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Infantile Disorders
Recent issues of Here & Now have criticised the way in which managerial
groups seek and extend their power by presenting their own interests as
everyone's. This should indicate concerns which differ from all those for
whom politics is ultimately an administrative programme.
Rival groups' arguments appeal to a general interest which just happens to
coincide with their own. Attention paid to this "ventriloquism" can show how
disputes within managerial sectors escalate and are contained. But there are
pitfalls in discarding the progressive "solutions" supported by professional
sectors. A refusal to identify with a specific group makes it possible to
float off into a general rhetoric which is no longer tethered to any
specifics. Emphasising the need to reject all "progressive" political groups
also brings the risk of identifying instead with the apparent negativity of
various subcultures.
Living within such constraints can amount to no more than continuation of
politics by other means. The decks may seem to have been cleared, but the
same furniture keeps appearing: scathing critiques of conventional politics,
and commentaries on events and actions falling within the "crisis" category
which defines the borders of political interest.
Off-limits lie the associative, mundane, and often non-political, forms
through which our lives are constructed. This is something much more diffuse
than the "public sphere" where many try to rebuild socialism. That "public
sphere" already divides doing from speaking - and hence brings opportunities
for the intelligentsia's aspirations.
The associative area is, of course, being subjected to stresses similar to
those faced in informal workplace organisation and the like. The remainder of
this article considers some pressures faced by one such associative form -
toddler and play groups. It would be nice to be able to say that no apology
is offered for this choice, but the preceding four paragraphs do amount to
some kind of apology.
Toddler and under-five playgroups have been affected by the 1989 Children
Act. In many ways, the Act consolidated previous legislation; in other ways
it responded to the "issues" of the moment (such as in declarations in favour
of equal opportunities). As a result, its passage was untroubled by
controversy and gained all-party support. (Other aspects of the Act may be
discussed in future issues of Here & Now.)
The Scottish Office guidelines to the Act ("Regulation and Review of
Childminding, Daycare and Education Services for Children Under Eight:
Guidance for Local Authorities") place playgroups under the same broad
category as child-minding and private and employer-organised nurseries.
although allowing for some differences in staffing ratios, etc. They do
acknowledge that the "playgroup movement stresses the role of parents as
prime educators of their children" and that the "playgroup philosophy is
based on parental involvement in all aspects of management and organisation".
Nonetheless, the category hides even the basic economic difference between
playgroups and paid childcare. Paid childcare is based not on association but
on marginal utility: the squeeze between the monetary or positional rewards
which a parent gains by working and that passed on to the child-minder. The
legislation, with its checks, balances and administrative opportunities,
regards association and marginal utility as commensurate. But if they are
converging, this is partly due to the legislation itself.
The Act wears the fashions of its time. It requires registration of anyone
who supervises children, and police checks on their pasts to detect child
abusers. All child-care premises must be registered and inspected annually.
With a straight face, the guidelines intone that this inspection will
"provide reassurance to parents about the involvement of the local
authority". When association becomes something permitted by central
authorities, its limits fall under the notion of exemption: exemption from
registration when two families have a mutual arrangement or for a conference
creche used fewer than 6 times in a year. Ample potential here for repressive
application of norms! And by diluting the associative principle, it permits
administrative intervention under the notion of needs. Rather than standing
outside capitalism, a need is already something which can be manipulated in
terms of resource allocation.
So Section 19 of the Act requires a regular review of services for young
children. Responsibility for the review is placed on the Social Work and
Education Departments, but many of the facilities under review are outwith
their control, and may be based on these different social models. The "two
departments" need the voluntary sector to underwrite their legitimacy, but do
associations need the departments? The question becomes acute when they
organise the recommended "Under-Fives Forum" to seek any "representations
which they consider relevant". This is described as an "open process" but is
just a prelude to the concocting of a report by the two departments. They are
to summarise resource availability, compare this "with known policy
objectives" and identify "centres of excellence and known mismatches between
supply and demand". These expressions in bureaucratic language have no known
translation into dialects of association. After all, what if a particular
toddler group was identified as a "centre of excellence"? Its success results
from the relations of the people involved. How could this be ported to other
situations, even if it was desirable?
Political attitudes to processes like the Review can range from "take-over"
to "abstention". A "take-over" to use the institutions proclaimed values
against it may be presented as more subversive but is based on the general
abstention in the "black hole of the social". People recognise and avoid a
purposeless meeting intended to underwrite the bureaucrats' Review process.
Despite abstention, the legislation and its processes may increase the extent
to which Social Work Departments regard voluntary associations as
self-administered colonies of their own empires. (Already, it is not unknown
for groups of Council bureaucrats under such false impressions to carry out
unannounced and uninvited tours of playgroups.)
But federated toddler and under-five groups are equally able to give
themselves the managerialist veneer of the times. The keynote speech at a
recent Scottish Pre-School Play Association conference was delivered by an
Educationalist who focussed on training and standards, the setting of
objectives, etc. The subsequent Editorial in the Association's Parent to
Parent magazine suggests that "his definition of a good manager could just as
easily be a definition of a 'good' parent". Again, this indicates how a
separate goal-oriented public sphere amenable to administrative logic can
emerge from lack of appreciation of the value of association in its own right
and with its own limitations..
Alex Richards
From Here & Now 13 1992 - No copyright