VOICES SIMON BURGESS
which suggests that England has declined slightly in education standards. But he qualifies that by pointing out that this apparent decline is because other countries are now included in the international benchmarks. “If you just look at how England has fared relative to Sweden or Finland for example, it hasn’t improved but it hasn’t declined a lot. That’s good but it does invite the question why all the reforms and all that money did not really do very much.” What about the real-world application of the
CMPO’s research – is there a pressure for it to be connected to policy and for it to always have a practical impact? Given that most of the CMPO’s work is centred on public sector reform Professor Burgess thinks it would be bizarre not to have a connection to the policy world. “I think most people in the centre are very keen to get the message of our research findings out there but there is some theoretical work that we do that doesn’t have an immediate application although it supports work that does,” he says. “There isn’t a three-line whip that everyone in the centre has to do podcasts or research videos but by and large most centre members do, given the topics that we investigate. “Part of my role as centre director is to pursue innovation and to have events and other communications that generate a lot of impact but which are also an efficient use of our time.” The CMPO has a regular blog that’s been going for eight months and the Centre was one of the first ESRC centres to produce podcasts, building up a library of 30 or more podcasts. “These communications have a lot of impact alongside traditional media such
as interviews or articles in the national press or broadcast media,” says Professor Burgess. With the current government focus on public service reforms and reviews of education and health, CMPO members are often in the media. Carol Propper is interviewed on health issues, Paul Gregg on welfare reform and Sarah Smith on the third/voluntary sector and Simon Burgess on education. “It’s true that the attention has tended to have been centred on a few of us but as government priorities change the research of other CMPO members is being highlighted.” As an example, Professor Burgess cites the work of Ron Johnston (recently awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours), which had a significant impact on this year’s Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. Public services and the way they are organised have always been under great scrutiny, generating interest from the press, politicians and particularly the public whose taxes pay for them. At a time of reduced public spending the research of Professor Burgess and his team at the CMPO has an even greater role to play in providing the evidence which informs debate, and to suggest how these services can be organised and delivered more efficiently in future. n
i
Simon Burgess is Professor of Economics and Director, Centre for Market and Public Organisation. His research interests are labour economics, inequality and poverty and he is currently working on an economic model of poverty dynamics, empirical models of incentives in organisations, gross job and worker flows, and job tenure. Email
simon.burgess@bristol.ac.uk Telephone 0117 33 10764 Web
www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo
SUMMER 2011 SOCIETY NOW 25
Given that most of the CMPO’s work is centred on public sector reform Professor Burgess thinks it would be bizarre not to have a connection to the policy world
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32