MPs, economists and academics are largely ill-informed when it comes to the issue of design for manufacturing. Given the importance of manufacturing to economic recovery, Peter Mucci FRSA argues for a new approach.

Despite the fact that the modern world relies heavily on manufactured goods from domestic products to telecommunications, IT, energy, transport and defence, politicians seem to ignore them as a huge driver in society.

It is astonishing that a government thinks it can function effectively when virtually none of the 650 MPs – and most civil servants and advisors – have qualifications relating to manufacturing. It is perhaps not surprising that we have seen a string of failures of large state-managed engineering systems.

The long-term aim should be to increase the number of qualified engineers in parliament and Whitehall. In the shorter-term those MPs and officials who are directly involved in departments where technology plays an important role should be kept up to date with industrial practice using continuous professional development (CPD) as is commonplace in industry. There are artificial divisions between the pure and applied in education that do not exist in industry. In secondary education, design and technology is being marginalised and is now considered a low- grade A ‘level for university entrance. In higher education, the subject of design for manufacturing is hardly taught, often because recruitment of lecturers is not based on their industrial experience or their ability to apply knowledge to industry.

Perhaps the most alarming situation however, is in government funded university research where there is no category of engineering design for manufacturing as a subject for published papers. As a result there are no design/manufacture journals given high ratings in the research assessment exercise (RAE). To make matters worse there are few papers protected for intellectual property (IP) prior to publication.

This needs to change. We need a higher number of universities offering design for manufacturing as a degree and research subject. This will take time: in the meantime we need to increase the number of lecturers recruited for their design and manufacturing ability and increase the number of promotions to senior status based on successful application work with industry.

Policy makers like to hector the manufacturing sector about its lack of output and ‘competitiveness’ particularly with respect to China. This is despite the fact that the UK (and the rest of the EU) cannot possibly compete when they have to properly abide by minimum legal requirements of HSAW, Working Time, Leave Entitlement and so on, when their competitors do not. Recent figures for manufacturing costs for electromechanical systems are 5:1 UK v China. This is clearly not a level playing field.

It is a sad indictment of the situation that UK product design and manufacture regulations may require a factory in China to conform to 60 pages of technical specification for a product but not one regulation concerning the welfare of its workforce!

As part of all trade agreements for goods imported into the UK from non-EU countries our aim should be to establish minimum supplier worker welfare standards. At the same time policy makers need to learn to make whole cost comparisons with imported goods and only use the word ‘competition’ when the rules are the same between countries.

We must ensure that innovative design work is first IP protected.

Small, innovative companies are unlikely to be able to afford the high cost of doing this and, even if they can, often find that is ineffective and insecure. Electromechanical patents can easily cost in excess of £500,000 for priority in only a small number of countries. There is no guarantee given in law that a granted patent is secure. Nor is there any free legal support if it is blatantly infringed; this is a common practice in undemocratic countries, and by some large corporations, confident that the small or medium size enterprise (SME) cannot afford to fight the case.

Even in the EU, there is no easy route to protection and plans for a low cost ‘petty’ patent have been abandoned. Should an SME wish to file in the EU under current patent law, it will find that – contrary to the perception of politicians – many of the EU states require ‘validation’ before they grant a patent. This includes high translation costs with patent agent fees typically £200 to 400/hr. The cost of patents is often higher than the development costs of the product.  We need to return to the idea of a simple, low-cost, patent for SMEs and abolish ‘validation’ fees in the EU. In addition, as is the case in the financial industry, patent agents should need to put in to writing the actual average costs of obtaining such a patent and the alternatives (for example, ‘unregistered rights’) plus a statement of risks/benefits.

All patent specifications should have clear computer aided design (CAD) drawings and diagrams to accompany them and all applicants maintain a log of their work (as in the USA)

The RSA is developing new work around enterprise: these are just some ideas to kick off a discussion about the issues that we need to address and I hope other RSA Fellows will join me in this.

Peter Mucci DIC CEng FIMechE FRSA is the holder of several patents. He was Senior Design Engineer and then Director in electromechanical industries and a Director of MEng university courses. He supervised several Design Council prizewinners and is a founder owner of Powertile Ltd, renewable energy specialists.

Mark Hatwood FRSA set up the CoBRA scheme to recycle batteries and Low Energy light bulbs. Despite its success, he hopes for a day when industry and government action on creating a more sustainable economy will make the scheme redundant.

Unlike many of the North European countries, the UK moved early to introduce low energy light bulbs, which save 80% of the energy of incandescent bulbs. Given that 25% of this country’s energy use is in lighting, this equates to a possible 20% saving in UK energy use. So far so good.

But this year alone it is estimated that in the UK 150,000,000 low energy light bulbs will reach landfill. Each low energy light bulb contains about 4mgs of mercury, which, depending on your research source, can pollute anything from 5,000 – 10,000 gallons of water if it gets onto the water table.

