Nailing the Lib Dems (Jonathon Porritt)

Search

My Profile

Feeds

Articles

Other Blogs

News Links

Organisations

« The Government's First Green Betrayal | Main | FROM RDAs to LOCAL ENTERPRISE PARTNERSHIPS – Where’s the Sustainable Development? »

Nailing the Lib Dems

Thanks to everyone for those empathetic responses on the government pulling the plug on the SDC. Crass, unfounded, self-defeating, ideologically-motivated – that just about sums it up!

Which brings me to the role of the Lib Dems in this wretched business. And what one detects here is a combination of indifference and supine deference to their coalition partners. Not so much as a puppy-dog whimper of dissent.

For Lib Dem MPs and voters, this has sent out a very worrying signal. Whatever the Party’s internal rationale may have been for throwing in its lot with the Tories, the external perception is that the Lib Dems have four things they have to deliver on if they are going to come out of this the other end with any credibility: electoral reform; civil liberties enhanced; environment and sustainable development on the up; and the Lib Dems need to have exercised a restraining, moderating and civilising influence on their coalition partners.

Sticking to the environment / SD bit for now, Lib Dem performance to date has been poor to very poor. Not having a Liberal Democrat Minister inside Defra is proving particularly problematic. Claims that Defra will be enhancing its capability to promote sustainable development are, as yet, entirely unsubstantiated, and the likely outcome of further cuts in Defra is that SD capability will be even further hammered come the Comprehensive Spending Review this Autumn.

If the SDC was still there, that probably wouldn’t have mattered that much. Defra always struggled with its cross-government remit in this regard. But without the SDC, other Departments will just get on and do what they want to do without any SD oversight.

So this may well be the time to create the first test for Caroline Spelman in her self-declared role as ‘personal lead’ on promoting SD across government. Right now, she has a wonderful opportunity to prove her championing skills with the Department of Education.

I won’t bore you with the details, but for the last four or five years, the Department of Education has done an increasingly good job in ‘mainstreaming’ sustainable development, quietly and intelligently, across the whole educational system. Michael Gove, as the new Secretary of State, has now decided that he wants to get rid of the department’s Sustainable Schools Strategy – and will no longer be actively involved in promoting sustainable schools.

A small thing in itself – relative to the systematic slash and burn underway on every other front – but fairly disastrous in terms of engaging young people in building a low-carbon sustainable future.

Again, this is straight ideology. The cost associated with the department’s leadership in this has been minimal.

Plenty of scope, therefore, for Caroline Spelman to pick up the phone to persuade Michael Gove to withdraw those proposals, and start championing SD even more enthusiastically than his Labour predecessor.

If Mrs Spelman is too busy, then perhaps some of her greener Lib Dem colleagues could weigh in with Mr Gove.

As I said earlier, it’s too early to come to any definitive conclusion here. Maybe what we’re seeing is a series of one-off, heedless decisions – taken simply because they don’t know any better. Alternatively, it could be a pattern emerging along the lines of ‘slash the deficit, sod the environment’.

In which case, suggestions that we should be targeting Lib Dem MPs now, before the pattern is established, becomes all the more important.

And the parallel idea that we might set up some independent, web-enabled scrutiny function (under the compelling title of ‘ GreenestGovEverYeahRight.com!’) is beginning to sound more and more attractive.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on July 28, 2010 3:38 PM | Permalink

Comments (4)

The worst thing about it is that if you sent out a plea, I think you could raise enough cash from SDC supporters around the world to keep it going. But that would play right into their Big hands wouldn’t it?
So there is no way of winning, a situation that I find particularly distasteful.

Posted by Clare Brass | July 28, 2010 10:07 PM

The Sustainable Schools Framework, married to the Ofsted criteria used as part of their inspections, is (was?) a hugely valuable and fundamentally important part of education in the 21st century. To quote Ofsted:

"The importance of education for sustainable development can’t be over-emphasised. We all know about the changing global climate and its impact on world economies and people’s lives. We see the issues being debated every day in newspapers, television and the media."

http://ofstednews.ofsted.gov.uk/article/302

Maybe they were just making this all up? Perhaps all the debates are over and all the issues previously revolving around sustainable development have been resolved? If this is so, please could someone reassure me that indeed is the case - because through my eyes, it's far from the truth.

The mind boggles. Cameron - wake up!

Posted by Andrew Harmsworth | July 28, 2010 10:32 PM

The abandoning of the National Framework for Sustainable Schools (can anyone point me to a DfE announcement confirming this decision)is a disaster and one which seems to be slipping under the radar of many. Thanks Jonathon for bringing this to wider attention.

Building sustainable development into lesson planning across all curriculum areas and into whole-school initiatives has been flagged by OFSTED (see previous comment from Andrew Harmsworth)as essential in a number of reports. From OFSTED's website:

The education for sustainable development element of the National Curriculum in England enables people to develop the knowledge, values and skills to participate in decisions about the way we do things individually and collectively, both locally and globally, that will improve the quality of life now, without damaging the planet for the future.

There are many who will not let this Framework die quietly. Please post if you are actively campaigning on this or have more info about how the decision has been communicated.

Posted by Andy Bodycombe | July 30, 2010 1:17 PM

I'd like to support a campaign to maintain the Sustainable Schools strategy. I've not been able to find one emerging yet so if there's any news or thoughts on the best organisations to lead one, I'd like to know. I've seen some schools transformed by thinking holistically about sustainability, but most schools are still too unaware and just think it's one more pressure outside their core purpose. What they're forgetting is that their core purpose is to prepare children for the future, and that future is one that will be inevitably affected by climate disruption and biocide. Their are strong psychological reasons alone for Sustainable Schools because it gives children agency in the face of that future.

Posted by Bridget McKenzie | August 1, 2010 8:24 AM

Search

Feeds

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives