One of the more impressive parts of Barack Obama’s inauguration speech was his promise to assess the effectiveness of government spending programmes, and stop those that weren’t achieving what they were meant to achieve. Well here’s an example of that from the UK. The aim of the Government’s scheme was to place some 2,000 ‘vulnerable young people’ in private boarding schools at £20,000 a time as a cheaper alternative to placing them in care. By the time the evaluation of the scheme had ended, there were only 11 children who remained in their placement of the 17 who had been placed of the 76 who had been considered – a far cry from 2,000. Now this raises a few questions. Is this a good policy poorly implemented? Boarding school is cheaper than placing in care, which can cost £50,000. But why were only 76 children considered, and so few placed? What were the problems with the selection process that resulted in such a low take-up? Was the policy flawed in the first place? It may be that the number of children suitable for such a scheme were always going to be few in number, and 2,000 was typical Labour ‘pie in the sky’. To some, this sounds a bit like a full-board version of the Assisted Places scheme that Labour scrapped in 1997. Innovative ways of dealing with vulnerable children are a good idea. Every child is different, and will require a different strategy. You cannot just tick boxes. But does a low take-up mean the policy was wrong, or was the policy right but the process flawed? In the end, the question is about the efficacy of government activity, and the problems of process.