So why have we have failed to put procedures in place at that first stage to deal with the product’s end-of-life? And why is that the UK government is only now beginning to think about what can be done to deal with this potential environmental disaster?

After living in Germany for twelve years, it seemed insane to me that on returning to England to live, I had to make a 50 mile round trip (and ferry journey) to recycle my batteries at the ‘local’ civic amenity site. So, I decided to find a way to ‘plug the hole’ that led us to only recycle 2% of the 45,000 tonnes of batteries we use in the UK as opposed to Germany’s 60% recycling rate.

I got permission to do this after overcoming stringent ‘hazardous waste movement license’ rules; despite the fact that only 1% of batteries in the UK are truly considered ‘hazardous’. Before long the media began reporting my village activities and people from all over Cornwall started contacting me to ask if I could help them do the same in their village.

In the last four years, the CoBRA Scheme has grown to be a UK concern with hundreds of volunteers having helped recycle over 50 tonnes of ‘hazardous’ waste with two schemes in place (first batteries and secondly, with the help of an RSA Catalyst grant, low energy light bulbs). The scheme has won six national awards and is working in partnership with two of the biggest waste compliants in the UK.

Fantastic, you may say; using volunteers makes this an incredibly environmentally sound way of getting waste out of hard to reach places efficiently by utilising trips already being made.

But CoBRA should not need to exist.  It is my intention that in the long-term, part of the funds gained from the scheme’s profits will go into supporting and lobbying for a more circular and sustainable economy. The future does look brighter but given that at the moment I can’t even pay myself a wage, this may take some time… but light is on the horizon due to a deal pending which could see over 10,000 new community locations almost overnight.

As highlighted by Dame Ellen MacArthur and Stef Kranendijk, Chief Executive at Desso, at an excellent event at the RSA, the world is not making any more elements. As our need for technology expands, so does our need for those metals used for manufacture goods; even if we forget for a moment the environmental impact of dropping them into a hole in the ground. Apparently we have now considered mining our own landfill sites because of the metals and minerals they contain; an insane waste of energy, which could have been avoided if sustainability had been factored in earlier.

But for now CoBRA does exist and its volunteers will continue to do its bit, while this country (and the rest of the world) wakes up to the fact that there needs to be a more circular approach built in to all economic decisions in future.

Stef Kranendijk understood the connection between needing back the elements he used to create his carpets, and there are plenty more examples. Industry needs to join the dots: if not for environmental or financial reasons, for enlightened self-interest.

As Dame Ellen MacArthur discovered on landing back on terra firma after her 2005 world record solo circumnavigation of the globe, “[at sea] the nearest fuel station is 2,500 miles away. Yet when you sail around the world, you can step off at the finish and refuel. And never had I made that connection with our life on land; because we can’t get off and refuel and gain more resources.”

To find out more about how you can support the CoBRA, email Mark or call him on 0845 4080337. Mark David Hatwood is an award winning film screenplay writer and novelist. He runs two social enterprises – CoBRA and the Roseland website – from his Cornish base of Portscatho.

To find out how RSA Catalyst helps Fellows launch new solutions to tackle social problems, please visit RSA Catalyst pages

Police and crime commissioners will be introduced later this year. Andrew Morley FRSA, previously chief executive to the London Criminal Justice Partnership, argues that they have the potential to systemise the kind of partnership working required to respond to crime.

The policy debate about the role of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) has shifted and the proposal to extend their role from just police oversight – as originally proposed – to a broader role around reducing crime is very welcome. This is more likely to enable the holistic and intelligent response that crime requires.

PCCs will have the significant advantage of being able speak to the citizen experience of crime and the criminal justice system rather than to the agency contribution to it.

This could be powerful in helping to overcome traditional tensions and should bring sense and clarity to what remains a disjointed system. PCCs will need to explain to their electorate what a whole system response involves and this will throw up challenging questions for justice services and other agencies involved.

Clearly, PCCs role will be very broad and early on they will need to identify priorities and areas of focus. Three areas would benefit from early attention. First, accountability. There are plenty of examples where agencies and others come together but where partnership is piecemeal and almost exclusively initiative-focused. All too often these approaches break down because of a lack of a central point of accountability.

This matters. It militates against a whole system approach to service delivery and can, in rare and extreme cases, have tragic consequences. PCCs will operate in a complex environment with a mix of local, regional and national agencies delivering a service that quite rightly has independent decision-making around prosecution and sentencing. PCCs, aided by their powers to convene partnerships, could provide a focal point for collective accountability for delivery of local crime reduction and criminal justice activity.

Critically, accountability should be for delivery of ‘activity’ against agreed partnership priorities. It would not replace existing, and in many cases statutory, arrangements. It might also allow for rationalisation of partnership structures that are numerous and often encourage duplication and delay.

Second, the use of data. Agencies involved in crime sit on a lot of information and could to more to exploit it more effectively. They can map crime: they know where and when it happens; they know where offenders live and, increasingly, what their needs are; and who is likely to be victimised and how often. This could be invaluable in determining priorities and plans; as would further monitoring of implementation, including the difficult but necessary task of holding contributing agencies to account for delivery.

