The referendum should be the least of our worries

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Britain will hold a referendum on their membership to the EU (iStock)

The Brexiteers want us to escape the tyranny of unaccountable bureaucrats. Yet government reforms over my career as a civil servant have seen precisely that system eagerly implemented within the UK.

The Rothschild Report (1971) promoted financial objectives to government-funded research. The Thatcher years saw the wholesale transfer of public bodies into arms-length agencies and trading funds along with the separation of policy roles (Ministers and Whitehall) from professional responsibility for delivery (Chief Executives). The Blair years saw the lofty direction of public services by target-setting. NHS Foundation Trusts and of Academies are merely the final nails in the coffin of public accountability.

Chief Executives now struggle with increasingly tough targets as successive Chancellors incrementally reduce funding. Policies and targets are, of course, set by a narrow political elite: prep and public school, PPE at Oxbridge and internship in Whitehall is the norm both for Ministers and mandarins who achieve their elevated positions without competence in science, technology or engineering and whose rise is unsullied by contact with the world of productive work or contact with the hoi polloi. Power is without responsibility.

Michael Gove's new policy for prison reform with its promotion of strong(er) governors with greater autonomy merely follows the trend. The result, of course, is that targets are considered action in themselves (like 4-hour waiting times and improved SATS results). When the outcome is failure (Southern Health or Mid-Staffs?) it is, of course, all the fault of the arms-length agency. Ministers and top-rank Civil Servants, scot-free, blithely go on their way to the next Ministry where, again, they have neither technical competence nor relevant experience.

Where now is Ministerial accountability to the electorate? I despair of a solution. Most likely none will become apparent until we in the UK value highly - and are prepared to fund - a fully inclusive universal State education system striving for excellence in mathematics, science and technology. Perhaps things will change for the better when the graduates from that system brush aside the patrician cosy coterie that rules our daily lives today.

The referendum is the least of our worries!

Dr Tim Rubidge
Salisbury

The public welcomes refugees

Despite the very best efforts of the media and politicians to make the general public hate and fear refugees, a new poll by Amnesty International shows the limits of their powers.

More than three quarters of the British public polled were willing to see refugees move into their neighbourhood.

In addition 70 per cent of the British public polled think the UK government should do more to help those fleeing war and persecution.

Amnesty International carried out the poll in 27 countries and UK respondents came third (only just behind the Chinese and German respondents) as most welcoming towards refugees moving into the local area or into their homes.

Politicians and papers with xenophobic agendas may be more visible at times, but so-called “ordinary” people once again show that they are far, far, better than their political leaders.

Say it Loud! Say it Clear! Refugees are WELCOME here!

Sasha Simic
London

New indicators will not eradicate poverty

The words “poverty” and “deprivation” occurred only once each in the text of Queen’s speech. That in itself is a sad commentary on the priority attached to dealing with these important issues, but even more disturbing is the sentence in which they appeared. It reads, “To tackle poverty and the causes of deprivation, including family instability, addiction and debt, my government will introduce new indicators for measuring life chances”.

It is beyond believe that this Conservative government can believe that creating new indicators will have any effect at all on poverty and deprivation. One must therefore assume that the purpose is to replace at least some of the existing indicators that illuminate the appalling conditions affecting people the length and breadth of England.

New indicators of “life chances”, whatever that means, will in all likelihood lack any continuity of data collection. This will mask any possibility of the rise in poverty under this government being compared with the progress achieved under the former Labour government. I fear it is also entirely probable that any newly constructed indicators will be firmly centered on a Tory set of values and thus be ineffective indicators of the poverty and deprivation affecting millions of people across the UK.

Dr Gabriel Scally
Bristol

Antibiotic resistance could be solved with longer patents

I share the concern of physicians and others regarding the problems of antibiotic resistance and agree that firm action is required to ensure current antibiotics are used appropriately. I am surprised however, that no mention is made of a simple solution to the development of new antibiotics. Pharmaceutical patents are only 20 years, compared to copyright of over 50 years after the authors death for a book and 70 years after the musicians death for a piece of music.

Moreover, books and music do not require the vigorous testing that effectively halves the patent life of a pharmaceutical. Governments wishing to encourage research into new antibiotics merely need to extend the patent lives of these new products to a point where companies can see they are both commercially viable as well as ethically desirable.

Robin White
Basingstoke

Examiners are making exams impossible

I was interested to read the comment by the spokesperson of an exam that "exams aren't meant to be easy" (Students baffled after business study question appears in biology exam Independent 19 May).

Many years ago I was involved in a study to re-design military. During the study I overheard those setting the final test say: "I've got a good question, they will never be able to get this".

Seems our exam companies have the same philosophy.

This raises the question of what exams are designed to do. After many years of study the final exam should be a measure of discovering what the students do know not to ask tricky question to discover what they do not know!

Chris Elshaw
Headley Down

Sudoku solutions

If any readers want an old fashioned paper version of Sudoku they might care to photocopy the relevant page from their tablet. Surprisingly it does work!

Michael G Cottrell
Marlow