Richard Stubbs from Newham Online sent me some of his thoughts on Gershon…

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View from the Edge - The Gershon effect
The Heisenberg principle states that, at the sub-atomic level, we cannot observe something without changing it. At the behavioural level the “experimenter effect” is well known and, somewhat unsurprisingly, Catholic students asked about their sex lives by a psychologist, a rabbi, or a priest give different answers to the clergy than they do to the psychologist. The wider societal effects of observation and measurement are less well understood and can be more problematic for us all; they cry out for a memorable name.

A commitment that patients should be able to see their GP within 48hours sounds a good idea but when the Government tries to make it happen it achieves the opposite of its intent. Last month the NHS Alliance called for a rethink of the 48 hour access targets for GPs as the unintended consequence is that many surgeries no longer accept advance appointments so instead of being given a 10 mins appointment in 4 days time to renew a prescription many people now have to spend a whole morning queuing to be seen. Whereas the 48hrs target could probably be achieved the outcome of this measurement is to make things worse rather than better.

Another area of unintended consequence is surely to be found in drug testing, which can now be used as a condition for a person being allowed out of prison on probation. The body metabolises the more dangerous class A drugs a lot faster than it does common or “garden” cannabis. Crack can be undetectable in urine after as little as 12 hours, heroin will be flushed out of the body in 1-2 days yet cannabis can be detected in urine for around 30 days. The logical conclusion for anyone on probation being monitored in this way is surely to opt for Class A substance abuse rather than the humble weed.

Sometimes measurement loses all touch with underlying reality. On the Aran Islands, which are famous for their woollen sweaters, the walker will be hopelessly confused by the dense and maze like network of crop-free stone walled fields. Outside of the tourist season maintaining the 7,000 miles of dry stone walling on these minute islands is a key local occupation, subsidized by European funds. Doubtless the assumption somewhere is that the hundreds of sweaters exported from the islands depend on the existence of thousands of sheep and that this is the reason for the fields, their maintenance and the grants paid, perhaps, per metre of stone walls built. However wool is no longer spun on Aran, there are no sheep and the walls are an “output” in themselves.

So would Sir Peter Gershon’s new approach to efficiency solve such problems of observation and measurement? Gershon’s focus is very much on “outputs” and the use of finance as a measure so I have my doubts. On Aran the Gershon principles would happily support continued investment in stone walling providing the islanders use fewer people to build the walls, pay the builders less, make the walls more durable, encourage people to work harder or perhaps substitute wind-powered electric fences. Well there are already some wind farms on the islands so the latter is an obvious winner!

Richard Stubbs
(Newham.net)

PS – above ruminations triggered by learning that the ODPM’s e-Innovation programme is now subject to Gershon; fortunately space doesn’t permit me to share my thoughts on this.