Typically monitoring arrangements and data are about the health of processes but PCC’s will need to demonstrate impact every four years. I suspect that most will quickly commission independent public attitudinal surveys to track and evidence impact.

This provides an opportunity for forging a new relationship with the academic community, working with academics to design monitoring arrangements that speak to the effectiveness of processes whilst also informing the evidence base for effective practice. This might require a recalibration of the relationship between the operational and academic sides. It may mean giving academics the necessary time and unfettered access to operational data. It should also mean less reliance on flagship project evaluations and the use of data to lever in funding from other sources.

This data should inform broader social inclusion activity. The relationship between crime and deprivation is well evidenced. We hold a wealth of information about offender needs and use this to inform interventions with individuals, but we do not use aggregate data well enough to inform broader local planning around social inclusion. The local mandate of PCCs could prove to be a powerful contributor to these kinds of discussions, ensuring, for example, that provision was available and accessible to ex-offenders or those at risk of committing crime.

The third priority for PPCs should be innovation. Crime, its causes and solutions, is complex. PPCs should be able to brigade partnership responses to the issues that require it and be free to try new approaches. They could for example be hugely influential in bringing together the right people to develop the model of community prison and ‘through the gate’ provision as set out in the recent RSA Transitions report.

But when it comes to innovation, the PCC should be mindful of three things.

Firstly, ensuring that activity is consistent with the evidence base. I am not advocating a return to a ‘what works’ agenda; the one thing we can say with any confidence is that no one tactic works with everyone all the time. Further, some would argue that the evidence tells us more about what does not work, than what does. However, innovation for its own sake can backfire; activity will always benefit from understanding what the evidence tells us.

Secondly, there is a need to develop monitoring and evaluation that allows for rapid feedback loops, so it is possible to quickly identify if something is having a positive impact.

Finally, thought needs to be given to what arrangements are in place for scaling up activity if it does appear to work. The local focus will help with this as nationally driven innovation has tended to be stifled by over caution and bureaucracy.

Of course, funding is always important. Although the amount of money available has been significantly reduced, the fact that all crime reduction money will be channeled through PCC’s should help direct resources to where they are most needed. The power to also make grants for crime reduction activity – on top of the policing budget – will provide a good starting point. However, PCC’s will need to explore alternative sources of funding and should be free to be entrepreneurial in this respect.

The introduction of PCC’s brings with it a real opportunity to build on existing partnership work but with a view to systemising it across all the agencies involved in reducing crime. We need to continue to reduce crime, make our communities safer and transform the citizen experience of criminal justice. PCCs might just provide the catalyst for this.

Andrew Morley is a senior visiting Fellow at the Institute of Criminal Policy Research at Birkbeck College and advises on crime and justice issues. He is former chief executive of the London Criminal Justice Partnership and was a Senior Civil Servant at the Home Office.

Mathematics has been deeply involved in design since it was used to plan the pyramids of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.  Chris Ormell FRSA charts changes in the relationship between the two disciplines and argues for a radical shift in maths teaching that recognises its critical role in design, innovation, science and technology.

Mathematics was used to design the tomb of Mausolos, the Lighthouse at Alexandria, the Corinth Canal, the ampitheatres in hundreds of Roman cities and much else.

The Greeks knew that monuments designed with mathematics had an aura, a panache that could only be achieved in this way. Getting an underlying geometrical structure with symmetry and optimisation had this effect. The geometry was, essentially, the next, natural step in abstraction after line drawing. But the great value of mathematics as a practical art stemmed from its extension of the designer’s imagination. The designer could experiment with the geometry of different designs and see, with precision, what the effect would be. It was a capital discipline for trying-out design ideas. So, mathematics, which had begun much earlier as a simple tool kit of marks needed by shepherds and merchants to keep tabs on their stocks, began to acquire a superior image. Gradually some of the mystique associated with the great monuments rubbed off onto the profession of mathematician.

Perhaps inevitably, this came with a downside. Mathematics began to be valued for its own sake. The priceless mathematics-imagination meld which had created the mystique of the subject was soon forgotten.    

So, as the professionals began to believe in their new-found mystique, they tended to treat mathematics less and less as a design aid, and more as an end in itself. In this way clever, neat, pure mathematics turned into a kind of intellectual jewellery: elegant, precise, abstract, high-level, and immensely special. Any awareness that mathematics had made its ascent of Mt Parnassus via its use in design virtually disappeared. Much mathematics continued to be used as a design aid, but those who fielded it in this way were often treated as mere mechanics, far below the aesthetic and intellectual level of the pure masters.

Mathematics was worshipped for its timelessness, its elegance and the exceedingly high levels of logical ability needed to understand it.

