2013-05-19T05:03:16-04:00 Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=ed-owen Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Ed Owen Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2475347 2013-01-22T11:59:47-05:00 2013-03-24T05:12:02-04:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/ The chain has appointed Deloitte to run the business and has suspended its shares while potential buyers are found. 4,350 jobs are at risk but it is not closed. Not yet at least.

As a teenager, I loved and practically lived in HMV. It was always the high point of the high street. I'd slip in at any opportunity, scouring the racks for bands I had heard of, discovering bands I had never heard of, reading the liner notes of both through the shrink-wrap. If I had money, I'd even buy something.

HMV was classier than the other chains -- less glitzy and with better stock and staff than Virgin and more depth and variety than Our Price. In HMV, people at the till would comment on the music you bought or suggest something you might not have heard of, or at least know what you were talking about if you came in with an obscure query.

For me the nearest indie was Spillers in Cardiff -- smaller but even better than HMV. If you lived somewhere without a shop of the stature of Spillers, then HMV was OK though.

Many will look at the staggering rise of Amazon and blame it for the decimation of High Street, coupled to the dire state of the UK economy. But Amazon's advantages -- no stores, no paying any UK tax -- while significant were not the killer blow for HMV. HMV botched everything all by itself by taking the focus off its core business, and flailing and forgetting its customers when it should have been offering them something of value.

In truth, HMV has become one of the most depressing shops on the high street. In the past it had a simple focus -- music, where it excelled. For a long time it was even cool, the Bowie of the high street -- popular but credible. For many years now it has been more like Cliff Richard.

Pictures of HMV's flagship Oxford Street store from the 1960s show it to be a music Mecca and stylish place to hang out. Cementing its premium position were knowledgeable staff keen to help, elevating it above the other chains.

HMV was for a long time the best record shop chain in the world, its logo dating from 1899, but managed to reinvent itself to remain relevant. Its website has the optimistic but now rather disingenuous claim: "HMV's dog and trumpet has entertained for over 90 years, and remains as relevant today to entertainment lovers."

The formula was pretty much unchanged until some time in the early 1990s when the market began to shift. Vinyl was out and CDs flourished as people replaced their record collections. Stores could hold more of the smaller CDs and the staggering choice prompted a surge in sales.

At some point a crucial mistake was made -- the company decided to effectively jettison customer service. Music, films, whatever stopped being things to enjoy and treasure -- important things -- and were instead sold as mere commodities. This was absolutely not the fault of the staff, but of the management. This decision had important knock-on effects. Stores became increasingly depressing, with increasingly stressed staff.

And yes, HMV was clueless in selling anywhere but the high street, completely neglecting online sales until Amazon and Apple had that market pretty much sewn-up. Soon they became clueless at selling on the high street too. HMV would always have sold the equivalent of Susan Boyle, but also a credible back catalogue. Now, if you want that classic album HMV is unlikely to have it, but even if it does it won't be reasonably priced. You will find umpteen NOW and Ministry of Sound compilations, however. Yet another gift to Amazon.

Pre-tax profits at the group rose steadily to reach a peak of £121m in 2005 before beginning a rapid decline, to a loss of £48.6m in 2012. It sold the Waterstones book chain, ironically the most profitable part of the business, and it's half-dozen HMV-branded music venues including the iconic Hammersmith Apollo. To little avail.

At the same time, independent stores all over the country from Rough Trade and Sister Ray in London to Spillers in Cardiff and Piccadilly in Manchester began to innovate. They made music important to the customers by discovering and championing new music and making it vital. They remain a pleasure to shop in.

HMV also changed its focus from music to DVDs, where the profits lay. It is already part-way through a new change to focus on gaming. According to HMV's last published interim results in December for the six months to 27 October, total sales were down 13.5 percent, losing the company £24m.

Chief Executive Trevor Moore, the man ironically credited with saving Jessops, admitted that: "HMV has had a difficult first half. However, the business has started to deliver a number of new initiatives which will help to maximize the seasonal sales opportunity and provide a platform for growth in 2013."

What these new initiatives are or were, your guess is as good as mine.

HMV has squandered its place as the quality mass-market music retailer. This is a loss for all of us. The bad news is that the mismanagement of HMV has given non-taxpaying retailer Amazon the perfect platform to grow and further erode high street music sales. The good news is that a management with an ounce of sense can turn at least some of the business around although some of the stores are certain to close.

