Another metric, how businesses felt their region would have grown without RDA input, again "showed weak business confidence in the effectiveness in RDAs". 58% felt that their region would have grown exactly the same without the RDAs presence, with a further 7% suggesting that without RDA input the region might have grown even faster. Only 14% championed the role of RDAs in assisting regional growth.

 

Considerable regional differences were an interesting feature of the IoD survey, with the North and South West expressing significantly stronger approval for RDAs than the East and South East. Such a disparity may not be surprising, considering the relative economic strengths of the regions; i.e those regions with lower GVA support RDA activity more than those regions that are doing relatively well. Such differences can be over done though; in the North-East, the region with the strongest support for RDAs, only 37% expressed a positive opinion (as opposed to 30% who express a negative); in the South East, the region one might expect to have the least support for RDAs, 20% were positive, 43% negative. Surprisingly, considering the visibility of its RDA, support was lowest in the West Midlands. Only 14% were positive, while 44% were negative.

The most revealing section of the survey concerned RDA funding. As the write up notes, the RDAs "might argue the the findings ... reveal a need for greater resources in order to improve delivery.The survey results should not be interpreted in this way".

Those surveyed expressed strong support for reductions in expenditure on RDAs. Only 1% favoured an increase; 15% support maintaining levels; 42% favoured a 100% reduction. Three quarters of members favoured a reduction of between 25% and 100%. "Results only fall marginally short of an overall majority of IoD members calling for the effective abolition of RDAs." 

It should be, as the IoD write, "a wake-up call" for the Government and RDAs. The IoD and business, it should be noted, are not intrinsically anti-RDA; few rational people object to organisations that willing throw money at them. So members must be particularly disenchanted with RDAs to express the firmly negative opinions they did. It's fair to say that in this acid test, as in so many others, RDAs have not come out well.   

OECD urges bold cuts to public expenditure

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) gave its strongest line on the UK's fiscal problems yesterday, urging the Government to return to "credible" spending plans.

In the context of Lord Mandelson's admission that the Government would not be holding a spending review before the election, the OECD's 'Economic Survey of the United Kingdom 2009' is something of a rebuke of the Government's "we will spend our way out of trouble" approach; (albeit an unintended criticism).

While the preamble limits itself to the observation that delivery "of the consolidation [plan to fix the public finances] will require specifying the “value for money” savings beyond 2011-12 in the upcoming Spending Review," the OECD later makes little effort to disguise the fact that the government's determination to increase investment in public services despite the downturn is largely responsible for the country's budget problems. Action to cut public expenditure must be bolder and more specific, with  "explicit targeting of programmes for expenditure cuts and temporary revenue-raising measures" to reduce the high debt levels".

It also recommends bringing an end to the (fairly scandalous) practice of hiding PFI and pension liabilities "off balance sheet"; these, along with the debts of the nationalised banks, should be considered in the setting of public debts targets. New fiscal rules should also be introduced, to replace those suspended by the 2008 Pre-Budget Report. There might be a role, the OECD suggests, for an independent fiscal authority to assess whether the government was sticking to its spending rules (BBC website). In other words, the OECD is recommending bringing in the IMF. This is what bankrupt countries do, what the UK was forced to do in the 1970's, what Latvia and Turkey have done in recent months.

Unemployment is predicted to rise to 10%. The OECD also last week revised down its short-term outlook for the UK economy, to a contraction of -4.3% this year, worse than the government's forecast of -3.5%. Gloomily, they suggest that even if the moves to stabilise the financial system work (which is not yet certain) growth could remain well below trend, as households and firms rebuild their balance sheets. On that financial reform, the OECD makes warm noises about the potential benefits of greater European engagement, and note a continuing "unhelpful conflict" between the Bank of England and the FSA. It argues that "it is difficult to reconcile the overall macro-prudential objective within the structure of two independent institutions," and suggests linking them more closely through a joint board with the final authority to take action. The Government is due to publish its plans for financial regulation soon.

What, one might ask, does this OECD report tell us that we don't already know? Nothing really. The media and opposition parties are doing a solid job (for now) of exposing the Government's national recovery 'plans' for what they are - pie in the sky - and no serious political organisation in the UK (except the Labour party) pretends that public expenditure cuts will be anything other than the main feature of the next government. But the OECD is - without doubt - diligent, objective and non-partisan. It is the Government's international 'think-tank' of choice, and its recommendations yesterday should dispel firmly any lingering idea that there are alternatives for the future of public spending. It should (although it wont, as Mandelson and Balls' Today appearances confirm) put the final nail in the notion that there is some sort of choice between 'investment' and 'cuts'. There ain't. There are real and important debates about what we cut, and how severely. Debates the political parties and we the public should be having now. If the Labour party or any other group don't want to participate, that is their loss.