The rest is history. The leaders of the mathematics community eventually became High Priests.  By the 20^th century higher mathematics ­- the most abstract form of human knowledge – became a quasi religion; around 1900 this acquired the added burden of trying to provide the hyper-abstract concepts needed in physics. A dash for abstraction followed. Soon the subject had soared into the stratosphere where any connection with design (or indeed ordinary physical reality) was well and truly lost. (Incidentally few of the millions of hyper-abstract concepts created by mathematicians after 1945 ever helped in physics.)

In the 1960s the high priests of mathematics tried to impose their stratospheric view of pure mathematics onto the ordinary school curriculum. An amazing, revolutionary, idealistic bandwagon began to roll. At first it glowed brightly with the white heat of zeitgeist, modernity, involvement and acclaim. But this soon cooled.  Pupils, teachers, parents, employers rumbled that it was all in aid of… art for art’s sake!  By 1972 professional mathematicians in universities had also realised that many students coming up from schools lacked the solid grounding of yesteryear. They could talk some of the talk, but not mathematically walk the walk.

A counter-revolution in favour of so-called ‘practical maths for schools’ followed Shirley Williams’ Great Debate and the Cockcroft Report of 1982. This was welcomed with open arms after the excesses of hyper-abstraction. But it was too dull, too technical and too mundane to last for long in schools. Soon schools reverted to an uninspiring mish-mash of traditional, abstract modern and ‘practical’ maths: a mish-mash which remains the status quo today.

Going back to ‘practical maths’ was an understandable, if insensitive, over-reaction. In terms of values it was a forlorn attempt to revert to the mundane purposes of the shepherds and merchants of the pre-ancient world. What should have happened was a return to maths melded with imagination, a style of maths acclimatised to conceiving, planning and designing projects. Unfortunately hardly anyone realised that mathematics had originally evolved by this route.

There is still room for a revolution in school mathematics, which would switch the thrust of the subject from a mixture of art-for-art’s-sake and mundane practicality to the vital numerate/visual foresight aid needed in design, innovation, science and technology across the board. What is needed is a complete paradigm shift. But it will only come about when enough people realise that the quality of the current status quo is – as Eric Schmidt said in his McTaggart lecture (27 August 2011) – not good enough.

The author studied maths and philosophy at Oxford University and later ran a project called Mathematics Applicable at Reading University, which experimented successfully for ten years with teaching maths as a design and foresight aid to sixthformers. He is editor of Prospero.

In the current economic climate it might be argued that trying to generate employee engagement is a luxury that the private and public sector can ill afford. Nicholas Ind FRSA argues that it is at precisely these times that organisations need the innovative ideas and contributions of their staff in enhancing service and performance. So why doesn’t it happen?

Most organisations want their employees to engage. Most individuals want to contribute and to find meaning at work. Yet research suggests that more than two thirds of people are not engaged with how they spend their waking hours. Instead of contributing their creativity, employees seem numbed by work, stressed by seemingly unreasonable demands and, in the UK, absent to the tune of 180 million days a year. This carries with it significant costs to the individual, to business and to society.

Even in the best of times, managers, in spite of a professed commitment to empowerment, find it hard to let go and trust employees. As Andrea Gabor observes, many companies are uncomfortable soliciting the opinions of employees in any systematic way. The abundant tacit knowledge and considerable creativity embedded in organisations remains untapped because managers find it safer to control rather than liberate.

There is also the problem of what is known as extrinsics motivations bias. Managers assume that employees’ motivation to work is driven by pay and rewards (the extrinsics), whereas studies show that the primary motivation is concerned with the nature of the job itself (the intrinsics). As Daniel Pink argued entertainingly in his RSA talk on what motivates us, by focusing on remuneration, managers are aiming at the wrong target.

For their part, employees are apt to blame management and the organisation for their disenchantment. When people join a company most of them do so enthusiastically but for many it does not take long for them to fall out of love. There is a feeling of being over-controlled, overwhelmed and under-utilised. Rather than being a part of the organisation ‘we’ start to express a distance from ‘them’, our employers and managers.

We need to change the attitudes and behaviour of managers and employees. Both should recognise that work can create the opportunity for fulfilment, a concept that is distinct from satisfaction and happiness. Fulfilment is concerned with meaning making, with commitment and with extending ourselves beyond our boundaries. For some people fulfilment is found at home, in hobbies or in sports but given that most of us spend around eight hours a day at work, it is a waste of our lives if we do not find some meaning in what we do.

Not surprisingly, people working in creative industries talk about fulfilment as central to their lives. Film director, Stefan Faldbakken describes its importance: “I feel when I am fulfilled. It’s impossible for me to do anything but make films. I have a really deep rooted joy in expressing myself, telling people something and seeing them react.” However, fulfilment does not only matter to people involved with creativity. This is Copenhagen bus driver Lars Lylloff talking about his job, “When I spend a third of my life at work driving a bus, wouldn’t it be strange if I didn’t commit myself to the job.”

