James Barlow

I’m in the wrong game; I should have been a web designer.

Herewith, yet another web site promoting a vaguely worthy intervention by a partnership of local authority and government funded organisations:

Opening Doors is the new umbrella name for specialist substance misuse services for young people in Bristol.

It is part of the wider youth offer in the city forming part of the ‘Someone To Talk To’ services. The service involves the joining together of services commissioned by Safer Bristol from:

• Youth Offending Team
• Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services
• NHS Bristol
• Voluntary Sector

The aim of Opening Doors is to deliver a more joined up service to the most vulnerable young people across the city. Reaching out to young people in the settings and communities where they live.

One of the “Service Users” dictated the following:

When I was 11 I started smoking cannabis with my friends. I loved smoking and used to smoke it everyday. I have also tried ecstasy a couple of times but it made me feel really ill and I stayed in bed for days. At about the same time I had other problems going on and I got help from D&YPP (Drugs & Young People’s Project), BASE (Barnardoes Against Sexual Exploitation) and YOT (Youth Offending Team).

The workers at the services have helped me because they have stuck by me and they are there for you when you need a chat. One worker talked to me about the risks of using harder drugs and it made me think that I didn’t want to do anything like that. As I got older I realised that I needed to pretty much stop using cannabis as it made me lazy and I lost the plot!

I helped decide on the new ‘Opening Doors’ name. Me and other kids had to choose between lots of names and we all liked ‘Opening Doors’. I now go to the feedback group where we chat about the ‘Opening Doors’ service and we do fun activities like canoeing. It’s good to be part of the group cos everyone gets along.

Current Service User in Bristol, Aged 17

If one is relaunching a service that purports to reduce the incidence of drug abuse by young people, why would one use an exemplary story from someone who was first “engaged” (collared?) by the local authority at aged 11, and yet six years later still appears to be a regular drug user? But at least he’s had a go at canoeing.

Related Links

• Bristol Council Press Release: Opening Doors
• Young People’s Substance Misuse Treatment Plan 2009/10

Via Bristol City Council:

Sport and community groups in Bristol working with children and young people are being invited to take part in free training sessions to help them keep children safe.

Organised by national child protection charity, Child-safe, the 'Clubright' seminars have been specially designed for sports clubs and community groups in Bristol, giving practical advice on how to promote the safety, welfare and care of children and young people taking part in club-based activities.

Bristol Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) co-ordinates and leads work on child protection in the city. It is made up of organisations and people working together to promote children's welfare and keep them safe, and includes Bristol City Council's Children and Young People's Services, Avon and Somerset Constabulary, health services and the probation service. BSCB has commissioned Child-Safe to deliver the Clubright training sessions in Bristol.

Regrettably the word “charity” now instils suspicion in me. See here for a previous five minute investigation demonstrating how the FSA were cheerfully donating £17 million of our money to a charity run by the financial services sector while they were simultaneously failing to regulate that same financial services sector.

Looking at the press release above, the BCSB (new chairman required) – a composite public sector organisation - has commissioned Child-Safe to provide a bit of “free” training. With a certain sinking feeling, I ask myself “Who are Child Safe?” , and via the Charity Commission here’s the answer:

According to Child-Safe’s website:

The Child-Safe concept originated as an Avon and Somerset Constabulary innovation, focussed on reducing crimes against children, specifically in the area of abuse. Over time, the Charity has developed broader aims and objectives, re-focussing on the ever challenging area of safeguarding young people in the widest context.

Mission creep seems to be the typical growth model for state-sponsored charitable organisations. The main product currently on offer to local clubs, “Clubright”, is described as:

[A]n information and resource child protection pack targeted at unaffiliated sport groups, voluntary and community groups and other organisations involved with children. The pack is comprehensive and colourful, providing good practical advice to enable group leaders and volunteers to introduce and manage an effective child protection policy within their club. This scheme is being developed nationally under its new Clubright identity, with the support of the NSPCC.

