Burnham can’t count on growth if Treasury ditches maths | Politics | News
Britain is in the grip of a deepening numeracy crisis in young people, a leading peer has said. It comes after reports that the treasury has canceled a critical maths test for new recruits. Mandarins have abandoned the Numerical Reasoning Test (NRT), claiming it has a “negative impact on candidate diversity”
Former Treasury Secretary Lord Agnew said the news was “just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Britain’s deepening crisis with mathematics”. The peer, who chairs the House of Lords Numeracy for Life Committee, told the Daily Express that “the emphasis we place on numeracy across our institutions is clearly declining” and this is having a “devastating impact”.
Originally revealed by AudienceThe Treasury scrapped the tests because it wanted the department to have “a range of ethnic backgrounds in the assessment centre”.
He argued that “having two tests creates an additional ‘hurdle’ for candidates to jump and creates another opportunity for candidates to be eliminated from the process.”
Information revealed through freedom of information requests meant the test had been scrapped and new takers no longer needed to prove they could do basic maths.
“We have a country where millions of adults pay a lifetime Innumeracy Tax, costing individuals hundreds of pounds a year and society billions of pounds a year, resulting in lost productivity, poor financial decision-making and reduced economic growth,” the same person warned.
He was outraged, saying the response from HM Treasury was to “quietly sweep numerical reasoning under the rug rather than sticking to standards”.
Lord Agnew added: “When the Treasury begins to treat mathematics as a hindrance rather than a prerequisite, you have to ask whether anyone in Whitehall is seriously grappling with the scale of the problem. “We must make mathematics a national duty, not make excuses for why we cannot expect it from our own civil servants.
“Andy Burnham is talking about growth in every postcode. He will struggle to deliver that with a Treasury that has lowered the bar for people to collect.”