The responsibility of managers is to create a climate where it becomes possible for meaning to be found. Managers need to stop seeing employees as motivated by factors different from themselves and to trust them more. Organisations such as Google, Mozilla, Virgin and Rabobank, that unite around clear values and have the confidence to trust employees, are able to dispense with the considerable costs of mistrust. This is about leadership and commitment. Piet van Schijndel, a member of the board of directors of Rabobank, noted of the company’s commitment to openness that it: “Had to let go of the old-fashioned concept of an organization built on mistrust and rules. Instead, we started focusing on trust between people; between ourselves and our customers and between the management and the staff.”

For their part, employees need to reject passivity and to become more active in shaping their worlds. This means having the courage to take initiative and responsibility for changing the workplace not only for themselves but for others. It can be argued that this is always easier for individuals with status in the organisation. This may be true but there are interesting examples where this is not the case, such as the story about a cleaner at Erasmus University in Rotterdam who persuaded the administrators to change the contract for cleaning so that she and her colleagues could do their jobs better. When employees care about what they do and identify with the purpose of the organisation (which means it should be explicit and truly lived), they can go to sometimes extraordinary lengths.

2012 will present enormous challenges for both employers and employees. In this context it is even more important to think seriously about fulfilment at work. The quest for fulfilment creates economic value and individual meaning; it can drive efficiency and enhance creativity and innovation. We ought to remind ourselves that if we do not act, we can easily find that our working life has passed us by with our potential unrealised. It seems appropriate to leave the last word to Steve Jobs, who speaking at Stanford University on How to Live Before you Die said: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Nicholas Ind’s book Meaning at Work is published by Cappelen Damm Akademisk and is available in selected bookshops and on Amazon.

For Frankie Owen, the most important thing about his time in prison was to come out with his core values in tact. Learning from this experience and helped by agencies, he decided to write down his experiences with the aim of helping other prisoners and their families to do the same.

I was prisoner A1443CA at Her Majesties Pleasure until 2nd August 2011. As a first time offender I had no idea how the criminal justice system or a prison worked. I was clueless to it all and it was hard for me going in and frightening for the family and loved ones I left behind. To save my sanity and give me something positive to focus on I began writing about the process as went through it; it felt like self-help.

As the days progressed it occurred to me that my experiences would prove useful to first time offenders and their families and help them get through what is surely one of the most difficult times in their lives. The Little Book of Prison: A Beginners Guide was born.

I have read a lot of books about people in prison, those that were facing far worse situations than I was and often on much longer sentences. This gave me a sense of perspective. I wanted to write a book that would help new inmates, their friends and families to know what to expect from the system and this gave me a real purpose.

It occurs to me now that my writing was also about expressing myself: sharing my emotions and feelings and acknowledging my core values, the things that lie at the heart of human experience. If you are emotionally aware, it is easier to determine what is right and what is wrong and appreciate the impact of your offences and empathise with feelings of your victim.

But in prison, for much of the time, you shut down your emotions in order to get through the day; any sign of weakness on the wing could make you a victim. Once behind your door, you have time to think about what you have done, the family and loved ones that are suffering too and the helplessness that you feel. Some prisoners cannot bring themselves to think about this as it is too difficult, painful and mentally destructive.

This emotional rollercoaster is the most difficult thing about being in prison and for those who find it too difficult, the emotional shut down becomes so acute that they are unable to open up to share emotions or feelings. While locked away, some become completely detached; for them the system has a dehumanising effect, making them devoid of emotions and empathy. How will this affect them when they leave prison and will it help them to not reoffend on release?

Fortunately there are organisations that try to stem this process through bringing invaluable work into prison mostly funded by donations from charities and trusts. For example, I was introduced to the Toe by Toe mentor scheme, which helps prisoners read and write. It is funded by the Shannon Trust and run through the prison library. I was already helping prisoners write letters and encouraged them to join the scheme. It felt good to be helping people to learn to read and write, to enable prisoners to access a gateway for expression and education. Seeing the positive energy displayed by prisoners provided me with a powerful catalyst in completing the book.

The Little Book of Prison won the Koestler Trust’s 2011 platinum award for non-fiction, judged by Will Self. The Trust, which has been working in prisons for 50 years, runs an annual nationwide competition for prisoners within the creative industries; everything from traditional drawings, painting, model making to poetry and creative writing.

There are other examples. Inside Time is the national prison newspaper and has a poetry and letters section always brimming with entries from prisoners sharing their experiences, thoughts and feelings. And Not Shut Up, a monthly magazine, has regular contributions from prisoners who are encouraged to send in their stories, poetry and letters.

On release, I was invited to read an excerpt of my book at an event at the Southbank in London hosted by Not Shut Up and the Writers in Prison Network. Here I heard first hand about the ex-offenders’ positive experiences of writing and the role it had played in their path to rehabilitation. The Writers in Prison Network pays professional writers to go into prison and run groups, mentor, challenge and develop prisoners’ thoughts and perceptions through writing. The scheme has had its funding pulled and is now struggling to survive.

In times of austerity some people will argue that this kind of work is not a priority and is not something we cannot afford. My question would be whether we can afford not to fund the structures of support that promote and release creativity in prisoners?