Bankruptcy ... the great reformer

The Guardian reports today that the Government is to end its centralised control of schools, abandoning one of New Labour's most significant education reforms.

Details are still sketchy, as this news - like that about school mergers earlier this week - comes from DCSF leaks, not an actual bill. (A practice which the new Speaker will hopefully come down on strongly). From what has been leaked though, it appears that:

"schools will no longer have to rely on centralised national strategies for support in teaching literacy and numeracy. Instead they will able to choose from a range of suppliers or work together to improve pupils' basic skills.Primary schools in England have been expected to teach English and maths according to centralised guidelines set down by national literacy and numeracy strategies for more than 10 years.These give detailed plans for teachers on what to convey to pupils throughout the school year, with an expectation that there should be daily lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic." (BBC website)

Instead:

"... money will be redirected to schools to spend on forging networks with neighbouring schools and buying in their own advisers to help them drive up teaching standards and exam results. Good schools will be expected to federate with lower-performing schools to help them improve. Schools will still be able to teach the literacy and numeracy hours, but there will be no central bureaucracy to support it.

The changes are designed to end duplication in support for schools, which currently have an array of consultants from the local authority and the national strategies to help them improve. Instead, schools will be able to employ consultants directly to advise them, and increasingly the consultants will be other practising headteachers.

The national strategies are credited with a substantial improvement in school test results in the period after they were introduced, but that success has stalled. They were heavily criticised by the Commons education select committee, which concluded that what and how schools can teach under the programmes is too heavily prescribed. It said: "At times schooling has appeared more of a franchise operation, dependent on a recipe handed down by government rather than the exercise of professional expertise by teachers." (The Guardian)

Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, has promised Conservative support if the White Paper is as radical as leaks suggest. Moreover the NUT - perhaps proving me wrong in my suggestion that their support is rarely a good sign - has said that many would welcome "the dropping of the top down imposed strategies".

Just as with the potential school merger plans, this news should be welcomed, albeit very cautiously. Judgement should be reserved until the details are released next week, and if past form counts for anything, Ed Balls and DCSF are odds on to make these reforms (great in principle) irrelevant in practice. Damaging even. But, giving them the benefit of the doubt for now, the philosophy underpinning these proposals - returning power to schools and teachers - is spot on. 

Don't be fooled by suggestions that Ed Balls has "masterminded" these plans out of some sort of commitment to localism and school empowerment though. No one is capable of such a radical conversion. Money, as is often the case, drives these reforms, as they could save the Government up to £100m a year on its contract with the private company Capita, which delivers the national strategies.

Bankruptcy is often a catalyst for reform; leaner, more effective and efficient services emerge from a brush with administration. It's not the way anyone would have wanted them to learn, but the fiscal strategy chosen by Balls and Brown a decade ago - the one which now burdens the UK with public sector borrowing of £175 billion -  may now force them to accept the logic of a leaner state. In education, as in health, this doesn't have to mean fewer teachers, worse schools or diminished ambition. It simply means less government, less layers of bureaucracy. So the state's fiscal crises may have a silver lining, of sorts. But only if Balls (and his colleagues) is really brave enough to turn his back on his instincts and begins to trust professionals and people to deliver public services.  

The domino effect

First Westminster, now the BBC. The burgeoning desire for public spending transparency shifted its focus to another big beast of state funding this week, and the revelations have courted outrage, albeit not as vehement as that directed at our politicians. Again, the claims vary from the grand to the frivolous – from swanky Vegas hotels to 19p in mileage. In fairness to the BBC, these details were released in full, and itemised in detail. Contrast this with the MPs expenses: even though the Telegraph have full details of claims made and received, it was still seen as reasonable to frantically attack the forms with black ink. Of course, this type of action simply implies that there is something to hide. The BBC’s claims for top executives – however infuriating – are out in public, open to attack and defence.

We at the TPA find many of the claims made to be totally unnecessary, and the BBC could go further and disclose even more information on other senior managers and the supposed ‘talent’ that they seem so keen to wrap in cotton wool. It is our money; let us see how it is spent. But under the pressure of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and the current zeitgeist, the BBC decided that – for these executives at least – clarity was the preferable option. Let us hope that this is indicative of the direction we are heading in.

The lust for transparency has underlined the importance of the FOI Act. It is this single piece of legislation that has helped the public to see how their money spent: notwithstanding healthy portions of determination and tenacity in the face of refusals from public bodies to provide the facts. The Information Commissioner’s Office – the guardians of the FOI Act – should be given extra funding (shock, horror) to ease the burden of the work imposed upon them, and to help clear backlogs of referred cases. These disputes can often take more than a year, and this is not acceptable.

One hopes that the momentum gathered continues on. If two of the big dominoes can be knocked down, then other public bodies must follow. Full transparency, and consequently accountability, has to be seen across the entire scope of the public sector. Other big bodies such as NHS Trusts and Police forces should now let the light in, as should Councils, the innumerable quangos and any other body the taxpayer funds.

