Reading that the government is proposing that all children should have a legally enforceable right to a good education reminds me of a spot of bother at work – well over 30 years ago now.
New bodies were being set up to run what had previously been run by local government.
One clause in the Bill gave the Secretary of State powers to ask these bodies to provide him with information about their activities.
As statisticians we pointed out that there was no corresponding obligation on the bodies to provide the data, no sanction if they simply said Shan’t!
The Assistant Secretary in charge of the Bill Team sent back a rather short & sharp response (as only an old style mandarin could) to the effect that boring statisticians were making an irrelevant point.
Eventually we got it across.
Ah yes! Well, I shall give it some thought. Though I must say, my view is always that if you get to the point of ever having to use it, you’ve lost anyway.
How do children enforce such a right if, in the extreme, there are simply no capable adults prepared to attempt to teach the little blighters?