You can order a copy of The Little Book of Prison: A Beginner’s Guide by visiting Waterside Press.

David Barlex FRSA argues more needs to be done to bring designerly skills to the classroom following a recent RSA event on the challenges facing design and technology teaching in schools.

At the recent RSA event Art, Design and Bad Science John Miller asked what is wrong with Design and Technology (D&T) teaching in schools. In an accompanying paper he argued that practice does not live up to the good intentions of the original National Curriculum Orders or the considerable rhetoric that has followed.

There has in fact been no shortage of good ideas concerning practice, many from the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) community. But as most of these have not had much in the way of influence on practice, their absence from John’s paper should be forgiven. The rationale for D&T as a subject in the school curriculum is important. I am really impressed by the rationale that sees design and technological activity as a unique feature of human behaviour.

This was eloquently expressed by Jacob Bronowski in the TV series and book The Ascent of Man: “Man is a singular creature. He has a set of gifts, which make him unique among animals; so that, unlike them, he is not a figure in the landscape – he is a shaper of the landscape… The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. Civilization is not a collection of finished artefacts; it is an elaboration of processes. In the end the march of man is the refinement of the hand in action.”

I see the role of D&T as providing pupils with the experience of their hands being the cutting edge of their minds and a sense of what it means to be a shaper of the landscape. This is D&T‘s unique contribution to education. But it is quite clear that for many teachers the subject has lost its way for a number of reasons.

First, the ‘race to the bottom’ caused by the way examining bodies have reduced assessment demand. Second, the limiting nature of the examining body set controlled tasks that have replaced projects based on pupil choice. And third, the pressure to achieve ever improving A* – C grades at GCSE preventing teachers encouraging pupils to take the risks required for creativity.

Add to the above that most teachers have had minimal experience in service training and that new entrants to the profession, despite the best efforts of the ITE community, make little impression on prevailing practice. So we have a situation in which the nature and legitimate aspirations of D&T soon evaporate.

So what is to be done? Whilst it is important to acknowledge the weaknesses in prevailing practice the discussion should move into the territory of identifying ways to improve the situation and the means to put these into effect. A start to this process would be for the RSA to host a subsequent event: What to do about D&T? A key focus should be on how we develop models of designerly behaviour that can be adopted by pupils in school in their D&T lessons. Where might such models be found? Clearly professional practice is one important source; consideration of how professional designers do what they do is essential to inform D&T practice. The work of the ITE community could also make a significant contribution alongside the views and practices of teachers. The role of the Design & Technology Association in developing and supporting good practice is important. What do others think?

David taught in comprehensive schools for 15 years achieving head of faculty positions in science and design and technology before taking university positions in teacher education. He directed the Nuffield Design & Technology Project and was Educational Manager for Young Foresight. You can find out more about David on LinkedIn or email him directly at david.barlex@btinternet.com

As he anticipates the traditional seasonal rerun of Frank Capra’s classic, “It’s A Wonderful Life”, Michael Reardon FRSA wonders whether the story of George Bailey can inspire a model of ethical banking for our troubled time.s

One of the things I look forward to most at this time of the year is the opportunity to get reacquainted with the folks of Bedford Falls. George Bailey and his brother Frank, old man Potter and the not so heavenly angel Clarence.

Perhaps Jimmy Stewart’s finest moment aside from “Harvey”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, was not a hit when it was originally realized; post-war audiences preferred grittier fare. It has since become a fixture in the Christmas TV schedules. An indication of how deeply buried it is on the public psyche, was the fact that the ground-breaking early ‘90s series ‘Thirtysomething’ was made by the Bedford Falls production company and each episode played out with the last few bars of the song ‘Buffalo Girls’; a motif that runs through the film.

It has traditionally been thought of as a movie that shows the contribution that each of us has to make in our lifetime. Its life affirming character derives from the fact that the angel Clarence shows our hero, George Bailey, when he is at his lowest ebb, just how much poorer the lives of his family and neighbours would have been if he had not been lived. This bleaker, parallel life that George is shown is most poignantly summed up by the death of his brother Frank in an accident because George is not there to save him.

But there is another theme running through the film that provides something of a parable for these difficult times. Because in the end, George Baily represents the triumph of ‘good capitalism’ over the ‘predatory’ capitalism of old man Potter.

Bailey Savings and Loan – which of course does exactly what it says on the tin and no more – is being forced into bankruptcy by the asset striping, land grabbing exploits of the unscrupulous Potter who espouses the philosophy of the rampant free market at its most unattractive. He actively seeks to destroy the somewhat hokey small town capitalism represented by Bailey. Its unquestioned commitment to the town of Bedford Falls, old fashioned working practices and ‘squeezed middle’ customers that aren’t going to suddenly transform the bank into a global player.

And Potter almost succeeds. There is a disastrous run on the bank as Bailey’s customers are tempted to take their money elsewhere. George sees no future for himself or the bank. And his despair takes him to that encounter with Clarence on the bridge in the midst of a ferocious snowstorm.

