Minister, have you considered....

After the runaway success of my first ever blog (34 hits, only three quarters of which were me looking for spelling errors and bots) it has become clear the public are desperate for more.

But despite the obvious appetite for more blogs dealing with the crossover between football analytics and education reform in England this one is going to look at how the cult of the free market will lead to the ruination of public services. A surefire mass market hit.

Imagine if you will a typical state run education system. There is a government minister, government department, a layer of local government supplying services, and headteachers each responsible for the running of their school - helped and monitored by their local authority and accountable to school/parent governors. All monitored by a government inspectorate.

Now imagine I am a management consultant, probably in my mid-20s, Economics degree and a well thumbed copy of "Road to Serfdom" and "Atlas Shrugged" in my shiny briefcase. Ask me to tell you what is wrong with that system.

"Lack of competition will lead to laziness and inefficiency. Need to provide incentives to the good schools and remove the leaders from the worse schools. The decision of which school is best should be assessed by standardised test results. Ideally the system should open to new providers and parents should have a voucher that they can spend with any provider. If providers fail they fail. New innovations (virtual schools, remote learning) will move in to fill the gap. "

Up until recently I'd have said that this sort of simplistic rhetoric wouldn't work in the UK. I mean they have tried a lot of this in the US with the inevitable result that the system overall is no better at the top and worse at the bottom with massive disruption to the lives of students as their schools are closed. Most parents in most areas don't actually have a realistic choice of school. You go to the one you can get to. Schools are massively expensive to build and no "educational provider" is going to pay millions to build a school with the risk of failure. Particularly if they are going to be judged on results. If you were going to do that you'd get lots of schools being built in high achieving areas with vast areas left with no schooling provision. Which is pretty much what happens.

So if I were a complete ideologue and still, despite the overwhelming world wide evidence, believed that competition was the key to school improvement; or I was simply an awful person who can't stand public money being spent directly on public services without the chance to get rich off it, then I'd go back to the management consultant and say:

"I agree but the electorate don't. Can you come up with a scheme whereby we can introduce privitisation without actually calling it that? Make it really complicated and boring so we can dismiss any objections as coming from "tin foil hat commies"."

After many months of receiving massive funding from the DFE, or anonymous donations from potential beneficiaries to my Think Tank, I'd suggest the following:

"Break the link between schools are their local authority. Sell this as a freedom. Everyone hates councils. Once you have a few standalone schools, start suggesting they get together into groups for "economies of scale". Call these trusts, no multi-academy trusts (MAT), and encourage them to grow as quickly as possible. Here is the very clever bit. Make these trusts charities"

*Splutters* "I don't think you understand the idea is that we get ri...."

"Wait, we still will. Making them charities means every time someone points out schools are effectively now controlled by private interests we can quickly say "No they are charities just like Oxfam and Save the Children". Of course there is nothing that stops a charity spending money as long as it benefits the school. We agree a funding package with the charity to run the school. The school then spends the money how it likes. Now imagine the costs of running a school. You've got buildings to maintain, supplies and services to buy in, and staff to pay. Obviously you've got to have teachers, but do they really have to be qualified? Cut those costs well below average and you've got extra money for service and supplies. And who provides those services and supplies? You do. Through your profit making arm.  That is right, you set up a for profit company, ideally in a tax haven, and sell your own services to the charity. You can do IT, building maintenance, uniform supply. Hell you can even write your own curriculum, copyright it then sell it to all your schools. Script it and employ instructors rather than teachers and you've got a money making machine"

"But won't parents object to unqualified teachers and scripted lessons?"

"We've anticipated that. The main thing to remember is that we will narrow the focus to data. Data. Data. Data. Does it really matter if the kids are taught by an unqualified teacher if test outcomes are the same? And research shows a strict, no excuses disciplinary policy coupled with the latest breakthroughs in test preparation techniques and an extreme focus on EBacc subjects taught via trademarked scripts can be delivered equally well by just about any competent adult. Step up the insults to the existing teaching profession, call anyone who disagrees with you lazy and incompetent, I'm sure you can think of a catchy phrase. Oh and be sure to enthusiastically praise anyone who supports you, you'll soon you gather a group of superheads around you. Treat them like Gods, pay them whatever they want, you'll lose a few to corruption charges but never mention them again after that."

"It sounds good but I've made a lot of promises, just how rich can we get?"

"Well here is a pyramid model I've drawn up. At the bottom we have support staff within individual schools, now these used to be decent jobs a family could be supported on. Outsource that. One up we've got the teachers. Now you have to be careful because parents and kids like their teachers. But they don't like teachers. So remember keep up the attacks. We'll make the job as unpleasant as possible so that we drive out the expensive ones. Then when recruitment and retention reaches crisis point (which you must never acknowledge) we unleash the unqualified teacher from scripts revolution. One up from the teachers we have the heads, government funded think tanks (be sure to reward friendly journalists with cushy jobs), RSCs, SPADS. They'll be well paid but the real money comes in next. MAT heads, they'll be on a fortune. Attack excess in every area of the system but this layer. Say you'll judge them on results but never actually hold them accountable if a school they take over fails. Hell, let them cherry pick schools they'll take on and ignore ones that would damage their brands. The real money is in the top layer. Those who own the profit making arms of the MATs. Be sure to register these in tax havens and never disclose ownership."

"Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant."

This is an imagined conversation, not meant to imply everyone high up in a MAT is evil, it is simply the system that exists. However it is a system designed for shifting public assets into quasi-private system.