RRP £29.99, but free if you live in the Avon & Somerset area. The goals sound reasonable – laudable, even - but the government child protection policies that Clubright seeks to explain are as much a problem as the extremely low incidence of sexual crime within Clubs and Voluntary Organisations.

Non-affiliated (ish) campaigning organisation The Manifesto Club summarised the change in philosophy that has taken place in attitudes toward children over the last generation:

Highly bureaucratic child protection policies encourage ‘anti-child’ attitudes. Responsibility for children is transformed from being an informal civic duty, shared between adults, to a legal obligation for CRB-checked coaches or child welfare officers.

Taking a share of responsibility for children is no longer seen as a normal part of adult life, but is instead becoming an unwelcome burden to be defensive about. The question of who is responsible for children now often means: ‘who is carrying the can if something happens?’

Full of good intentions, one hand of government creates a legislative hoop through which people must jump, and the other hand offers hoop-jumping consultancy and services. This is a common pattern in modern Britain, as is the mediation of such parasitic relationships by registered charities.

A related initiative from Child Safe is Wherever U-Go:

Travel Safe offers a unique series of books aimed at protecting the millions of young people, who participate in educational, cultural and language exchanges or home-stay schemes every year. The books are aimed at a wide audience including young people, parents, host families, schools and other home-stay organisations, and provide expert advice and guidance to ensure that young people are safe whilst away from home.

The rationale for this initiative is so obscure that even Child Safe can’t get the web link correct, nor is there much evidence of significant levels of abuse associated with exchange visits and school trips.

It doesn’t take much effort to identify these sort of wasteful activities. Next time you read about a charity, take a moment to look them up at the Charity Commission. You may be surprised at what you find.

This year the shape of the hole in Bristol’s budget is “£30 million over three years”.

The new Lib Dem team cut this one a bit fine, as it’s almost time to announce the 2010 budget crisis. Commemorative mugs, hats, pennants and T-Shirts to follow.

BEP: Bristol City Council to cut £30m in three years

In other news: David Hasselhoff spotted at Gordano services; Cyclist jailed for knife threats; Economy still knackered.

Via Bristol City Council:

Bristol organisations enter the dragons’ den to bid for £2,000

Sixty children will be at the Council House, on Wednesday 1 July, to decide which Bristol project to help promote good personal finance should benefit from £2,000.

Part of a groundbreaking new project for the city involving sixteen primary schools, 'What Money Means' is a programme designed to support them in teaching about managing money.  Seventy 10 and 11 year olds have taken part so far.

And what better way to teach children “What Money Means” that to hold a reality-TV style contest in which they are encouraged to vote on which of a group of begging supplicants should be given £2,000 of someone else’s money. Supplicants include Bordeaux Quay Cookery School, Baggator, St Pauls Learning Community Team, Travelling Light Theatre and the Big Issue.

Bristol is one of a handful of places in the UK selected to take part in a National Programme funded by HSBC and run by the Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg). The Bristol project is unique in the way that it is putting young people in charge of learning and business decisions.

pfeg (lower case obligatory) are a funny bunch. It would appear they used to be a legitimate registered charity supported by UK banking and insurance companies. But they’ve taken £17 million (£3.4 million in 2008) from the Financial Services Authority to run the “Learning Money Matters” scheme. This grant constitutes 85% of pfeg’s annual income in 2008, putting them safely in the territory of being considered a Fake Charity.

According to pfeg:

In April 2006 the Financial Services Authority (FSA) - the independent body which regulates the finance industry - committed £17 million over five years to fund Learning Money Matters. In the first year significant contributions also came from Bank of America, AEGON and UBS.

The three named donors contributed £350,000. That’s approximately 2% of the £17m contribution from the FSA, which it is worth repeating is the government body charged with regulating the activities of Financial Services Companies such as…Bank of America, AEGON and UBS. If you’re interested in becoming a member of pfeg, the annual subscription is £10,000. Members include the British Bankers’ Association, The Building Societies’ Association and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. The current chair of the pfeg trustees is Ron Sandler, the non-domiciled, government-appointed chair of publicly-owned money pit Northern Crock.

