Tickbox

by David Boyle

The word 'tickbox' emerged recently as a cynical angle on official or corporate incompetence. They had 'ticked the box' - people said - but failed to act. It is increasingly used to describe this gap between official spin and reality.

Yet, says David Boyle in this powerful expose of tickbox culture, that is just the tip of a vast tickbox iceberg. The only people who remain blind to this gap are those rich or powerful enough to run the world, and behind Tickbox lies an insidious philosophy of automation and the misuse of data that weighs heavily on every one of us. It makes our public services less effective - and makes them soar in costs - it lies behind so many stark injustices and disasters, from Grenfell Tower to the deportation of the Windrush generation. Yet the system carries on, and grows in power and strengths - vacuuming up the resources of the NHS pursuing pointless targets or badgering us to reveal how much we had enjoyed our visit to their bank counter - because those who run the world remain committed to it.

It is time we escaped the tentacles of Tickbox. Boyle suggests a series of ways out - starting with recognising the danger and calling it out for what it is - a massive failure, corroding our lives and our ability, as human beings, to act on the world.

262 pages, Paperback

Published January 16, 2020

About the author

David Courtney Boyle was a British author and journalist who wrote mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business, and culture. He lived in Steyning in West Sussex.
He conducted an independent review for the Treasury and the Cabinet Office on public demand for choice in public services which reported in 2013. Boyle was a co-founder and policy director of Radix, which he characterized in 2017 as a radical centrist think tank. He was also co-director of the mutual think tank New Weather Institute.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something ironic about rating a book that argues persuasively against such things but there you go.
It’s a good book that starts very well but peters out towards the end as it turns from analysis to manifesto with several of its demands being non sequiturs from the main thesis. And some of it is just wrong - lumping Apple in with the data driven organisations like Amazon and Google when Apple doesn’t trade in user data. And interesting case studies fade away in favour of anecdotes that border on the sort of anti health and safety nonsense you see in local newspaper letters pages. A good editor would have kept the thesis on track.

The section on universities could have gone further with discussion of NSS and TEF which are far more relevant to most readers that REF and have a bigger impact on ‘real life’.

Those criticisms aside, I enjoyed the book and have been recommending it to others. As someone who is constantly battling against tick boxes in academia, it’s a useful book to point people to, and save my blood pressure a little by not having to make the same points myself.

[Simon Dobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A funny and quite damning indictment of tickbox culture and its pernicious effects. Unfortunately slightly short on meaningful prescriptions apart from resisting the temptation to comply (and accepting the possibly unfortunate consequences for others). Should certainly be required reading for anyone in a position to manage the introduction (or termination) of any sort of appraisal scheme.

[Imogen Hodges · Rating 2 out of 5]

262 pages 1.5/2 out of 5 - was a good insight on the issue but thought there was going to be more personal stories about how the tickboxes had affected people lives such as immigration/ deportations but was in fact minimal