Lets hope that whoever takes the helm continues to give quality music to people, so teenagers can become literally lost in music in the racks at HMV, just like I did.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1629682 2012-06-27T05:18:31-04:00 2012-08-27T05:12:06-04:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/ few people use it regularly - 83% of users are 'inactive', preferring the established Facebook and Twitter. One of these neat G+ features is 'hangouts' which allows people to have video conferences.

'Why not persuade people to come and participate in a Google Hangout?', the Google marketing people must be wondering, 'We could pick a ridiculous topic that young people would be interested to participate in, fly a bunch of the right people to London and film them and others on G+ Hangouts.'

So the geniuses at Google realised that Hip-Hop is popular with young people, and decided to arrange a debate titled 'Hip-Hop on trial: Hip-Hop doesn't enhance society, it degrades it', staged last night (Tuesday), which would get plenty of the target demographic irate and involved.

On paper, it looked amazing. A stellar line-up included civil rights campaigner and one-time presidential hopeful Rev Jesse Jackson, one of the greatest rappers of all time- KRS One, Egyptian rapper Deeb who was one of the voices of the Arab Spring, Benjamin Zephaniah, and John Sutherland (yes, that John Sutherland).

Emily Matliss was David Dimbleby, and Jemima Khan hosted feedback from digital viewers.

Defending the proposition came Eamon Courtenay, an avuncular lawyer from Belize (Belize? Yes Belize - please keep up), who argued that Hip-Hop was once a great artform, but has become 'debased'.

The argument against came from Michael Eric Dyson, 'hip-hop intellectual' and professor of sociology at Georgetown University. His bombastic, rapid-fire delivery was far less sympathetic than Courtenay's and you would think twice about buying a used car from him.

Opening debates out of the way, Courtenay and Dyson cross-examined the assembled bigwigs to bring their arguments to life. The hip-hop fraternity defended the great things Hip-Hop brings, while the intellectuals attacked Hip-Hop's weak spots - misogyny, use of the words 'Nigger', 'Bitch', and 'Ho', and a general infatuation with crime culture.

Rev Jackson went off-piste early on, saying politicians not rappers debased society, citing the invasion of Iraq. So far so good.

Unfortunately, the debate quickly descended into farce. One extended segment painfully explored whether rap was in fact poetry. Rap clearly is poetry, but the questioning rumbled on and on regardless with participants becoming increasingly angry and frustrated.

I'm no professor of literature but John Sutherland, who is, made the remarkable comment, without a trace of irony that: "In 20 years, Tupac will be thought of in the same way as Walt Whitman is now." Really? Tupac?

The G+ Hangout feature was used sparingly, to speak to Khan, A Tribe Called Quest rapper Q Tip, Slaughterhouse, British rapper Estelle and ?uestlove of The Roots, and finally a bemused P J O'Rourke who asked, "One question - what the fuck am I doing on this panel?"

Eclipsing even Jesse Jackson, the big draw was KRS One, who meditated on the 'N' word: "Nigger, or Nigga, or as in the ancient Ethiopian, Negus, which means 'king'," a point made three times to defend its use. He later claimed a lyric by Kanye West where we refers to his 'bitches' was about a car. He seemed to have his tongue firmly in his cheek, and couldn't help smiling when Courtnay asked him, "So when you are using the 'N' word, you are referring to yourselves a kings?"

None of the rappers gave an inch but of the other participants there was a loose consensus that too much modern Hip-Hop is not terribly good, particularly commercially successful Hip-Hop. Several interesting areas were raised - the marketing by record labels for example - but never explored.

Another major flaw was using Hip-Hop's great and good to make the arguments. KRS One has been prominent in the 'Stop the Violence' movement since his DJ partner Scott La Rock was shot and killed in 1987. ?ueststlove and Q Tip are similarly regarded as the good guys here. Slaughterhouse appeared briefly and absurdly to defend the use of the word 'bitch', but to make this debate work, a rapper like 50 Cent, who if far more difficult to defend and does rap about prison, guns and making money would have made a far more effective addition.

Star of the night was Tricia Rose, author of Black Noise, who was the perfect mixture of angry and eloquent, panning sloppy, sexist rap but backing its transformative powers.