Resident in all this is the notion that public money deserves public scrutiny. One of the key recommendations to come from Whitehall following the MPs’ expenses scandal was to introduce an ‘independent’ body to regulate parliamentary standards. We say this emphatically - establishing a quango will not solve the problem. There are more than 60 million excellent regulators around the UK: all they need are the details.

How to cut £90 billion a year

Prospect has a good piece by David Halpern this month, urging the Government to begin the painful but absolutely unavoidable process of cutting public expenditure....see here.

"...we must overcome our longstanding lack of interest in evaluating what works: the quiet scandal of public policy where billions are spent but not unspent if they don’t deliver. One hard lesson from history is that reviews focusing just on efficiency gains don’t deliver what’s needed when your budget deficit is heading towards 10 per cent. The Canadians introduced 15 initiatives to control or reduce expenditure in the 1980s and early 1990s, but their debt still tripled. If we aren’t careful, we are in danger of following them."

David Halpern is director of research at the Institute for Government and was a chief analyst in the Downing Street strategy unit.

Mergers and Acquisitions

When a new schools policy is announced, check the reaction of the National Union of Teachers (NUT). Supportive, and the policy is liable to be misguided. Condemnation, and the policy is perhaps worth considering.

It's a crude, but none the less useful guide. The NUT is just doing what any good union should do of course, protecting its members' interests. And certainly no one could ever argue that the NUT fails to put its members interest first and foremost. But on school issues, the public must put children's interests first, and rarely nowadays are these aligned with those of the NUT.

So news that the NUT were unimpressed by Ed Balls' new plans for school mergers (annonuced yesterday) was a positive sign. In proposals to be laid out in a new white paper next week, provision will be made for weaker schools to be merged, or even taken over by well performing schools. Schools will be allowed to pool budgets, and local authorities will be forced to consider handing control of the weakest schools to new accredited 'federations'. As Balls told the Times, "What we are looking to see is a number of 'not-for-profit' state schools directly run by the best education providers. We want to see chains of schools run by a single overall leadership, probably with a shared brand, with some shared management and governance with a shared ethos and identity".

In principle, the idea is not bad. But there is still plenty wrong with the plans. They could see the Department for Children once again moving power from schools, parents and teachers, and consolidating it in Whitehall. On past form, this is depressingly likely. Moreover the possibility that good state schools could be marked down by Ofsted if they refuse to take part in mergers - considered by Balls to be evidence of a lack of ambition - is ridiculous, and could potentially undermine any positive outcomes which come from these plans. As to the motivation, the Secretary of State's thinly veiled threats to good schools, and his comments about efficiencies, bolster the suspicion that Balls is making such moves simply to cut costs (as he is going to have to, whatever he says) and increase his control. As with some unions, Balls' interests are rarely aligned with children's.

But, all that said, as a group that has been pushing to see good schools allowed to merge, or more importantly, take over poorly performing schools, we must give these proposals a cautious welcome. They do, in some sense, move policy in the right direction, acknowledging that schools know better how to fix problems than Whitehall. Any moves that potentially give schools more power, at the expense of local authorities, DCSF and even 'teachers' (as an industry) must be applauded (however gingerly the clapping). We should have a debate about what constitutes suitable pay for 'super-heads', and oppose totally the idea that good schools be strong armed into mergers, but we should support steps which might free state schools a little from Whitehall. The jury is still out on whether yesterday's plans will do so.

Note: to put yesterday's proposals in context a little, read Alexandra Blair's piece in the Times today (see here). Investigating the turn around of a sink school in High Wycombe, it is impressive what is possible when able teachers and determined management are given the freedom to impose their own prescription for improvement.

A royal mess

The Daily Mail reports today that Royal Mail could be fined up to £40million for an alleged scam that aimed to fudge findings from efficiency reports. An independent research company chose panels and these people then sent letters to each other – containing the name and address of the sender – so they could then gauge how quickly this post would arrive at the intended address.

It is suspected that Royal Mail staff members were unintentionally selected on the panels, and let colleagues in on the research. These letters were then identified in sorting offices, and more panellists’ names were gathered. The relevant addresses and post boxes were then targeted for extra-speedy service. Good results meant falsely inflated efficiency figures, which meant bigger bonuses for bosses. Postcomm is now investigating the suspected scam. During this process one would assume that post had been opened and re-sealed, constituting a criminal offence.

Legal issues aside, this alleged incident shines a light on a variety of problems: the masked inefficiencies of Royal Mail; the pressure of targets and box-ticking; the over-inflated bonuses awarded to undeserving bosses. We have commented before on the proposals to part-privatise the Royal Mail, and the supposed ‘improved efficiency’ of the organisation which has cast doubt on the plans for reform. The work of a whistleblower may have exposed some unwelcome truths about the service, and if efficiency figures are based on bogus research then the case for reform will be bolstered.