But in the end George wins out. His customers recognise that his loyalty to them and their families and the community of Bedford Falls means more than the ‘get rich quick at any cost’ philosophy of Potter. In the most memorable closing scenes they flock back to the bank with their deposits, Frank returns the decorated war hero, the Christmas tree bell tinkles and we know that Clarence has his wings.

So here’s my proposition to Nick Clegg. If you want your party to become more like Oxfam, I suggest you initiate the ‘George Bailey’ awards for responsible business. Think of it as Fairtrade for Britain. Customers would then know which companies were prepared to subscribe to the ethical behaviour that we want and need if we are to move beyond the exhausted neo-liberal economics of the past. Make it easier for us to know who is prepared to work in and for the community, forsaking the Potter-like fast buck for a strong, long-term stake in the life of the nation.

Banks would need to work hard for recognition. The criteria would have to include employment practices, trading policies, sustainable sourcing, transparency with regard to pay and rewards and the ratio of pay between top and bottom. They might be extended to consider lending policies to small firms and start-ups, especially local businesses. Meeting these criteria might even mean firms turning down opportunities to maximise the profits that could be made from less ethical behaviour.

For customers – you and me – there is a challenge. Quite simply we have to behave like the residents of Bedford Falls who put their faith and therefore their money in Baily Savings and Loan. We have to actively seek out and support the businesses that receive the award .If necessary, and where we can, we will have to pay the price for keeping them in business. They may be online, they may be foreign owned or they may be a small start up. But if we give them our hard earned cash, rather than the get rich quick old man Potters of this world, then we will in a small way begin to use our spending power to take back control of the way in which our society goes about its business.

Unlike George Bailey, we live in the real world. Whatever our beliefs, we know that Clarence is not coming down to save us. But many of us stand poised on that bridge wondering what lies ahead for our troubled world, blinded as we are by the economic blizzard that surrounds us. Fairtrade has shown what can be at an international level. So who wants to join me in designing the George Bailey award? Working title of course!

Mike is an RSA fellow living in the North West. Until July of this year he was Director of the Greater Manchester Environment Commission. He is now a freelance public policy and environment consultant. Visit Michael Reardon’s website.

David Pitt-Watson FRSA, leader of the RSA’s Tomorrow’s Investor programme, recently gave evidence to parliament about some of the conclusions of our work. He argues that UK government policy is heading in the right direction but must ensure that it builds a pension system that meets 21st century needs.

The British pension system is not ‘fit for purpose’.  It is not comprehensive, and it is very costly. This is why three years ago the RSA set up its Tomorrow’s Investor programme, which has been investigating how best we can improve the system of private pensions in the UK.

The conclusions of the work to date are quite stark.  First it has shown that, if a typical young Dutch person, and a typical Briton were to save exactly the same amount for their retirement, the Dutch person would receive a 50 percent larger income in retirement.  Second, it has shown that while the government’s new policy of auto-enrolment takes a step in the right direction, it has some gaps which, if not addressed, could prove very damaging to its objectives.

The Tomorrow’s Investor work has supported the new government policy of auto-enrolment, which will begin next year. But this support comes with a big caveat; the current design of this system is deeply flawed.
So we were delighted when the Department of Work and Pensions’ Select Committee, decided to investigate the problems Tomorrow’s Investor had been raising, and invited the RSA to give evidence. This is parliamentary democracy at its best and there is much at stake; the outcome could determine whether the new system will indeed generate pensions for the 50 percent of employees who do not have employer provision, or whether flaws in its design could result in it failing.

In theory the government policy makes a lot of sense.  Over the coming years, most employees will automatically be enrolled into a pension. They can withdraw if they so choose, but the hope is that most will save, and their employer and the government will subsidise that saving.

In order to ensure all employers have a reliable supplier, the government has set up a new institution, called the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST). However it is subject to a range of restrictions, which mean it may struggle to meet every employers needs.  The RSA believes there is no public benefit from these restrictions. But there is a more immediate problem: the government is planning to abandon all consumer protections to pension suppliers who compete with NEST. We know of no developed pension market where such limited consumer protections exist. So a good initiative, which has taken years to agree, and which enjoys full cross party support, is put in jeopardy by lack of attention to detail.

So, what did the Select Committee evidence conclude? Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Chair of the review group appointed by the government gave evidence at the same time as the RSA. In response to the issues and solutions the RSA suggested, he said: “we are all agreed… it is almost a no-brainer”. Over the next few weeks, we will see whether, with pressure from MPs the government will now act.

More broadly, the RSA’s research has shown that there are huge opportunities to improve the British pension system. 6.5 percent of our GNP is spent on private pensions. By adopting the Dutch system, we could improve its productivity by a full 50 percent.