Low points included Maitlis asking The Roots' ?uestlove if he would consider writing more positive lyrics. Whoops - rather like asking the Pope to be Catholic. A handover to Jemima for viewer comments resulted in a frozen picture - the technology had fallen over. "Oh dear, Jemima has frozen," said a helpless Maitlis.

Another glaring inconsistency was the overwhelming focus on American rap, where opinion is most polarised and excesses are most evident. Because the event was hosted in London, little was said about British rap which is undergoing a very healthy and exciting renaissance, and tends towards the conscious or considered, which I suppose makes it very British.

So, no smoking gun, limited exploration of any topics of real value, but the night was undeniably fun.

Jesse Jackson rounded the night off with some call and respond with the audience, echoing the late James Brown: "I am... Somebody," which completed the evening on a high.

I can't see the project converting more people to G+, as the buzz generated reverted largely back to Twitter, but cynically using a topic designed to inflame opinion was probably a good idea. A shame it fell over in the execution, which is a common complaint of G+ itself.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1626678 2012-06-26T19:00:00-04:00 2012-08-26T05:12:05-04:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
Not if we follow the bizarre trajectory of two campaigns launched last week, coincidentally the same week adland recognised its best accomplishments in Cannes.

The first is for FemFresh, a product I didn't know even existed until last week. It is a kind of soap that isn't soap, developed specifically for washing the vagina. It must be good stuff, because it is 'pH-balanced' and contains 'soothing aloe-vera'.

Unfortunately for FemFresh, it launched a campaign for its vaginal washing product on Facebook but seems to have made a cardinal sin - to omit the word 'vagina' completely from the product, and then turning this into an awkward joke in its marketing copy.

"The kindest way to care for your fancy, va jay jay, kitty, nooni, la la, froo froo! Whatever you call it make sure you love it. Femfresh. Expert care for down there" reads the blurb.

The reaction was overwhelmingly, catastrophically negative, with dozens of cross, stunned and often very funny comments littering the timeline. A post on the Wall Blog brought the brewing mess to a fresh audience and the campaign was pulled yesterday (Monday).

Most asked one simple question: why does the marketing of this product infantilise its audience? Why indeed?

Patronised for washing between their legs, women have also had the indignity of a jaw-droppingly inappropriate ad to encourage considering 'science' as a career.

This ad was produced for the European Commission, and seems to consider 'science' in the same way as Derek Zoolander might - with bubbles, pumping house music, strutting around in high heels and a lab coat, and the colour pink. Nothing about pushing the boundaries of human endeavour through experiment, or discovery in a wide variety of disciplines.

So bad is the ad that Victoria Herridge, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, summed-up the ad to the Telegraph: "It is almost beyond parody."

"I find it offensive on two levels, not just the lack of proper representation of what it means to be a scientist but also the single, generic message that it seems to put across."

The popular portrayal of adland lives in the 1960s Madison Avenue, in the much-lauded Mad Men. One of the many pleasures of watching Mad Men is the context - the prejudices and excesses of 1960s America rendered absurd through decades of hindsight spurred by the civil rights movement and the feminist movement in particular.

But perhaps adland itself had not been watching, or perhaps not realised that this kind of context makes Mad Men at heart a satire.

However, brands can learn, and disasters can be turned around.

While the FemFresh campaign has set the brand back, perhaps for good, the EU may have benefitted after all. The reaction from working women scientists prompted action, and the EU has filled a Twitter list of 500 scientists and researchers, and is building a second list.

They have also abandoned the troublesome #sciencegirlthing Twitter hastag, and replaced it with the more respectable #realwomeninscience.

Women in science are suddenly engaged, and this will help build the campaign's credibility in the future, and so this disaster may turn out to be a success after all.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1607063 2012-06-18T17:05:15-04:00 2012-08-18T05:12:12-04:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/ The Guardian yesterday published research that shows 3.6m households in the UK are a short step away from poverty, but one simple measure would help these families and boost the wider economy - make childcare tax-deductible.

The Government knows there is a problem, commissioning a review of childcare provision this morning. There is not enough childcare, and sometimes doubts over the quality of childcare.

In its study, backed-up with some impressive statistics, The Guardian shows how swathes of the country are struggling to keep their families from financial disaster.

This study considered working families with two children earning between £17,000 and £41,000, or couples without children earning up to £29,000. They estimate 2.2m children are in this perilous state.

