- I agree 100% on measuring outcomes not process, but the public sector seems positively allergic to doing so - hence politicians of all stripes obsessing about both inputs and process (new schools, more policemen, shorter waiting lists etc).
- Long before we get to the invisible dark matter we need to persuade public agencies to take proper account of the visible matter i.e. the wider social costs of one organisation's actions on another - see for example the potentially catastrophic costs of permanent school exclusion in increased criminal exploitation. Most government agencies won't invest in prevention if it doesn't benefit them directly (aka the "wrong pocket problem"). And attempts to put a value on improved outcomes - see an example of my own modest efforts here https://www.atqconsultants.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/VF1-SOC-Social-Value-report-update.pdf - can be challenged as exaggerating the likely benefits, when proper account of the invisible costs would often suggest the opposite.
- Government also needs to reduce the cognitive dissonance between policies - e.g. Pat McFadden now spending £88m to address youth unemployment 18 months after a budget in which the NI Secondary Threshold was lowered from £9,100 to £5,000, thus all but eliminating the incentive for an employer to "take a chance" on someone who is long-term NEET by offering them part-time work.
Even the concept of university spin-outs suffers from this invisibility phenomenon. For example, I have been a small business owner for nearly twenty years, and I would never have become one if I had not studied at the university where I studied. The only problem is that my field of business has little or nothing to do with the subjects I studied. Instead, the university played a crucial role in that several of my fellow students, after moving into working life, began to commission me to do work for which they knew me to be informally qualified, based on our acquaintance during our studies. Without the personal relationships created at the university, I would never have ended up doing this work and thus founding my business. But this somehow does not qualify as a university spin-out, as it did not originate in the commercialisation of the university's research outputs.
(The link in the text at "ideas at the edges of the system" does not work.)
I think this general concept is really important, but I always thought about a gloomy extension of it—
—there are beneficial things in society which are hard to model, and so do not show up in metrics. But at the same time, society is structured to reward increase in metrics.
It follows from this that the invisible structures are different from dark matter in a depressing way: the invisibility of dark matter doesn’t threaten its continued existence. But where an invisible network can be destroyed to increase a metric which notionally makes things better, then the metric will actively reward this.
I genuinely think an enormous number of “things that went wrong in Britain” trace back to this. And I worry that we might have been effectively depleting an invisible resource to keep our figures looking stagnant for many years. That would explain why everything seems very visibly in decline and stretched to its limits, while the official figures tend to reflect a stasis
Another excellent piece. Substack is becoming the place for ideas and a better class of article. My current view is that the hollowing out of local government has -amongst everything else- also been poor for these small, community organisations that provide help at the grass roots of society. At one time, councillors had budgets to help small groups, and councils could give grants. Councillors were able to see what made a difference in their wards and act accordingly. But there’s no money left in local authorities for anything other than social care.
Excellent. Part of the problem I see in my work on research at a national autism charity is that the 'demographics' part of any research seems like least thought about part. Autism is a demographic question and one which most national Government/ONS datasets does not currently ask, but with the right kind of research design there's the potential to ask much more nuanced demographic questions. Government keeps being shocked that autistic people are 'over represented' in failing systems (SEN, Prevent, NEETs, etc.) but that's because they don't ask the right demography questions in big national datasets.
And in line with your metaphor, lots of 'dark matter' might not consider itself to be 'dark matter' so we need to ask questions in ways that actually relate to people's lives. There's a real risk that carers might not think of themselves as carers, that the girls attending the dance class do not think of themselves as even 'partaking in physical activity' let alone in an activity that might have a positive impact on mental health, wellbeing, social connectedness etc.
The part about systems only seeing what they were built to measure. I write about the same thing in markets. GDP counts transactions and assigns a zero value to raising a child or to a neighbor offering debt advice. The instrument defines what counts, and everything else becomes invisible. Powerful insights, Polly. Thx for the read.
Getting a business bank account for your company when you are at a research stage, not looking for a loan, proved unnecessarily challenging in the post-covid era. It’s not only having the capability to be seen, it’s the bureaucracy that successive governments have introduced that deter individuals and small enterprises.
Those very expensive AD therapies give very, very modest (often clinically invisible) benefits, require very expensive monitoring and come with side effects including Aria (a nice euphemism for nasty brain bleeds). It would be staggering if Nice approved them
Love this piece Polly. It's what we've found in social enterprise innovation too. Systems built to reward work within a broken system, where those pioneering new models which can create a functioning system are, systematically, ignored or devalued. We're looking to address this by co-developing a social innovation funnel and ecosystem, initially focused on fostering. Keen to explore collaboration.
Fantastic post. I was involved in some work to address the lead time for innovations to outcomes in the NHS and the viable solution we arrived at was very much a relational one over one that was focused on process.
Just to add that:
- I agree 100% on measuring outcomes not process, but the public sector seems positively allergic to doing so - hence politicians of all stripes obsessing about both inputs and process (new schools, more policemen, shorter waiting lists etc).
- Long before we get to the invisible dark matter we need to persuade public agencies to take proper account of the visible matter i.e. the wider social costs of one organisation's actions on another - see for example the potentially catastrophic costs of permanent school exclusion in increased criminal exploitation. Most government agencies won't invest in prevention if it doesn't benefit them directly (aka the "wrong pocket problem"). And attempts to put a value on improved outcomes - see an example of my own modest efforts here https://www.atqconsultants.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/VF1-SOC-Social-Value-report-update.pdf - can be challenged as exaggerating the likely benefits, when proper account of the invisible costs would often suggest the opposite.
