The Week in Public Services: 8th December 2020
By: Andrew Phillips
Tags: Covid 19, Vaccines, Teachers, Healthcare, Schools

This week: the first vaccine; Covid inequalities; and 2021 exams news.

General

Today (8th December) is a milestone in the Covid-19 pandemic: the vaccine rollout in the UK has officially started. On ‘V-Day’, as it is currently being called, the first vaccine was given to 90-year-old Margaret Keenan at University Hospital, Coventry. Of course, the delivery of the largest mass vaccination programme in the UK’s history is going to be an enormous logistical challenge. But nevertheless this is great news at the end of a terrible year.

Health and Social Care

With several months of restrictions still ahead of us, new research on Covid-19 continues to be vital. Sadly, as this chart from the Nuffield Trust shows, weekly deaths in England and Wales are once again above average at the moment due to Covid-19. The latest ONS data (published today) shows that Covid-19 accounted for 24% of all deaths in the week ending 27 November. With lower case numbers after the period of national restrictions in November, hopefully we will see these numbers begin to fall soon.

The relationship between Covid-19 and inequality has been the focus of several pieces this week. New analysis in The Guardian finds that across England, there is a correlation between Covid cases and average salary: places with lower average salaries were more likely to have high infection rates. At an even more local level, within the ten worst affected local authorities the areas that had the highest Covid rates were also likely to have both lower salaries and a higher BAME population. On a similar theme, Health Foundation research published in The Lancet examined the success of Test and Trace in different areas. The research shows that in more deprived areas in England, Test and Trace reached a lower proportion of positive Covid-19 cases and their contacts. These findings may not be surprising, but they are important in demonstrating the unequal impact of the pandemic.

The Health Foundation has also been looking at the effects of GP remote consultations and ‘total triage’ (where every patient contacting a practice is triaged before an appointment). Although the authors acknowledge the study has limitations, they tentatively suggest that ‘early adopters’ of this technology had 3% fewer A&E visits in 2019 among their patients, compared to ‘late adopters’ who only began using the technology during the pandemic. As the authors conclude, more research is needed to understand the consequences of increased use of technology during the pandemic — as we at the Institute for Government recommended in Performance Tracker 2020.

One of the sights we have now all got used to is people wearing face masks. But how much of a difference do they actually make? A new paper uses data from Germany to try to answer this question. Different areas introduced mandatory mask wearing at different points in time during April 2020, which provides a useful dataset. Depending on the region, the authors find that masks reduced the number of new infections between 15% and 75%. Pretty good for a measure that, as the researchers say, has “economic costs [which] are close to zero compared to other public health measures.”

Children and Young People

The major news of the week was the government’s announcement regarding the 2021 exam series in England. The government has clearly learnt from the mistakes made in 2020. As Gavin Williamson put it in the House of Commons: “The fundamental problem with this year’s exams is that we tried to award grades without actually holding exams. We are not going to be repeating that same mistake again.” There were five key measures in the government’s announcement:

Generous grading , in line with results from 2020, so that 2021 students are not disadvantaged. Trying to prevent grade inflation was one of the causes of this year’s fiasco.

, in line with results from 2020, so that 2021 students are not disadvantaged. Trying to prevent grade inflation was one of the causes of this year’s fiasco. Advance notice of some topic areas to help schools and students prepare.

of some topic areas to help schools and students prepare. Exam aids such as formula sheets will be provided to students.

such as formula sheets will be provided to students. Contingency plans for students who may miss an exam due to illness or self-isolation. Backup exam papers will give students a second opportunity to sit any exam they miss.

for students who may miss an exam due to illness or self-isolation. Backup exam papers will give students a second opportunity to sit any exam they miss. An expert group “to look at differential learning and monitor the variation in the impact of the pandemic on students across the country.” Gavin Williamson said that the group would report in the spring.

In general the government’s announcement was received fairly well, providing clarity as to what will happen in the summer. Most commentators were positive about the first four measures in the list above.

Criticisms have focused on the potential for inequity in the 2021 exams, as explored well on Twitter by Lewis Goodall. Measures such as generous grades will help all students. But we know that there has been significant variation in how much learning time students have lost since returning to schools and colleges in September. The government’s announcement of the ‘expert group’ shows awareness of the problem, but does not solve it. Dame Glenys Stacey, interim chief regulator at Ofqual, has written that “differential lost learning remains one of the most intractable issues that the education system faces.” For example, using data from an FoI request, Tes reports huge differences between FE college absence rates in different regions of England in October. In the two weeks before half term, students in the North West missed 3,870 days due to Covid-19, whereas in the South East students only missed 531 days. That level of variation probably exists within regions as well — not all parts of the North West have been affected in the same way. (Data at the local authority level is due to be published from 15 December, which should help us understand the issue better.) This is, potentially, a real problem for 2021 exams. The danger is that the exams will measure students’ experience of the pandemic, rather than their abilities and knowledge. It will also be worth keeping an eye on the alternative arrangements in Wales and Scotland. Wales, in particular, has taken a very different approach to England by cancelling all formal exams in 2021.

Moving on from exams, the latest school attendance data in England was released today, showing an uptick in attendance at both primary and secondary schools. As the graph below shows, this suggests that the second lockdown period may have helped improve school attendance.

On the same topic, an interesting piece in the Financial Times has some good data visualisation on the relationship between case numbers and schools reopening across Europe. Overall, schools don’t seem to cause case numbers to increase dramatically. The approach of the US remains out of step with Europe on this — schools are closed again in many places including New York and California.

With many students unable to attend school in person, there is a continued focus on the digital divide. A survey from a report by Microsoft and the Centre for Education and Youth shows that students in private schools were far more likely to be able to take home a device from school than students in state schools. It is estimated that a million children in the UK do not have access to the Internet and a computer/tablet at home. The government needs to address this, especially for secondary school students, if it wants to prevent students falling further behind — and level the playing field as much as possible for the 2021 exams.

A report from the National Foundation for Educational Research this week comes to a similar conclusion. The report suggests that existing and additional funding is insufficient to help schools meet the costs of Covid. The authors join those calling for improved access to technology, and also argue for more targeted funding for disadvantaged pupils who need catch-up support.

New data this week revealed the government has hit its target for Initial Teacher Training (ITT) for the first time in eight years. Despite this, targets for some key subjects were missed: physics, foreign languages, maths and chemistry.

Local Government

IPPR’s State of the North 2020/21 includes a section on local government (chapter 6). Recommendations include devolving the forthcoming shared prosperity fund to combined and local authorities.