Did the DfE blacklist speakers for criticising government policy? Part 2
The Observer's recent paranoid stories about the DfE don't hold up. Nevertheless, the DfE may have gone too far in how it vetted speakers.
Apologies for the lack of posts over Christmas and the start of the year. I have been ill recently. I’m still not well, but I intend to resume blogging as much as possible.
The story so far
The once-credible Observer newspaper has published several reports claiming that England’s Department for Education (DfE) had been keeping files on, and blacklisting, critics of its policies. These stories were based on the DfE’s replies to Subject Access Requests (SARs). The individuals who made the SARs passed the responses on to The Observer but did not make them public. Several Freedom of Information responses from the DfE, which are available to the public, denied having any monitoring programme, watchlist or blacklist. Given that the DfE’s responses to SARs were the source of the story, this means the claims in The Observer’s stories have been disputed, in public and on the record, by the source of the stories. To my knowledge, The Observer has not acknowledged this or followed up on the denials.
Further details of The Observer’s claims and the DfE’s statements can be found in these posts:
Blog Series: Is the DfE keeping files on “education experts” who criticise their policies?
Blog post: Did the DfE blacklist speakers for criticising government policy? Part 1
So has the DfE done nothing wrong?
It certainly seems that the DfE is not silencing dissidents, or doing anything that is, to borrow a phrase from an Observer headline, “like a dictatorship”.
However, there is evidence individuals at the DfE were discussing speakers at DfE-funded events and attempting to cancel or censor their talks. The FOI response, which seemed to clear the DfE of blacklisting, does reveal a remarkably proactive approach to screening speakers:
As referenced in your request, the department has previously issued guidance to Early Years Stronger Practice Hubs around carrying out due diligence in relation to external speakers. This can be released, and a copy of the now withdrawn guidance is attached.
The DfE’s Guidance on external speakers
The attached guidance states:
Guidance for Due diligence on engaging third parties.
As set out in your Grant Offer Letter, each Stronger Practice Hub is expected to support settings to adopt evidence-informed practice improvements in a way that supports and promotes DfE’s Early Years Recovery Programme and wider objectives. This is important to ensure consistency across a wide range of projects and reforms and so that public money is being spent appropriately. This guidance provides information to support the decision-making process when considering using grant funding to engage third parties in Hub activities.
All Hub messaging should be in line with…
A list of documents and frameworks is then given. It continues:
It is the responsibility of the Hub or whoever is organising an event or commissioning work on behalf of the Hub to carry out due diligence on any individuals or organisations before they are invited to speak or otherwise represent the Hub.
Due diligence checks should be undertaken to ensure that the individual or organisation is sufficiently aligned to the aims and objectives of the Stronger Practice Hubs programme.
Due diligence checks should also consider if there is any risk of the individual or organisation bringing the Department for Education into disrepute. It is stated within the Stronger Practice Hub Grant Offer Letter terms and conditions in section 36.5 j1 that DfE can terminate the agreement if the grant recipient takes any action which unfairly brings or is likely to unfairly bring the department’s name and or reputation into disrepute. Using the Stronger Practice Hub grant funding to engage with parties who do not align with the aims of the Stronger Practice Hubs and wider Early Years recovery programme could result in enforcement of this.
Due diligence may include a review of corporate publications, media and news articles and social media commentary. This needs to be done well in advance of the planned event to allow for escalating any decision to NCB as per the Quality Assurance framework if it is not straightforward. 1 Terms and Conditions DfE Grant Funding Agreement (publishing.service.gov.uk) It is appropriate to review around 5 pages of internet search page results, also looking through any relevant links. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin should be checked.
Regarding social media comments, a degree of interpretation is required to determine whether any action taken by the individual brings the reputation of the department into disrepute. If the individual has directly criticised DfE/relevant DfE policy, such as the Early Years recovery programme or Early Years reforms, engaging this person to speak at a Hub event is unlikely to be appropriate. If an individual has shared a negative post or tweet regarding DfE and EYFS policy but not commented themselves, this should be noted, and raised with the individual before engaging them.
If an individual has commented on a negative post or tweet made by someone else regarding DfE, the EYFS and relevant DfE policies/guidance and the comment agrees with the original post or tweet, it would be deemed inappropriate to invite this person to speak at a Hub event.
This does not preclude engagement with individuals or organisations who have ever engaged in critical dialogue about matters of DfE policy – provided this engagement is conducted professionally and does not contradict or undermine the aims and objectives of the Stronger Practice Hubs and wider Early Years recovery programme, or otherwise bring the department into disrepute. An example of this might be if an individual has made a general comment around funding levels. If in any doubt the Hub should seek further guidance from NCB.
Social media should only be used to promote the Stronger Practice Hubs programme and related activities. Social media accounts used by Hubs for this purpose must be managed in such a way as to enhance the reputation of DfE and Stronger Practice Hubs programme.
The final section describes the extent to which those hubs engage with should be warned about this and also tells hubs how to get further advice.
Does the guidance go too far?
I think the DfE’s concerns are understandable. It is reasonable for the DfE to attempt to avoid providing a platform for people to undermine the DfE’s policy. The various hubs that the DfE has organised are there to disseminate and implement policy, not oppose it or even debate it. Recent experience makes it entirely clear what would happen to those organisations if the DfE took its eye off the ball. They would be taken over by “the education establishment”: the ideologically homogeneous, entitled professionals who work in education, but not in schools. The government has been scaling back the “old” establishment of the Local Authorities, quangos and university education departments. However, newer institutions such as the Education Endowment Fund, the Chartered College of Teaching and Teach First have received government funding (or increases in funding) while being run by people whose beliefs about education are much closer to those of the education establishment than to those of the ministers setting education policy. Without scrutiny, or the right sort of leadership, it is likely some of the various types of hubs set up in recent years would go the same way.
On the other hand, the guidance quoted above seems excessive. It feels like an attempt to set out algorithmically what common sense tells us to do. Of course, anyone organising an event should find out what a speaker’s real agenda is, and if it’s in opposition to the policy one is implementing, steer clear. Leaders should not need to be told this. If you have to spell this out, then you have already given too much power to the wrong people.
Politicians are continually creating and recreating education infrastructure they do not control. There’s no easy way for political leaders to reform a part of the public sector that is, apparently, “captured” by those with an opposing agenda. But it seems that when politicians have successfully changed education for the better, it has more often been through removing obstacles than creating new institutions. If there is a truth revealed in The Observer’s story, it’s that the DfE will resort to giving institutional power to people they don’t trust, then policing them. Overwhelmingly, the people within the education system who will volunteer to tell teachers and schools what to do will never be the right people. In such cases, it would be better not to create those institutions in the first place.