Child Poverty: Language

My view is on record that the NI Water crisis was an example of the need for fundamental reform of public service delivery in NI – this is not unique, for it is a view evidently shared by the Economist with reference to the entire Western World. Far from being a threat to jobs, this is in fact the only way to protect them, by reducing waste on the associated administrative burden innate to the structures while increasing productivity.

One of the themes on this blog has been the need for political responsibility and leadership (which would reduce the need for costly consultations); another has been the need to “do more with what we have” (and it can be demonstrated how a far better strategy document could be delivered by consultant researchers for a third of the cost); another one is language itself.

Here are a few words which could be banned from government documents: strategy/strategic, framework, measure, engagement, active, key and all adverbs (words such as actively, firmly, closely, extremely, indeed etc – all unnecessary); there is also no need to “communicate information” (inform), “have a role to play” (have a role/participate), “put forward a request” (request) or “drive forward” (?!); we could do without the passive too (it is just a way to avoid assigning responsibility).

The problem with these is not just that they waste space, but that they contribute to lazy thinking. This document is not a “strategy” by any definition; “frameworks” are just lazy speak to cover “lack of detail”; “measures” are never specific actions; “engagement” is just an excuse for inaction; “active” is just a pretence of activity; “key” is a flimsy, imprecise adjective. What is the difference between a “key strategic priority” and a “priority“?!

In this case, worst of all is the term “action area“. What is this? For example, one of the “priority” ones is “to support disadvantaged families to promote the physical, social, intellectual and emotional development of their children so that they flourish“. Ok… What is the nature of this “support”? What constitutes a “disadvantaged family” (and define “family”)? What is the target to be understood by “promote”? What is the interconnection between “physical”, “social”, “intellectual” and “social”? How are these “developed”? How do we define “flourish”? In fact, the whole sentence is meaningless.

It gets worse. Let’s try “support the delivery of an accessible, flexible and quality childcare sector” particularly for “disadvantaged groups”. Why only “support” (rather than, say, “ensure”)? Define “accessible”? What does “flexible” mean? In what way is it not currently “quality”? Who is “disadvantaged” and what makes them so? What is a “group”?

Then we have “tackle health inequalities of children and young people“. Why merely “tackle”? What causes “health inequalities”? Why “children and young people”?

Let’s skip down to the next page – here is “Grow the local economy… and promote enterprise“. I’m all for that – but who will be doing the “growing”? What is the “local” economy? What does “promote” mean?

Towards the end of that section it is no better. “Persuade and influence the UK Government to maximise the income of families with children” can just be taken as a whole – leaving aside the laughable implication that all incomes in Northern Ireland are determined solely by the UK Government, the only logical progression of this clause is that families without children (or, presumably, households which aren’t families) should have their incomes “minimised”.

So, another rule: words such as support, promote, tackle, persuade, influence are not actions.

Adhere to all of these rules (and remove all of those words) and you don’t have much of a document – and that is the point. The document doesn’t say anything. If there were a focus on avoiding what Wikipedia would define as “weasel words” or “dubious” definitions, it would have been clear the document didn’t say anything.

This recognition would have meant the Executive and its officials would have had to find something to say. Children living in poverty would have appreciated the effort…