- Government also needs to reduce the cognitive dissonance between policies - e.g. Pat McFadden now spending £88m to address youth unemployment 18 months after a budget in which the NI Secondary Threshold was lowered from £9,100 to £5,000, thus all but eliminating the incentive for an employer to "take a chance" on someone who is long-term NEET by offering them part-time work.
Another absolutely brilliant and perceptive post.
Even the concept of university spin-outs suffers from this invisibility phenomenon. For example, I have been a small business owner for nearly twenty years, and I would never have become one if I had not studied at the university where I studied. The only problem is that my field of business has little or nothing to do with the subjects I studied. Instead, the university played a crucial role in that several of my fellow students, after moving into working life, began to commission me to do work for which they knew me to be informally qualified, based on our acquaintance during our studies. Without the personal relationships created at the university, I would never have ended up doing this work and thus founding my business. But this somehow does not qualify as a university spin-out, as it did not originate in the commercialisation of the university's research outputs.
(The link in the text at "ideas at the edges of the system" does not work.)
Fixed it thank you
I think this general concept is really important, but I always thought about a gloomy extension of it—
—there are beneficial things in society which are hard to model, and so do not show up in metrics. But at the same time, society is structured to reward increase in metrics.
It follows from this that the invisible structures are different from dark matter in a depressing way: the invisibility of dark matter doesn’t threaten its continued existence. But where an invisible network can be destroyed to increase a metric which notionally makes things better, then the metric will actively reward this.
I genuinely think an enormous number of “things that went wrong in Britain” trace back to this. And I worry that we might have been effectively depleting an invisible resource to keep our figures looking stagnant for many years. That would explain why everything seems very visibly in decline and stretched to its limits, while the official figures tend to reflect a stasis
Very true. Metaphors always get a bit wobbly at the edges
Oh, I don’t mean to diss the metaphor! It’s a grand metaphor
Another excellent piece. Substack is becoming the place for ideas and a better class of article. My current view is that the hollowing out of local government has -amongst everything else- also been poor for these small, community organisations that provide help at the grass roots of society. At one time, councillors had budgets to help small groups, and councils could give grants. Councillors were able to see what made a difference in their wards and act accordingly. But there’s no money left in local authorities for anything other than social care.
Really interesting, thanks for sharing. In a similar vein https://martinbarrow.substack.com/p/responsibility-for-children-in-care?r=d6gn5&utm_medium=ios
Excellent. Part of the problem I see in my work on research at a national autism charity is that the 'demographics' part of any research seems like least thought about part. Autism is a demographic question and one which most national Government/ONS datasets does not currently ask, but with the right kind of research design there's the potential to ask much more nuanced demographic questions. Government keeps being shocked that autistic people are 'over represented' in failing systems (SEN, Prevent, NEETs, etc.) but that's because they don't ask the right demography questions in big national datasets.
And in line with your metaphor, lots of 'dark matter' might not consider itself to be 'dark matter' so we need to ask questions in ways that actually relate to people's lives. There's a real risk that carers might not think of themselves as carers, that the girls attending the dance class do not think of themselves as even 'partaking in physical activity' let alone in an activity that might have a positive impact on mental health, wellbeing, social connectedness etc.
Hi Polly, I love this piece - and am enjoying reading. At the risk of appearing super self promoting could I urge you to take a look at some of my writing here - I think there may be a bit we agree on! https://tynanbryant.substack.com/p/what-does-repair-actually-look-like?r=4wylcq&utm_medium=ios
The part about systems only seeing what they were built to measure. I write about the same thing in markets. GDP counts transactions and assigns a zero value to raising a child or to a neighbor offering debt advice. The instrument defines what counts, and everything else becomes invisible. Powerful insights, Polly. Thx for the read.
Getting a business bank account for your company when you are at a research stage, not looking for a loan, proved unnecessarily challenging in the post-covid era. It’s not only having the capability to be seen, it’s the bureaucracy that successive governments have introduced that deter individuals and small enterprises.
Those very expensive AD therapies give very, very modest (often clinically invisible) benefits, require very expensive monitoring and come with side effects including Aria (a nice euphemism for nasty brain bleeds). It would be staggering if Nice approved them
Such a powerful analogy. Thank you! It applies everywhere and makes sense immediately.
Now the challenge of what to do with this new revelation…
Forwarded the post to my daughter, who replied
“I spent the whole time I was reading internally screaming "YES, THAT'S EXACTLY IT!!"
She always puts things much better than I do.
Yet another insightful and thought provoking article. Thank you
After a career in local government, I’ve been sole carer for my wife for many years.
Personally I don’t feel in the least undervalued or unfulfilled, but I think that on the macro scale Polly is absolutely spot on.
This ‘dark matter’ really matters!
Love this piece Polly. It's what we've found in social enterprise innovation too. Systems built to reward work within a broken system, where those pioneering new models which can create a functioning system are, systematically, ignored or devalued. We're looking to address this by co-developing a social innovation funnel and ecosystem, initially focused on fostering. Keen to explore collaboration.
Fantastic post. I was involved in some work to address the lead time for innovations to outcomes in the NHS and the viable solution we arrived at was very much a relational one over one that was focused on process.