Jim McCormick and Katie Grant: Why it's all a matter of self-control

DEAR Katie,

My first job was with the Commission on Social Justice, an opposition inquiry set up by John Smith and reporting to Tony Blair in 1994, whose aim was to take a detailed look at how to advance social justice. Its final report offered a revealing snapshot of the UK at that time: tired, divided, unequal. It was not short of policy ideas to change matters. More interesting is the commission's go at defining an ideal of social justice - a hierarchy of four related notions:

The foundation of a free society is the equal worth of citizens. Everyone is entitled, as a right of citizenship, to be able to meet their basic needs for income, shelter and other necessities. Social justice demands more than this: improved opportunities and life chances are needed so people can fulfil their potential. Unjust inequalities should be reduced and where possible eliminated. There's a lot here that people of different political beliefs might agree on. These suggest that we should be concerned about discrimination, homelessness and worklessness as well as poor experiences of education and inadequate training. To these elements of social justice, we might add a fifth - what some would call justice between the generations, expressed in how the decisions we make now on energy, pensions and housing, for example, will affect others in future.

Let me finish by reflecting on progress in recent years - the decade up to 2008. These were years of sustained economic growth, rising employment and unprecedented growth in public spending. The scorecard across that period shows:

• Sustained progress in housing standards, young people gaining "standard" qualifications and rates of poverty among older people.

• Little or no change in the average scores of the lowest-attaining 20 per cent of young people at school, the proportion of people on low wages and long-term worklessness.

• Steady deterioration in the proportion of low-income households having to pay full council tax and the value of benefits for workless households without children.

If this was the story after ten years with a fair wind behind government action, we will need to be much more creative in tougher times. I think the five elements of social justice referred to here are a decent basis for action. But we need to rethink how to apply them.

Yours,

Jim

Dear Jim,

Your definition of the elements of social justice makes sense, but let me make an early admission: I have a problem with commissions on social justice.Set up with the best intentions, they nevertheless follow a drearily predictable pattern, with earnest meetings, moving to solemn statements that outline the problem yet again and culminating fat reports to balance on top of previous fat reports on top of previous … you see where I'm going here.

Such reports are not blueprints for action, they are substitutes for action, mainly because, amongst their other failings, social injustice is usually assumed to be something "they" do to "them" and which "we" could fix if only "government" had the political will. As reports emerge, commissioners probably feel they have done a good job. Certainly, they will be asked to contribute to discussions on the telly. Ministers may even give them a call. But will social justice improve? Unlikely. Let's go back to the beginning. Your definition of social justice makes sense but actually has become part of the problem. How could it not, when it conveys the clear impression that if you're disadvantaged by the lack of social justice, you've got to wait to be rescued instead of helping to rescue yourself? This ability to help rescue yourself should surely be at the heart of our debate because, to me, self-determination (in a non-constitutional sense) means that Scots as individuals should be the primary agents of social change.

However, without an improvement in the education system, social justice can go sing. Education, I believe, is both where social justice started to go right and where it has all gone horribly wrong. Scots used to appreciate that education is the key to every door. This appreciation has vanished, and its disappearance is, I think, Scotland's biggest catastrophe. In an area over which Scotland has always had control, after ten and more years of school, more than half Scotland's pupils fail to get any decent exam grades.

Many Scots - parents and children alike - no longer see education as an escape from their problems; they see it as irrelevant to their problems. Yet Scots should be hungry for education, particularly those growing up in deprivation. Why is this not so? The answer is partly that although free state education is a splendid ideal, in practice, anything free very quickly becomes devalued. In addition, ideology took over from education towards the end of the 20th century and, particularly in Scotland, was less concerned with teaching a child how to aspire and achieve and more concerned with promoting political agendas and building political empires. There was no room for dissent. The result has been 30 years of Scotland sneering at the well-educated as, by definition, "snobs" and deriding as "pushy" and "elitist". It's not new policies we need in education: it's a new attitude.

Yours,

Katie

Dear Katie,

Let's get to the heart of the matter: education should be a powerful route to self-determination. This involves much more than schools.Learning in all its forms - pre-school, further and higher education and training through work - offers the chance to develop. But let's focus here mainly on children's education. I think you over-egg the pudding a bit - appreciation of education hasn't vanished - but we agree on some fundamentals: for many, education is viewed as largely irrelevant to their lives; and unlocking personal motivation is the key to changing this.

For all the problems with state education in Scotland, I don't think they are the result of it being free. Of course some things become devalued or over-consumed if there's no cost to the user. In this case, I think the devaluation results from the simple lack of benefit, both perceived and real, experienced by a sizeable minority. The priority is to change that equation. There's plenty of room for innovation within the state system. Now, what would it take to motivate our leaders to really grasp the nettle?

Yours,

Jim

Dear Jim,

Education is not about that grim catch-all "relevance"; it's about access to and understanding of things that make life worth living. In this respect, 21st-century education is surely as much about unemployment as employment: about ideas, artefacts, activities and stories that can lift you out of the slough of despond, often for free.

Yours,

Katie

Dear Katie,

Welfare reform is the most controversial part of the UK coalition government's spending review. Work should be central to any social justice strategy.Although work cuts the risk of poverty, it's still true that about one in eight working Scots are too low-paid to escape poverty. Iain Duncan Smith didn't invent the mantra of making work pay, but the sheer complexity of transitional support and tax credits means in-work support is inadequate. Shuffling people on to other benefits won't do much for their ability to find sustainable work. How about putting wellbeing at the heart of a social justice strategy for recovery? The goal would be to encourage the individual's desire to contribute, provide for themselves and their family, and to do meaningful work.

Yours,

Jim

Dear Jim,

Yes, work is central to any social justice strategy since work pays not just financially but socially too. It's through work, after all, that self-determination as we've described it is most likely to flourish. But apart from that, you'd need the imagination of a stone not to see how demotivating, dispiriting and destructive long term joblessness is. This is why I support Iain Duncan Smith's efforts to simplify state support so that getting back into work is a hayfield, not a minefield.

Yours,

Katie

Dear Katie,

What does our conversation reveal? Disappointment when we look at the divided social landscape of Scotland. Confusion over why the rivers of investment over ten years produced only modest streams of improvement. Frustration that there's been little serious assessment of why.So, where to next? It seems that something important is stirring around the early years, about prevention and autonomy, about living well in older age. What matters is how we take these next steps, not just what we do. Maybe tougher times will be a precondition for a better kind of Scottish consensus: one that is self-critical and more ambitious. Perhaps then the desire to be in control of our lives will be the starting point for how we reshape public services.

All best,

Jim

Dear Jim,

I'm so glad we agree that positive attitudes, values and behaviour are just as significant as the removal of structural barriers for true self-determination. It's so disappointing - and for some, tragic - that manifest improvements in living conditions over the last 50 years have been overshadowed by a collapse in self-belief, self-motivation and aspiration in communities who could little afford such a collapse. To bicker about who's responsible, as Scottish politicians love to do, is ridiculous. I sense that you're hopeful for the future. I like that. If I'm less so it's because change requires brave imagination and steadfast desire and our dear Scottish leaders, so far as I can see, show no sign of either. Still, they're quite old and some of them look pretty unhealthy. Perhaps the next lot will surprise me.

Yours,

Katie

• Jim McCormick is Scottish adviser to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Katie Grant is a freelance journalist.