So there is potentially a huge prize to be won here. In the introduction of auto-enrolment and NEST, the government is taking a first step in moving the British pension system in exactly the right direction. Getting the best pension system for Britain will be a real challenge over the long term.  So, ensuring that auto-enrolment does not fall at the first hurdle has been a particular focus of our recent work.  We are very pleased that our parliamentarians are now investigating the issue.

David Pitt-Watson leads the RSA’s Tomorrow’s Investor Programme.  He is Chair of Hermes Focus Asset Management.

Utter the words ‘employee share ownership’ and many people mistakenly think that this refers to the ‘John Lewis model’.  John Collison argues that the time is ripe for policymakers and commentators to do more to understand and encourage the relatively simple concept of employees holding or saving for shares in the company they work for.

Employee share ownership can range from a small company with five employees to the likes of Asda, BT, National Grid and many more that have thousands of employees who hold shares in the company they work for. The approach has proven to increase productivity both in the UK and abroad. This not only applies to companies who offer share plans against those who do not, it applies to employees at the same company: comparing participants against non-participants. Given the UK’s sluggish growth and generally poor productivity levels this is significant. Research has also shown that employee share ownership plans can lead to greater innovation, lower staff turnover, improved employee engagement and better workplace relations.

The concept has similarities to, and is often confused with employee owned companies, co-operatives or mutuals but they are not the same. Employee owned companies like the John Lewis Partnership and engineering firm Arup are largely or wholly owned by the people who work for them. The way in which companies like John Lewis operate does not lead to wider share ownership and investment, nor does it encourage the savings habit (as no financial contribution from the employee is usually required). Furthermore, employees are not able to leave or retire from their employer with a nest egg of shares for their future and there is no minimum holding period for shares in the company before staff can benefit.

In contrast, HMRC approved all-employee share plans offer all of the above benefits. So, if we were going to do something about creating tomorrow’s, or even today’s, investor, employee share ownership would appear to have the edge.

The most popular approach is an all-employee share plan, one that is made available to all employees at a company on the same basis; the Save As You Earn (SAYE) plan. It is one of the simplest savings products available and has been so since introduced in 1980.

According to the latest annual survey undertaken by ifs ProShare, over one million employees are making regular monthly payments into an SAYE plan. The plans work by enabling employees to save regular fixed monthly amounts between £5 and £250 over a three, five or seven year period. The fact that small amounts can be saved seems to have attracted people with lower incomes: HMRC figures state that a third of these savers earn less than £21,000.

At the end of the savings period employees can use the money to buy shares in their employer at the price they were three, five or seven years ago. What’s more, most employers offer a further discount of up to 20% on whatever the share price was three, five or seven years ago. Employees are safe in the knowledge that they do not have to buy the shares; they can instead opt to have their savings returned with a cash bonus. No tax is charged on the grant of the share option and no income tax will be charged on any profit made when the option is exercised.

Put simply, SAYE plans are a very simple, tax efficient, risk free way in which to save. They also have the additional benefit of being directly promoted by employers.

The success of the SAYE plan is followed closely by another all-employee share plan, the Share Incentive Plan (SIP) introduced by Gordon Brown in 2000. ifs ProShare survey evidence published earlier this year suggests that just under one million employees participate in SIPs.

Employees save up to £125 a month from pre-tax salary; there is a payroll deduction thus stripping out another potential obstacle to saving in the form of inertia. These require a minimum holding period before employees can benefit: shares held in the plan for five years may be removed free of any income tax or NIC liability.

Whilst SIPs could be considered slightly more complex because of the different range of options available (for example, partnership shares, free shares and matching shares), the principle remains the same: employees are gaining a stake in their employer and gaining a share in any future success.

The benefits of both SAYE and SIP mean that investors know exactly what they are investing in; the company they work for and therefore, indirectly, themselves. Also, no fees are paid by the employee; a constant source of confusion and complaint in relation to other savings products.

However, whilst the story of employee share ownership in the UK is generally a successful one, it can and must be improved if we want the economy to benefit from better levels of productivity and a higher savings ratio. The maximum monthly savings limits for SAYE have not been increased since 1991 and the SIP limits have not increased since they were introduced in 2000.

Government should act quickly to remedy this and end the inequity of blocking private equity backed companies from offering HMRC approved all-employee plans to lower paid workers; a move that would open up the availability of SAYE and SIPs to a further 3 million employees in the UK economy.

Politicians, commentators and journalists should better acquaint themselves with the tried and tested concept of employee share ownership, a concept that has proved tremendously successful over the last 30 years. Doing so would avoid the need for policymakers to reinvent the wheel by devising new ways to encourage greater levels of savings, boost productivity and improve workplace relations. Already in existence is a tried and tested approach, supported by successive governments but one that could achieve so much more if updated to meet the needs of our 21^st century economy.

John Collison has more than twenty years share plans experience gained from working in the employee share plan teams at HBOS and Abbey before take responsibility for all share plan related elements of the work of the Financial Services Authority, Consumer Financial Education Body and finally the Money Advice Service. John was appointed Head of Employee Share Ownership at ifs ProShare in August 2011.