Pivotal, Definitely Not

 The outputs of reconciliation and peace-building ecosystem/industry have not and cannot be measured because the system and funding lines were designed to buy reconciliation. An interviewee asks “Are we settling for separation, rather than reconciliation? The answer is yes, in working-class areas, no, in middle-class areas. Those who have made a good living in this reconciliation industry now need to look at reconciliation through the prism of class and they need to stop banging on about peace and more about distributive prosperity.

The idea that deprivation has and continues to have a significant detrimental impact on reconciliation is overstated. In addition, the idea that marginalised communities suffer from lower levels of educational and economic prosperity because of their legacy of the conflict is also debatable.  What needs to be added to the mix of failings is political instability, no vision means no plan and no hope, a reactive and input-focused civil service, and the sectarian structure of Stormont the enigma known as the “mandatory coalition” for which there are no consequences to political ineptitude and incompetence. The last executive and all the parties embraced the £100 post covid giveaway to each person, costing in total £150m. Remember, the very same politicians had us all clapping for care workers earning £9.50 per hour, “choices man, choices”.

Pivotal is a think tank that has become synonymous with stating the obvious, regurgitating and peppering their reports with old stats and the use of flashy infographics. It doesn’t provide progressive public solutions, which is again highlighted in its recent publication, Reconciliation and Deprivation:  twin challenges for Northern Ireland. An example of stating the obvious is, young people are leaving NI to both study and work because of political instability, and continuing paramilitarism but do not to mention the failure of political class to lay out a future-facing public policy agenda. Pivotal fail to point out the fact that we have an apartheid educational structure that fails in building social cohesion and costs an additional £226m per annum to maintain. Why does Pivotal not advocate for a single and secular education system rather than the picket fence position, of shared this and shared that? The report talks about educational attainment but fails to highlight the role of the educational establishment which has designed the current education system around exam factories and their failure to understand the role of education in an interdependent world. The report has mentioned GCSE attainment but nothing about skills.

What is patently obvious, is that embracing a complex future should be at the heart of government in addition to laying out public policies that deal with challenges around the future of work, skills realignment, and a complete and proper review of education and how to better target public expenditure at those communities who are not just suffering from the vagaries of our history but the challenges of today such as funding of public services, the cost of living crisis and educational inequality

Finally, yet again, Pivotal has again failed to seek out the views of entrepreneurs and as a report, it was barely worth the paper it was written on.