In the last few days the tension between religious leaders and the Government has peaked over welfare reforms. The immediate catalyst for this was an interview in the Daily Telegraph last week with Archbishop Vincent Nichols in anticipation of his elevation to the post of Cardinal. In part the interview reflects the instincts and experience of the Archbishop, and in part it reflects the tone and direction emanating from Pope Francis in his new role at the Vatican. However fundamentally the comments made in the interview come from the experience of 1000’s of Priests working in communities throughout the United Kingdom on a daily basis and their work with individual parishoners.

Following the interview and the response from those close to Ministers as expressed in this piece in the same paper, David Cameron made his own intervention which has been followed by a response from a group of Protestant Church Leaders today. They like the Archbishop have their own politics and ideas, but they are also informed in their view of how society is ticking from the experience of their own local practitioners. At one level this is a battle that will be hard to win for either side, but it will probably fade away from public sight as the Telegraph and other papers lose interest in a debate that will only ever sell a certain amount of papers. However the real question is how sincere are the Government in wanting to improve society for all of us? Sadly the evidence of the last three years suggests that they do not care, but if deep down they do, then the intervention by Vince Nichols should be seen as a great opportunity to ensure that their Political investment achieves its objectives.

Our economy and society is a complex system and whilst the changes that the government are making can be explained simply, the impact these changes are having will generate all sorts of outcomes for Millions of people. At the outset of the welfare reforms I met a senior civil servant who explained to a group of people including myself that there had been no modelling done for the impact of the proposed changes to the interconnecting and separate benefits by the DWP officials. They simply did not know how these changes would impact on society as a whole, but had a crude understanding that these changes would reduce the welfare Bill. In engineering, such modelling would be carried out ahead of the change, and then as this is introduced, engineers would measure all of the functions and outcomes of the system and compare these to the model, amending the theory if the system began to show breakdown. In a case where modelling has not been done, such as our economy and benefits system, the need to measure and analyse data is even greater although the challenge is to know which measurements are the most significant.

In any system, human, mechanical or electrical, the equipment used to measure change has an impact on the thing being measured. No one measurement should be treated as being reliable until it can be verified in other ways. The way in which a person speaks to their MP or Councillor will vary depending on the party to which these people belong, and the reputation that the individual might have locally as well as other human factors. The occasional visit to a community by a Government Minister will be shrouded in so much preparation and security that the level of honest reflection and candid ideas that the Minister will hear is infinitesimally small compared to the things the same person would express to friends in a relaxed environment. The same is true of the things someone might say to the volunteers at a food bank or a Parish Priest. Understanding what is happening in our society depends on gathering all of these responses and many others (such as comments on twitter and facebook etc).

It is disturbing that this Government, having made such deep and significant changes, appears to have done so without any real understanding of how they should affect society. This is epitomised by the resistance by certain Ministers to visit foodbanks for themselves, let alone volunteer in one for a few hours. Clearly major changes in the welfare system would be embarrassing. However if society falls apart between now and the May 2015 election perhaps a bit of embarrassment would be a small price to pay to avoid the catastrophe. Vince Nichols has some of the answers that this Government needs to use in its calculations. This data is no more reliable than the other information that Iain Duncan Smith has access to. What seems most shocking is the comments in the Telegraph piece apparently from someone close to the Minister:

the Archbishop seemed to be “ill informed”. “He’s entitled to his own opinion but there are some parts where he is just wrong. “It is nonsense to say that the safety net has been eroded when we spend £94 billion on working age benefits every year. “There is no evidence of a link between welfare reform and increased use of food banks. “The idea that we stop people’s benefits because they get the paperwork wrong is mad. 

It is understandable that the corridors of Westminster are full of PPE graduates, that is how we do Politics in the early 21st Century. Let us hope that even in the eye of this very political storm, the Government with is significant buying power for Special Advisers and Czars for this and that, consider if they need a few engineers in the mix who will help them to ensure that measuring the impact of these deep rooted changes is done in a manner that will help influence their reforms.