These families have no assets and no savings and may not be able to feed themselves adequately at the end of the month, once salaries have depleted. If something significant hit them, even a hike in fuel costs, then they could be in serious trouble.

The study suggests that these are hardworking people with jobs who cannot make ends meet, ripe for worse if they resort to disastrous 'payday loans'.

Interestingly, this is exactly the class of people the government claims to be helping and is determined to assist.

How and why can so many families find themselves so close to disaster?

If they are renting, they will have seen rents rise sharply in the last few years. Those with children pay staggering sums for nursery fees.

Inflation is high - currently at 3%, rising sharply since the financial collapse of 2008. Wages have been frozen or have even declined. Many have lost their jobs and may have taken work that is less-well paid.

And as we all know, the Age of Austerity means the welfare state is shrinking.

All of these factors add to the financial strain.

What has the government done to match its rhetoric on working families? Despite assurances that working families are the focus of their care and attention through the financial turbulence, the answer is plain - the government has done nothing, and left families to fend for themselves in the face of increasing uncertainty.

The Queen's Speech, announced in May, did include the Children and Families Bill, which will allow families to share leave and give divorcees better access to their children. Unfortunately, these measures will bring only marginal financial relief. There have been no increases in either tax credit allowances or childcare vouchers for as long as I can remember.

How about a solution that will help those with children, boost the economy and bring more money into the Treasury?

Better than injecting billions of pounds of imaginary money into failing banks, so-called 'quantitative easing', which may or may not even be achieving anything at all, why not support the real economy with a real injection of cash?

A neat suggestion for the brainboxes in the Treasury is to consider is this: nursery fees are exorbitant, but nurseries are not making vast sums from the profession. Families are struggling with finances. Marry the two.

Make childcare costs tax deductible.

This could be done in two ways - bring costs for pre-school children, which is where the biggest financial burden lies, tax deductible, or allow nurseries to become charities, and allow families to write-off fees or donations against tax.

The government's recent U-turn on charitable donations could come in handy in the second case. Childcare typically costs are up to a quarter of income, which is handily the same as the upper limit on charitable donations.

Either way, the result would be identical - to increase the money in parents' pockets, which would feed into the wider economy, and therefore into HM Revenue and Customs. Effectively, a boost to the whole economy.

This would also be widely distributed around the UK, particularly in some of the UK's most deprived areas as families spend their extra cash.

It would also help the nursery sector, allowing them to increase fees without hitting families hard, and allow them to increase their traditionally low pay, hire more people, or both, making nursery childcare a more attractive place to work.

The best part of the suggestion is that there is no downside. Costs would be small, and would help people falling into claim state benefits, which are a far bigger burden on the state.

The cost is to reduce the tax take by the Treasury, but this could be offset by the benefits fairly quickly. The price is the safety net struggling families need - the difference between destitution and a relative comfort, and a cash injection for some of Britain's poorest areas.

Seems worthwhile.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1302537 2012-02-26T14:56:15-05:00 2012-04-27T05:12:01-04:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
Tonight's BBC Panorama report (Monday) and new research from the Daycare Trust exposes what every parent with small children already knows, childcare is painfully, ridiculously expensive, to a wider audience.

Now we learn that the impact of overwhelming costs for parents compounds the ongoing squeeze on the economy. The government needs to act both for the sake of parents and for the sake of its quest for financial stability.

Strong anecdotal evidence shows that the pressures of working life already force parents to spend less time with their kids. Research by UNICEF published in September last year shows British families are caught in a 'Materialistic Trap' with parents spending a fraction of the time with their kids compared to our European neighbours because of the pressure of work. This has a negative impact on family life and may prove to have wider social implications.

Today's research by the Daycare Trust shows childcare inflation spiralling by 5.8% for kids under the age of two, and 3.9% for those two and over around the UK. Wage inflation languishes at 0.3%. Assuming parents still have a job.

In London it is not uncommon for a nursery to cost £50 per child per day. If you have two kids below school age and you decide to work full time, then do the maths - that equates to £26,000 per year: the average British wage. No wonder parents are deciding to drop out of work to look after their kids.

Interestingly the nurseries and daycare centres are not wallowing in cash - their costs are also increasing and both feel the squeeze.

