Gvt forced to amend green paper 3 days before consultation closes

[TheKingIsInTheAltogether]

The BHA have published their response to the government's education green paper and have revealed that "three days before the end of the consultation period, the UK Statistics Authority forced the Department for Education to amend the green paper over the ‘misleading’ figures it presents on the impact of religious selection at ‘faith’ schools."

The consultation tried to argue that the cap wasn't having any positive impact on diversity, when it quite clearly was - the green paper just didn't present the right set of statistics.

Shocking, but not surprising. I take comfort in the fact that I don't know of anyone who was taken in by it and I hope that this bit of the green paper is well and truly binned.

I did see the amendment, I didn't realise that it was made so close to the deadline. I don't know if anyone was actually using the 'evidence' provided in the green paper to inform their arguments but if they were, that last section is clearly useless now.

The whole thing is a joke.

noble
The problem we have is that ideas are popped up by junior ministers with a bee in their bonnet and a reputation to make.
Evidence means nothing to them at all.

I dealt with one earlier in the year that had been put to bed as an unworkable waste of time a couple of years ago.
In the middle of the summer holidays a junior minister bounced a middling civil servant into resurrecting it.
Cue tonnes of negative responses
and civil servants answering messages with "it was not us, it was the MP"

now we wait
but it will not be evidence based decision making, that is for sure

This is the second time the UKSA has rapped the knuckles of the D of E over issues with the green paper

schoolsweek.co.uk/stats-watchdog-slams-dfe-for-grammar-schools-tweet/

I suppose when you have no actual evidence supporting your proposals life does become somewhat difficult...

I really don't know how the government are going to style out the vocal negative response to these proposals from pretty much everyone involved in education.