Why was the FSA dabbling in educational matters (using other people’s money), through a charity solely operated by their own charges when they should have been trying to prevent this, this, this, and even this.

Back to today’s event:

Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor Clare Campion-Smith, said: “Today it is more important than ever that we teach our children the value of money - both how to spend wisely and how to plan for the future.  Our partnership with HSBC has added valuable expertise and I hope that the project has taught this generation to look after their finances sensibly.”

Head of HSBC in the Community, Pete Bull, said: "What Money Means provides much needed high quality financial capability education in schools. At HSBC we are very keen to see a generation of pupils who really understand money. What really excites me is the imaginative approaches adopted in teaching this material - and we have a fantastic example of that on show today. Bristol pupils are being given a chance to use what they have learnt to make a real financial decision. That is What Money Means at its best."

HSBC’s contribution to pfeg is £3.4 million over five years (£744,793 in 2008) to run the What Money Means (Primary) project.

While you’re being corporately responsible, HSBC, perhaps you could rethink your policy of refusing to hand over CCTV footage relating to criminal investigations to the Police without a court order.

Related Links

• pfeg – 2008 Accounts at the Charity Commission
• Fake Charities.org
• What Money Means – HSBC & pfeg announcement
• Bristol City Council Webcast Archive

Bath and North East Somerset Council are no poster child for competent management of capital projects . Have a look at Bailii for the most recent bit of litigation against Spa builders Carillion, and the previous fight against former Spa Builders Mowlem. But BANES do run a very nice restaurant at the Pump Room in Bath.

I say “they” but sensibly the Council contracted out the most speculative bit of the attraction – catering – to a private company from whom they take a commission on earnings. (Something for the team planning the Museum of Bristol to think about.)

In fact, BANES’ Heritage Services department look like they’ve got a few ideas worth copying. They bring in a regular £3 million annual income to the city of Bath (possibly even sharing some of it with the Somerset countryside), and have turned around the niche Bath Fashion Museum. But they’re still haemorrhaging money from the Assembly Rooms.

In previous years, Bath haven’t performed fantastically when compared to other public heritage organisers – see the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) - but they claim to be improving.

I was surprised to find that the only heritage site in Bristol listed at the ALVA is St John the Baptist, the church which encompasses the North Gate on Broad Street. The membership requirements for ALVA are:

To qualify for membership, the attractions must host over a million visitors per year at their singly or centrally-managed sites and be in accord with ALVA's mission statement and quality standards.

Does the North Gate get that many people? Even the SS Great Britain only claims 170,000 visitors per year.

Spit, Spew or Swallow?

Anyhow, if you are in Bath and you do visit the Pump Room, then why not try the following entertaining game of chance, entitled “Spit, Spew or Swallow”. (Note – possibly BristleKRS already owns the trademark).

One of the highlights of a visit to the Roman Baths is an opportunity to try a glass of the stimulating and curative Spa Water for which Bath is famous.

The important point to remember is that “Spa Water” is not the same thing as “Mineral Water”. The latter is generally very pure water with a few trace elements picked up during passage through multiple layers of rock strata; the former is the product of a geothermally heated aquifer and tastes like Satan’s bathwater.

So find yourself a nice table in the Pump Room, place your bets on the tourists purchasing glasses of Spa Water, and see if you can predict whether they spit, spew or swallow. For more information about the advanced rules of the Pump Room game, which includes extra scoring opportunities for grimacing, gagging and dry heaving, please contact the author.

The “eighty-twenty” rule, or Pareto’s principle, is bandied about when trying to express the distribution of many real-world variables, from share of national wealth to causes of industrial production failures. The rule derives from an observation of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto that 80% of the land in 19th century Italy was owned by 20% of the population (see Power Law for a more general theory).

In the field of Search Engines (or decision engines if you prefer), the Pareto principle does not hold. Eighty percent (some would say ninety) of Internet searches carried out in the United Kingdom are serviced by a single company – Google.

Microsoft have decided to take some market share from Google, and have launched their newly rebranded search engine – Bing. My first thought – really?