There are ways to offset some costs, with tax credits, childcare vouchers and 15 free hours per week for three and four year-olds. But working tax credits have been cut, from up to 80% of total costs to a maximum of 70% of total costs. Only the poorest families can claim back costs at this level, but the average claim has dropped by £10 per week or more than £500 per year, and 44,000 fewer families are claiming this help, most likely because they have given up work to focus on childcare to save money.

Parents are already leaving work in large numbers to care for their kids - research by AVIVA, published in August last year shows 32,000 mums left work in 2010 to take control of childcare because the costs are too high. The Daycare Trust research implies this trend is accelerating.

If parents drop out of work, they also drop out of the tax system. 44,000 fewer claims shows a similar number falling out of work, and a corresponding drop for the exchequer, just a the time when tax revenues are at a premium.

Chief executive of the Daycare Trust Anand Shukla said: "These above-inflation increases in the cost of childcare are more bad news for families, heaping further pressure on their stretched budgets as wages remain stagnant and less help is available through tax credits."

Shukla says the pragmatic decision to leave work to save money will force more families into poverty. They want the government to extend free childcare to all two-year-olds by the end of the parliament.

So do I. So does every family with small children. Now we know it is in the government's interest to do something about it.

"At a time when family and government finances are so stretched, and the Treasury is looking to maximise tax revenues and reduce benefit expenditure, it is sheer folly that any parent has to leave work because they cannot afford to pay for childcare," said Shukla.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1145232 2011-12-13T06:09:47-05:00 2012-02-12T05:12:01-05:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
Right now, thousands of parents are pondering which primary school to send their kids to in next September's intake. The closing date is in mid-January.

Kids aged four to five will enter reception year and have their first taste of organised education.

There is some flexibility over where you can send your child, but preference is usually given to those who live closest to the school, have a sibling already attending, or fall within a specific catchment area.

Unless, that is, you hold a religious belief.

Schools classed as 'voluntary aided' are able to discriminate on the grounds of religion. The selection criteria are usually the same as for other schools, but with added checks to ensure that the parents of children are actively attending worship. There are a handful of places left over for 'others'.

The problem is that these religious school are, on the whole, rated by Ofcom as superior to the schools attended by the children of non-religious parents. So a religious belief puts your child at the front of the queue for the better-performing faith school.

British parents are a resourceful lot, and have long been wise to this kind of selection. Such is the competition for school places in some parts of the country that parents will attend the relevant place of worship - whether they are of the correct religion or active in the faith community or not - to ensure that the correct boxes are ticked and the right school can be chosen.

Such stories are widespread because they are true. One close friend of mine has used this tactic to get their child into the school they want. I also know of a faith school in my area that is so oversubscribed that families who are genuinely of that faith have failed to get their children into the school.

Clearly the system does not work.

The Labour government had the chance to end this kind of selection on the basis of religion some years back. But it caved in to frantic lobbying led by the Church of England and supported by other religious groups.

Faith schools make up around a third of primary school places and five per cent of secondary school places. A report by the London School of Economics in 2009 stated that school selection remains too complex, and said the system reinforced arbitrary class and religious divides, reinforced by faith selection.

So, having tea with vicar can be significantly more fulfilling than just discussing the weather, and could get your four-year-old the best possible start. In theory.

I should make full disclosure here: I am an atheist, but of the live-and-let-live variety, not atheism-as-religion, as practised by some vocal pundits. I would not want my child to attend a religious school, but the fact that free choice is so stymied bothers me.

I also believe that faith schools should be free to exist, but should select through a lottery, and not be given a special selection process. Just like other schools. Children are impressionable, and parents should know what to expect. But special selection for faith schools has not turned-around the ever-declining numbers in the nation's churches.

Overall, the process is problematic: both inherently unfair and widely abused.

The ideal solution would be to ensure that all schools teach to such a high standard that an active focus on faith is the only difference between a faith school and a 'community' school (one where selection is decided by the local authority).

While the schools system has improved significantly throughout the Blair and Brown years, thanks to huge spending increases, the new age of austerity is likely to generate widening, not narrowing, differences.

Ultimately the current system seems irreligious, by making children pay for the sins - or lack of belief - of the parents.