As for the bonuses paid to senior management for ‘good performance’, it is scandalous that any rewards could be the consequence of a possible con. You can be sure that if the plot had been uncovered earlier, then it would have been the staff in the sorting office taking all of the blame, with management conveniently clueless about the whole affair. Perhaps most egregiously, staff from Scotland – where the scam supposedly originated – apparently briefed other offices about it, perpetuating the deception.

Even if the allegations are false, there will still be a serious need to look again at the organisation’s infrastructure to determine its future. The independent research carried out – at taxpayers’ expense – clearly lacked rigorous methodology and was open to abuse. If any wrongdoing is discovered then it is right that the regulator suitably punishes Royal Mail; it will also be right to reconsider its relationship with the state.  

Public Sector Employment

Last Wednesday the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published it's quarterly statistical bulletin for Public Sector Employment. Total public sector employment at March 2009 sat at 6.020 million, 20.7% of UK total employment.

Providing information for the first quarter of 2009, this is the first release to include the workers of RBS and Lloyds, (although the ONS have revised 2008 Q4 estimates to factor in these bank workers); "the classification of Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Lloyds Banking Group to the public sector increases employment in the public sector for Quarter 4 2008 by 230,000".

The headline figures show an increase of 285,000 since Q1 2008, and a quarterly increase from Q4 of 2008 of 3,000. With bank workers stripped out, 55,000 new employees have joined the public sector since this time last year. 

The rise on Q4 2008 is broken down as such:

Central government (which includes the NHS) increased by 12,000, to 2,541,000;
Local government increased by 2,000, to 2,907,000; 
Public corporations increased by 1,000 to 572,000 (230,000 of which are the bank employees);
Civil Service increased by 3,000 to 526,000.

The public sector 'industries' that have seen the biggest rises in headcount are education (9,000) and HM Forces (2,000).

Over the same period, employment in the private sector fell by 286,000. While 230,000 of these will be the RBS and Lloyds employees, 'lost' to the private sector in their reclassification to public sector, this still means private sector employment fell by 56,000 in the first quarter of 2009. As this is roughly equivalent to the number of jobs created in public sector, perhaps the Government's strategy for dealing with rising unemployment is simpler than they make out. 

Taxes on alcohol and parliamentary scrutiny

There's a fascinating post over on Chris Dillow's Stumbling and Mumbling blog about the possibility that increased taxes on alcohol will increase binge drinking, ceteris paribus:

"Thirdly, there’s a spill-over from genes into social norms. In societies with more blue-eyed/shy people, drinking for Dutch courage, to loosen inhibitions - big binge drinking sessions - is more common. The very fact that an activity is common often means it’s more socially acceptable, which means that non-blue-eyed/non-shy people are also more likely to binge drink. For this reason, binge drinking is much more common in Scandinavian countries - where more people have blue eyes - than in southern European ones. It’s also more common in those US states with biggish populations of Scandinavian ancestry: the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin.

Given all this, it’s possible for higher alcohol prices to increase binge drinking. This is because higher prices can reduce demand for drink among non-shy people. If the gregarious guy who only pops out for one or two doesn’t go down the pub at all, the counterweight to “binge drinking culture” diminishes. The power of the social norm that supports such drinking therefore rises. In the long-run, therefore, higher alcohol prices might increase binge-drinking, even if they do reduce (pdf) overall alcohol consumption."

Many organisations, such as Alcohol Concern, have argued for higher taxes on alcohol in order to curb problem drinking and politicians have often bought that message.  Alcohol duties increased by 2 per cent at the Budget.  Unfortunately, they might be making the problem of binge drinking worse in the long term.

This kind of thing highlights just what a minefield politicians face in setting policy.  It is incredibly easy for well meaning measures to achieve precisely the opposite of what they set out to for a range of reasons.  That's why it is so vital that unintended consequences are taken incredibly seriously, and politicians only interfere when they really understand the problem they're seeking to address and the likely effects of the policy they are implementing.

Unfortunately, most MPs are far too attached to trying to climb the executive hierarchy, and progress up the ranks of Ministers and Shadow Ministers, to do their most important job right and scrutinise government policy.  That means power leaks away from democratic representatives as MPs fail to stand up to the European Union and judges feel the need to step in to make up for the lack of Parliamentary scrutiny.

At the elections for Speaker, going on as I write this post, the candidates seem to all agree that parliament needs greater powers to hold the executive for account.  That is clearly the case, but it seems unlikely that minor changes to how Parliament orders its business will do the trick.  Instead, politicians need to be taken out of the management of public services.  Then they would have fewer distractions from their vital job of ensuring that we get the right policies in place.  There might be fewer initiatives that either dissapear as they are too irrelevant or are reversed as they are too disastrous.