Column

Core? Blimey, government provides it already!

What is government for if not for happiness? There are endless ministries already. Health, education, housing, employment, transport... you name it. What is the point of these if they are not to make people happy? And since they don’t always seem to, why not create a new department to see that they do?

Call it the Department of Happiness. And be realistic. No government can promise ecstasy for everyone, but maybe it could guarantee safety-net happiness. Maybe government could provide Core Happiness Services.

Is it so ridiculous? Government could, after all, draw up a protocol. Government could stipulate that Core Happiness Services will be defined by senior happiness experts, happiness economists and the lay public - following extensive analysis and wide consultation.

Government might expect the process to take a year or so, and at the end of it to have an agreed core of essential services to meet our most important happiness needs. Who knows what the core will look like? Perhaps the consensus will be to significantly increase state subsidies for stand-up comedians, to reduce penalties on alcohol and recreational drugs, to ensure a better balance of good news and bad news on TV, to allow top sportspeople from other nations instantly to become UK citizens, and so on.

Perhaps this sort of thing would definitely be funded. Beyond the core it would be up to individuals to pay for their own happiness, but at least basic services would be guaranteed.

Of course, there would be detractors who would ask irritating questions. What level of happiness is cost-effective? Different things make different people happy - how can the exclusion of state-funded lawn-mowing services (for gardening haters) be justified when interior decorating services are included in the core? Where is the objective touchstone? Where is the denominator to help us decide which service is in and which is out?

There isn’t one, of course. Happiness is a broad, complex and at least partly subjective idea. But that shouldn’t trouble a strong government. Government needs only to talk up the idea and there they will be: Core Happiness Services.

You don’t think so? Well, think about what’s just happened in New Zealand. The government there has, over the last 4 years, spent millions of dollars on a very well paid steering committee, expensively produced and widely distributed documents, numerous public and professional “consensus” meetings, and a multitude of costly cost-effectiveness analyses. And at last they’ve got the answer. The government has discovered the Core.

In their third annual report the Core Happiness Services Committee (sorry, that should read Core Health Services Committee) have delivered a stunning conclusion. After years of hard slog they have decided that a core cannot simply be defined by writing a list of ins and outs. Instead, the committee found that: “...the core is, and will evolve from, the range of disability support and health services that are funded for the 1993/94 year.”

Isn’t that brilliant? New Zealand had core services all along but just didn’t know it. What’s more, say the unthinkable happens and there are funding cuts - it just won’t be a problem. Whatever the size of the existing core services - however tiny - the core will still be there as a safety net.

Still not convinced? Think exactly the same conceptual problems arise in defining a core of health services as with drawing a line around basic happiness services? Still think that the responsibility of government is to set a moral climate in which the state and its citizens expect that the sickest and most unhappy people will be supported as a matter of duty? Still think that reason matters? Where have you been?

To paraphrase Humpty: policies mean what governments say they mean. Government says there will be a core and lo! that’s what there is. Wise up, won’t you?