But as is so eloquently described by economist Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner in their book 'Freakonomics', a school's performance is insignificant compared to how much effort the parents put into their child's education. So the best answer for all is for parents to stop obsessing about schools, and get involved in their child's learning.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1081856 2011-11-12T10:59:40-05:00 2012-01-12T05:12:01-05:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
40,000 researchers, lecturers and other university staff are enmeshed in a dispute over their pensions.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU), which represents employees at 67 of the older universities, have been keeping to their contracted hours since 10 October. To reiterate: these workers are working only the hours stipulated in their contract.

The legal working limit set by the government is 48 hours a week. Workers are free to work longer hours but have to stipulate in writing that they are opting out of this working-time limit.

Sticking to their contracted hours shows that many of these workers had been regularly working more than the legal limit just to keep up.

Kathy Romer, an astrophysics lecturer at the University of Sussex, was working around 55 hours a week before the dispute began, and regularly worked at weekends.

Now, she says: "I am able to take my kids out on Saturday without having to worry about work. I don't feel like I am drowning, and feel in control of my life for the first time in a while."

Sally Hunt, UCU's general secretary, said: "This is clear evidence that the sector has been relying on the goodwill of our members, and getting away with doing so for too long."

But is it likely that overwork is limited to workers of the UCU? Absolutely not.

Workers today are expected to work harder and longer, and those with families suffer the most. British parents feel guilty about the time they spend away from their kids, and often buy them presents in lieu of time spent with them, according to research from UNICEF.

Sticking to their contracted hours shows that employers do not adequately estimate the length of time it takes employees to do their job. It is now an unwritten rule that the working hours in a contract are a fiction.

As the economy takes another wobble, is it right that employees take up the slack for employers to keep them afloat? It may well be. But when times are good, is the benefit reciprocal: can employees work less? I don't think so.

Juggling a family with the pressures of work is one of the hardest things to get right, and many employees are making sacrifices that mean family life across Britain is suffering.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1073921 2011-11-03T11:51:32-04:00 2012-01-03T05:12:02-05:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
The Family Justice Review, published yesterday, is designed to make the justice system more efficient and there is much to commend in the report. For example, it calls for the time spent on child protection cases to be slashed from an average of more than 60 weeks to a six-month cap (with some wriggle-room for exceptional cases).

But these proposals for divorced fathers risk making fathers potential pariahs just as the importance of their role is finally becoming recognised, and at a time when many fathers in the UK are taking their role more seriously: one in seven dads is now the primary carer in the home.

Half a million children pass through the care system every year. The report's author, David Norgrove, an economist, realises some people will be "disappointed" by the report's conclusions and acknowledges the "acute distress experienced by parents who are unable to see their children after separation". But, he said, the conclusions reflect the welfare of the child and not the rights of parents.

Norgrave was private secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, an executive board member at Marks and Spencer, and the first chairman of the Pensions Regulator.

He said: "Our conclusion was reached reluctantly but clearly. The law cannot state a presumption of any kind without incurring unacceptable risk of damage to children."

In other words, fathers in general represent an 'unacceptable' risk to their children. A preposterous suggestion.

While it is nonsensical to force a feckless or disruptive father on to a family that is better off without him, it is equally myopic to leave good fathers without any access to their children, ignoring their positive influence.

The news is particularly worrying as recent research from drug charity Addaction suggests that absent fathers make drug taking and criminality more likely in their children.

In the 18 months that Norgrave's report has taken to write and compile, the country has been hit by inner city rioting and mayhem, which some have blamed on absent fathers.

Prime Minister David Cameron said in June: "It is high time runaway dads were stigmatised, and the full force of shame was heaped upon them. They should be looked at like drink drivers, people who are beyond the pale."

These proposals will make runaway dads of those who don't want to be runaway dads. The overall message from the Government is at best confused, and while nobody wants protracted child protection cases, there must be better ways to decide what is best for children.
]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1069585 2011-11-01T13:30:03-04:00 2012-01-01T05:12:01-05:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
Yesterday the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published its latest consultation document, to measure the level of happiness in the UK.

The first index was developed in Bhutan in the 1970s to replace GDP data and is why tourism is kept to a minimum there - the index suggested it makes the inhabitants unhappy. Thailand also has a measure that rates the country from 1-10 and has lurched around as the country neared civil war.

We have none of those problems in the UK. Instead, the ONS has produced a document for consultation, "Measuring National Well-being - Discussion paper on domains and measures" and is exactly what you might expect from a Whitehall department - wordy and labyrinthine but is striking more for what it omits than what it aims to take account of.

