Why I think a social policy kitemark won’t work
by brendanswhitty
This post came courtesy of a Guardian article, which then floated around the ether for a bit. It comes from the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Haywood, who tentatively puts forth the idea for a ‘kite mark’ – or badge of certified quality – for a social policy, such as the rehab of prisoners. I had several consecutive reactions to this (not in a Sherlock-fast deduction kind of a way, but more over a couple of days, in a single-cylindered-Soviet-tractor kind of a way) which I replicate more or less in the order they came in:
…ooo, this is a cool idea…
…but soft, policies are only valid, effective and therefore ‘of quality’ depending on their context, and therefore a kitemark probably doesn’t make sense since by its nature it claims universal applicability and quality?
…hmmm, but what if the kitemark is not interpreted as a universal claim that ‘this is a social policy which works’, but instead simply a claim that ‘this intervention works like this, through this causal theory of change, and therefore if these circumstances pertain, then the intervention will have the following effects’ i.e. the quality assurance includes statements of the limitations and applicability of social policy…
…this would mean that it only applies for ‘simple’ replicable interventions in some fields, and not complex or complicated interventions (using Glouberman and Zimmerman’s distinctions) where impact is unpredictable or cannot practicably be measured, since in such interventions, we just don’t have a solid theory of change or know for sure what’s going to happen…
…in which case, the idea doesn’t make sense, because a kitemark of a social policy implies (1) that any social policy can get a kitemark and (2) either that all social policies are universally applicable once they have one (which would be very limiting in applicability), or that the kitemark’s quality is partially based and on applicability limitations, expressions of causal links etc. Combined, for me, they scupper the notion – (1) because some perfectly good ones wouldn’t earn a kitemark because they work through too complex causal chains; and (2) because a useful kitemark in fact makes no claim more than a good research project so there’s no added value.
Ultimately, therefore, I think it’s a cool idea but I don’t see the value in it over existing ways of ‘stamping’ a social policy’s quality, and I think it might actively mislead when it is applied to really complex interventions.
