13 - The Conservatives, family policy and the data revolution

Summary

Introduction

The 2016 Brexit referendum and subsequent other tumultuous events have dominated policy-centred debates and governing rationales. Constitutional crises, internecine feuds and the COVID-19 pandemic have seen off four successive Conservative prime ministers in six years and directed attention away from concerns that occupied administrations of the past. In particular, the focus on family and the responsibilisation of parenting that was prominent in the David Cameron era has faded away. Most notably, when Theresa May took power, she substituted the previous administration's promise of a ‘better future for hard-working families’ for the assertion that she was ‘working hard for hard-working people’. Her successor Boris Johnson's own ‘complex’ family relationships turned family policy into a minefield for his government and foreclosed any Cameron-style moralising on the subject. Following Liz Truss’ short-lived premiership, her successor, Rishi Sunak, was initially preoccupied with the economy, with no direct mention of family policy, but threatened effects for families through austerity impositions and mention of a revised childcare system.

However, it would be a mistake to view the post-Brexit years as a family policy vacuum. As has long been understood, families are governed beyond and between overt policies, by political rationalities and technologies tied to shifting bodies of expertise and knowledge (Rose and Millar, 2010). More recent Conservative administrations have moved away from an overt familycentric rhetoric and agenda, other than quietly continuing the Supporting Families Programme (previously Troubled Families Programme – TFP), as discussed later. However, a lack of rhetoric and debate masks substantial developments in operational governance techniques, the effects of which have led to a significant reshaping of state– family relationships. Core to this new trajectory is the deployment of advanced ICT technology to amass and analyse citizen data, with the intention of solving ingrained social problems through holding more information and maximising public efficiency. This approach grew out of a prior technocratic preoccupation with evidence-based policy and evolved into what van Veenstra and Kotterink (2017) term ‘data-driven policy making’, with ambitions for digital-centred governance extending far into the policy realms of health, education, policing and immigration.