For example, the word 'family' can be found only 5 times amongst its 34 pages. The world 'Children' fares better at 44 times, until you realise that the words 'Children, Schools and Families' runs across the bottom of every page.

None of the questions listed explores the happiness a person can derive from family beyond the interviewee's significant other. Some questions explore the obvious (Do you like your job? Is there crime?), some perhaps not so obvious (whether you volunteer - volunteering makes you happier), but it is largely a money-centric notion of happiness.

This is puzzling because we know from the work of Nobel laureate economist Daniel Kahneman that money is important, but only up to a point. Beyond a certain amount, money brings diminishing returns on your happiness.

Various sources suggest that most people would be happiest with a salary of £38,00-£40,000. This is more than 50% over the average UK salary of £25,000, so on purely financial terms, as a nation we must be less happy than they would like to be.

Some evidence suggests that the influence of children may be neutral - somewhat negative initially with the pressure of newborns and lack of sleep, slipping into positive as they grow.

That doesn't match my experience, which is definitely positive overall, despite the constantly interrupted sleep. In fact, my kids are the things that can transform a terrible day into a marvellous one, but I'm not sure why the ONS won't measure this.

But the family is wider than children - parents, brothers sisters, uncles - are they all irrelevant?

Whatever happens, the boffins at the ONS will take these data, put them through a cruncher and come out with a number to gauge our overall happiness, or sets of numbers to show our satisfaction in certain areas.

My guess is that the numbers will be largely meaningless but will fluctuate from year to year and allow us to compare happiness in Cardiff to happiness in Carlisle.

Why? Partly so we can exclaim that we are more or less 'happy' than last year, and point to the government to blame or congratulate.

Now, back to happy families.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1015561 2011-10-17T19:00:00-04:00 2011-12-17T05:12:01-05:00

Ed Owen http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-owen/
Every teacher, psychologist and educationalist will tell you that the first years of a child's life are important. Some say the first two years of life are decisive.

This does not mean that every child must be schooled, drilled and disciplined to make them model citizens at this young age. No, it means that in their first years children must be loved.

Now, the government proposes giving 50,000 parents with kids aged five and under lessons in parenting - a trial that could extend.

A few months ago the Centre Forum suggested parents should be given a five-a-day guide to parenting copied from the five-a-day guide to nutrition. Tips were: play with them on the floor; read to them, talk to them, act positively towards them, and give them a nutritious diet.

These are all splendid suggestions and if we are honest, we are probably all failing in one or other of these areas as parents.

Today's proposals, made by the coalition's Liberal Democrat children's minister Sarah Teather, echo the Centre Forum suggestions and include positive reactions and play. Trials will run with 50,000 parents in Middlesbrough, High Peak and Camden from the middle of next year.

Centre Forum suggested that dysfunctional parents could be subject to interventions and these 50,000 lessons could be a first step to in educating mums and dads in how to parent. Ideas for better parenting are probably a good idea, but parents tend to be as protective of their style of parenting as they are of their kids.

On the other hand, if they are honest even the most conscientious parents might think they could do a little more, and fall-down on the Five-a-day regime the Centre Forum proposes.
Notions of 'good' and 'bad' parenting are not limited to social class or income. Stereotypes of both wealthy and poor families with no time for their kids are familiar to us all.

In September, UNICEF pointed out that parents in the UK are caught in the endless cycle of work and squeezed time, often buying frivolous gifts for their kids out of a sense of guilt. They dubbed the 'materialistic trap', and Britain came bottom in a 2007 EU-wide study UNICEF conducted into child well-being.

What young kids really want is to spend time with their parents. The more time - quality time - spent the better which makes life that bit better for both parent and child - a virtuous circle that should be encouraged.

These classes could well have an impact, and work well for some. But lasting positive change needs to come from giving parents more freedom.

This means rolling back the burden of work a little and giving them the opportunity to spend more time together.

Despite changes to parental leave, allowing both mums and dads to share leave in the first year of life, there is nothing for subsequent years bar these 50,000 classes.

What we should push for is the opportunity to leave kids with the smell of cricket balls played with dad, or falling off a horse with mum - small things that linger in the mind forever and produce a smile every time they are recalled.]]>