Is Bing any good?

Microsoft are not exactly newcomers to the search engine game, having started over ten years ago with MSN Search. Nor are they the only team that has tried and failed to better Google. Thus while I have no ill will to the guys at Bing, I suspect their latest effort is at best quixotic; at worst a diversion of effort from other more productive activities.

Having said that, Bing does have some nice feature. Or at least it does in the North American version; the UK version is still in beta but should offer the full suite of functions by the end of 2009.

If you are searching for a commercial commodity – a hotel room, a seat on a place, a specific model of camera – Bing (North America) can show you price trends to give an indication of whether your proposed purchase is likely to get more expensive. And search results have a category drill-down bar on the left with a bit of clever context sensitivity for increasing the specificity of your search query.

For more general information searches, Bing’s (North American) interface has enhancements such as video thumbnails auto-playing on mouse over that are good fun, and the relevance of results is comparable to Google for simple queries, but not as finely grained for more complex matters.

For example, have a look at a side-by-side comparison of two queries using Google and Bing:

1. Query: “Michael Jackson”   (North America)
2. Query: “What is the median household income in Bristol, UK?” (UK)

Results are comparable for the first query, and Bing’s emphasis on video and image results is attractive. But for the second query, the relevance of Google’s results is clearly much stronger.

Is Bing going to take searches from Google?

Probably not. Or maybe. Or actually I really have no idea. I mainly write about local politics; what the hell do I know?

There are two problems I see about trying to be better at Googling than Google.

The first is that the value that a typical search user gives to their result is heavily biased by the search provider. In a study conducted by a team at Indiana University [authored by a guy called Bing] “In Google We Trust: Users' Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance”, the results suggested an implicit trust in the Google brand. The impression that “Google tends to returns the most relevant results” transforms into “Whatever Google returns is the most relevant result”. Thus even if you start a new search engine that is in absolute terms better than Google, the very fact that the results are slightly different from Google may count against you.

The second problem with innovation in search is that the dominant presentation of a search is a screen with a box into which one types text and then receives a list of links. This model works and matches the expectation of the consumer. There isn’t that much opportunity to experiment with the front end without scaring people off, which is probably why Microsoft’s approach to differentiating their product is to put a picture on the search screen and spend $80 million on marketing (On that note, thanks for the beers, guys). But even Google is constrained by customer preference - their exotic search interfaces like Timeline and Wonder Wheel remain fairly low-key.

Video: Stefan Weitz discusses Bing

Summary

So – Bing. The North American version has some compelling features for searches relating to commercial transactions such as “How Much is…” or “Where can I buy a…” and information requests of the form “Who is…” or “What is…”.

As yet, Google is still a better starting point for more abstract queries such as “Tell me about…” or “Is X better than Y?”. But most searches are not of this character. If you’re a UK reader then as soon as all the clever functions go live, Bing is probably worth a go.

Personally, I wouldn’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get back into the search market for the developed world. But 75% of the world population are not Internet users. So perhaps if another 10-20% come online in the next decade, Bing might be able to offer them something compelling, and they might even change our expectations of what a Search Engine could be.

Related Links

• Perform a side-by-side comparison of Google and Bing (via Phil L)
• Beet TV interviews Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing.
• World Internet Usage statistics
• http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
• In Google We Trust: Users' Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance

Other Bloggers/Tweeters/Liggers at the Microsoft event:

Phil Bradley - http://www.philbradley.typepad.com/
Tom Warren - http://www.neowin.net
Chris Hambly - http://www.chrishambly.com/
Josh Russell - http://www.joshrussell.com
David Stuart - http://blog.webometrics.org.uk/
Karen Blakeman - http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/
Neil Robinson - http://www.blog.lanzen.co.uk/
Kevin Harrington - http://www.kevinharrington.com/
Mark Sharp - http://www.perspicuousasmud.com/
Phil Leggetter - http://www.leggetter.co.uk/
Andrea Giammarchi - http://webreflection.blogspot.com/