IF EVERY movie or restaurant review hailed the object of critique as “award-worthy” or “top-notch”, you might question the point of writing reviews at all, not to mention whose pocket was being lined for the continual thumbs-up.
It’s a problem that plagues universities, which too often claim that they are “excellent” or “world-class”, says David Watson, professor of higher education management at the Institute of Education, University of London, in The Times Higher Education Supplement (July 6). While Watson does not think that UK higher education has gone to the dogs, he laments the “lazy overclaiming” that has rendered these words meaningless.
The Government is ditching excellent scientists, says Paul Noon, general secretary of the Prospect union, in Public Servant (July). Despite labelling scientists and their laboratories as “centres of excellence”, the former are being made redundant and the latter being closed.
A Centre of Excellence for the fire service “could become the driving force behind the development of the service”, says Fire Magazine(July). But there seems to be confusion over the organisation’s name and what it will do. It appears that the centre is about to morph into the Fire and Rescue Improvement Agency and that it will take a lead on developing a national strategy for benchmarking, best practice, and all sorts of things that will define what world-class means in the service.
Not wanting to be left out, the Local Government Association is calling on all councils to adopt a nationally agreed “Framework of Excellence”, reports Government Opportunities (July).
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The challenge for excellence has also been put to catering staff, says Nursing Standard (July 4). The Hospital Caterers’ Association is even holding a national day of excellence to encourage catering staff to “enhance patient mealtimes”. One way to do that is by “ensuring excellence in meal presentation” since, as Neil Watson-Jones, the association’s chair, says, improving standards is not just about the quality of food.
“World-class business performance” is the aim of the Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) procurement bods, reports Contract Journal (July 4). With 2,000 direct contracts with businesses to procure and manage, the ODA says it will use “open, transparent and fair” procurement to achieve its goal. That’s a lot of excellence to go for.