June 2011

The know zone

  • Lead vocals
    Quotes from George Eliot, George Burns, William Galdstone and Dr Seuss More
  • Sink or swim?
    A divided governing body can be deadly, so prospective heads should find out all they can before joining a new school, says Richard Bird. More
  • Cognitive behaviour
    Measures to save money don’t have to be massively radical. Small efficiencies can yield great gains, says Sam Ellis. More
  • Life-changing
    After going to sea as a teenage midshipman on a cargo liner, Kevin McAleese changed course and went into teaching. The former head of two large comprehensive schools, he is now chairman of the NHS North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust and an education consultant. More
  • Money talks
    Charity pfeg works with teachers to develop young people’s financial awareness and campaigns nationally to make learning about money matters an education priority. More
  • Adding value
    With schools facing cuts of nearly 5 per cent in real terms and one in six English secondary schools in deficit, achieving value for money is more important than ever. More
  • Train to gain?
    Is the government’s plan for a raft of teaching schools the best way forward for managing continuing professional development? And how does teacher training fit in? Leaders share their thoughts. More
  • Leaders' surgery
    The antidote to common leadership conundrums… More
  • Forming a united front
    Polarised debates about education are counter-productive. What we need, says Brian Lightman, is a supra-political approach in which all sides come together to analyse what works and resolve fundamental problems. More
  • Bored meeting
    Mike Hodgkiss offers some strategies for making interminable, tedious meetings slightly more tolerable.Mike Hodgkiss offers some strategies for making interminable, tedious meetings slightly more tolerable. More
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After going to sea as a teenage midshipman on a cargo liner, Kevin McAleese changed course and went into teaching. The former head of two large comprehensive schools, he is now chairman of the NHS North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust and an education consultant.

Life-changing

Are you a public service junkie?
I have a genuine interest in maintaining quality services that are value for money as far as the taxpayer is concerned. When I was a head, I thought the secret was to manage your income and not continually ask for more.

In the NHS, balancing the books is a statutory requirement and now we’re looking to make huge savings while demand for services – which, of course, are free at the point of delivery – is ever growing.

How did you get the primary care trust (PCT) role?
The Appointments Commission was advertising for some non-executive vacancies when PCTs were being formed in 2002. When I read the ‘essential criteria’ I thought being a head had given me many of the right management and leadership skills, so I applied. I think many heads would find their skillset transferable.

Presumably you have to make some painful decisions?
I chair complex case appeals each month, making tricky judgments about treatment for individual patients. Recently, we had a ‘saviour sibling’ case regarding the use of IVF and genetic screening of embryos in order to create a healthy child whose bone marrow could be used to address an issue with a sibling. Ten years ago, that technology did not exist but now it does and people want it. Another recent case saw the family of a dying patient ask for a hugely expensive drug to prolong his life for three months. Each situation is judged on exceptional clinical circumstances and, in that case, there weren’t any.

Are there similarities between the two services?
Both have a quite heavily unionised workforce and there are comparable management structures. Patients demand a lot from their clinicians and parents demand a lot from teachers. I run regular public board meetings and if we have 100 or so angry people there because we’re proposing to close something, it’s much more of a challenge than any parents evening.

Why did you go to sea?
My father encouraged me to do it. I was sent to a naval school and bought into my father’s dream but I discovered it was just like long distance lorry driving around the world. There were no women allowed on board back in the 1960s. I didn’t regret things like visiting communist China during the Cultural Revolution but the life wasn’t for me.

At 21, having just qualified as a navigator, I gave it up to go to university. Dad found it hard to accept for a while. Even when I was deputy head and we had a house that overlooked the Thames Estuary, he used to visit, look across the water and say: "You could have been there, son."

  • Interview by John Holt

Pro.file

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Kevin McAleese

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